The Big 12, an Ad Hoc Conference

With the earth-shattering news of the ACC signing a grant of rights, I had to write a piece on this immediately. The Big 12 has been an unstable entity from its very founding. In 1995, four teams from the defunct Southwest Conference, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor, joined forces with members of the Big Eight Conference: Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State. In 1996, Texas won the first inaugural Big 12 Championship Game. A year later, Nebraska would be crowned national champion, the third it captured in four years. The Big 12 arguably was the most solid league. Almost immediately though, there was an incubator for instability.
The revenue model had it where the school that brought in the most viewers would keep most of the money. Texas had the largest viewership and saw its annual revenue climb as high as $20 million while Iowa State was given only around $3 million for most years. This inequality stuck in craw of programs like Nebraska, the powerhouse team that saw its influence marginalized by the self-interests of Texas. Still, in 2000, Oklahoma defeated Florida State to become the first BCS champion out of the Big 12. Oklahoma would play for the 2003 national championship against LSU but would lose 21-14 in a tight game. In 2005, Vince Young and Texas pulled off a shocker by beating a heavily favored Southern Cal team, that had the likes of Heisman Trophy winners Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush, in the Rose Bowl for the BCS national championship. In 2008, Oklahoma and its Heisman trophy quarterback Sam Bradford would appear in the national championship game against Tim Tebow and Florida and lose. After this, it was all downhill.
Starting in the summer of 2010, the inequality and complaints of Texas’ hegemony reached a boiling point. Colorado accepted an invitation from the PAC-10. Soon after that, Nebraska accepted an invitation from the Big Ten. Dan Beebe, commissioner at that time, failed to try to arrest this chaos and he was let go. He would later try to deflect the blame on Nebraska by saying that they rejected a equal revenue model. If that was so, why did they join a conference that has equal revenue sharing? The PAC-10 then contemplated on getting Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State, but this deal fell through for two reasons: one, the PAC-10 was not going to give Texas an equal share of revenue while Texas had the Longhorn Network and two, Texas A&M was in negotiations with the SEC. In effect, Texas A&M can be credited in some ways for saving the Big 12.
Starting in April 2011, The Longhorn Network was launched. This meant that Texas controlled the broadcasting of games that the other networks did not broadcast. Texas also wanted to broadcast high school football games. This would give Texas an unfair advantage at recruiting football prospects. Texas would back down from this but this was a good excuse for Texas A&M to make further overtures to the SEC. Texas A&M, at first, was rebuffed by the SEC but a week later in September, the TAMU excepted an invitation to the SEC. That same year, once again, the now PAC-12 contemplated on dismantling the Big 12 once again. Commissioner of the PAC-12 Larry Scott and the presidents did not find agreement with each other and once more, the execution of the Big 12 was stayed. In November, Missouri accepted an invitation to the SEC. The reason for this is because while the Big 12 members were negotiating with the PAC-12, Missouri looked as if it was going to be left behind and out of pure survival, they went to the SEC. The difference between Texas A&M’s and Missouri’s departures while TAMU left for the fact that it was tired of being in Texas’ shadow, Missouri left out of pure necessity.
Eventually, Dan Beebe would be fired and Chuck Neinas would act as interim commissioner for the Big 12. In order for the Big 12 to retain its contract, it had to have at least ten members; it only had eight. That same year, Texas Christian and West Virginia accepted invitations from the Big 12. Neinas did an outstanding job. He was able to get the schools to agree to an equal revenue sharing model. More importantly, he got them to agree to a grant of rights, which locks them in for at least twelve years.
At first, it seems like they did the right thing and not expanded. In 2012 the Big 12 hired Bob Bowlsby, former athletic director at Stanford, as the new commissioner of the Big 12. It looks as if they hired an intrepid leader that would usher in a new era of prosperity for the Big 12. That summer, BOT president at Florida State Andy Haggard repudiated the solidarity statement of athletic director Randy Spetman when he said that if the Big 12 gives us an offer, we will listen. Even Clemson and Miami were on the Big 12’s radar. Ultimately, Haggard would be fired and Bowlsby would parrot Deloss Dodds, athletic director of Texas, and say we are content at ten. Ultimately, like with Beebe, Bowlsby would be another puppet leader of Texas. Texas currently wants the conference to stay at ten, although twelve is ideal to have conference championship game. Sure, there are risks that schools take in losing a bowl bid or even a national championship bid but tell that to the SEC, who has a conference championship game and has won the last seven national championships. That is just called not having balls.
The Big 12 currently pays its members $20 million a piece. At that time, it could have pulled the trigger and got some quality programs that did not want to stay in the basketball-centric ACC. It failed to do so. I agree with columnist for the Oklahoman Berry Tramel when he states that the Big 12 could have acquired Louisville as an eleventh team. This would have brought in a very profitably program that has high-caliber athletics. This would have kept the round robin and gave Fox even more games to televise. It did not act and when the ACC lost Maryland to the Big Ten, it picked up Louisville. Just yesterday, the ACC signed a grant of rights. Just like the Big 12, the grant of rights locks in the members of the ACC for an indefinite period of time. This has been very crushing news to those who wanted to see if for once, do right by its fans and bring in fresh teams into the league.
Overall, the Big 12 is an ad hoc conference because from its inception, it was a conference cobbled together without much thought for things like revenue sharing. In 2011, it cobbled itself together again. The Big 12 reacted well by grabbing teams like West Virginia and TCU, but another reason that the Big 12 is an ad hoc conference because instead of being proactive and grabbing quality teams from a position of strength, it is now unable to make any power moves in the future. The only options left are teams from those conferences that do not have a grant of rights including the SEC, Mountain West, American Athletic Conference, C-USA, MAC, Sun Belt, and independent BYU.
Despite the malaise of the fans of the gutless, money-grubbing leadership in the Big 12, they do still have options:

1. BYU- BYU is a nationally recognized football program that has seen the likes of Steve Young, Bobby Boscoe, Jim McMahon, and Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer play for the Cougars. It has also been awarded the national championship in 1984. Lavell Edwards Stadium seats over 60,000 fans, more than schools like Iowa State and Texas Christian. BYU is a national brand that will have the eyes of 15 million Mormons worldwide. Other than the inability of the Big 12, there are two stumbling blocks against BYU: one, BYUtv. This is a cable channel that allows BYU to rebroadcast all of its home games. Not even Texas has this type of deal with the Longhorn Network. BYU gets to keep all $8 million of its revenue and have ten of its games televised on ESPN. Number two, more importantly, the Church of Latter Day Saints. The elders of this organization makes all of the decisions for the school. AD Tom Holmoe had actually wanted to negotiate with the Big 12 but ultimately these talks fell through.

2. Boise State- No team has had more wins in the past decade than Boise State. They have won the Fiesta Bowl twice beating Oklahoma in 2007 and TCU in 2010. They have enjoyed much success on the field and no team is more deserving of an invitation to a major conference than Boise State. In 2010, Boise State had joined the Mountain West when it appeared that the Big 12 was going to fall apart. The MWC was trying to acquire the BCS automatic qualifier bid that the Big 12 would forfeit if that conference disbanded but that did not happen. In 2011, Boise State accepted an invitation to the Big East, who had an AQ bid at the time. Multiple defections forced Boise State to reevaluate its move and it stayed in the MWC. There are two problems with Boise: one, if they were in the Big 12, how competitive would they be facing tough competition every Saturday. Two, Boise, ID is not that large of a market.
When it comes to BSU and BYU, they should be admitted as football-only members because football is their most valued commodity.

3. Syracuse and Pitt- Even though these schools are slated to go to the ACC, they are not officially members until July, 1. These two would give West Virginia familiar foes and more importantly, it would give West Virginia travel partners.Consider this: currently, West Virginia’s nearest foe is Iowa State, 800 miles away! Pittsburgh, which many fans of WVU would love to continue the Backyard Brawl, is only 80 miles away. These two would be great adds in all sports.

4. Louisville and Missouri- Louisville just recently won the NCAA men’s basketball championship, runner-up in the women’s basketball national championship, and won the Sugar Bowl against Florida. Louisville, like stated before, makes a lot of money off its athletics and has achieved a lot of excellence for a while. Just like Syracuse and Pitt, Louisville is not yet a member of the ACC. If the Big 12 adds Louisville, Missouri would be welcomed back. Missouri would be in a conference that is more geographically correct and would have the Border War with Kansas waiting for them. Another ancillary benefit is that they would act as a geographic bridge, connecting the members of the Big 12. This is a bit of a stretch, I know, but now the Big 12 is more stable and speaking to some Missouri fans, there is some buyer’s remorse now in the SEC since there are no familiarities in culture and in geography with the SEC. This is highly unlikely because Missouri will stand to make more money with the new SEC contract that will pay each member almost $30 million a piece. They can offer Missouri control over its third-tier rights, something no other conference can match. Plus, Missouri would not be locked in a grant of rights, pay an exit fee or even have a waiting period as a member of the SEC.

In conclusion, the Big 12 really goofed up in not being proactive. The SEC, PAC-12, Big Ten, and ACC have acted proactively and will be around for a really long time. In ten years, the grant of rights will expire for the Big 12 and where will the conference be after that? These are the questions that the powers-that-be should have been asking but the myopic and avaricious leaders like Dodds who put their self-interests first will ultimately doom this conference in the long run. The Big 12 has seen the edge of the precipice. We will see if that happens again.