An 11th-hour deal has saved the Big 12 Conference, ending weeks of speculation that six of the league’s athletics programs would defect to the Pac-10 Conference. A group of influential TV executives, conference commissioners, athletic directors, and other administrators at various NCAA levels met to foil the Pac-10′s efforts to add Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State, preventing a massive overhaul of college sports. The University of Texas comes out the biggest winner. It will pocket between $20-million and $25-million a year through a renegotiated TV deal, and by adding its own television network. Texas A&M and Oklahoma also stand to receive $20-million a year in TV money, while the seven other remaining institutions will get up to $17-million each—nearly double what they currently receive. The Big 12 didn’t escape completely unchanged: Colorado left for the Pac-10 last week, while Nebraska departed for the Big Ten.
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9 Responses to New TV Deal Helps Save Big 12 Conference
jffoster - June 15, 2010 at 9:01 am
So the Big Ten is now the Big Ten Plus Two, and the Big Tweleve is the Big Tweleve less Two. Any chance of these two conferences simply swapping names, or is that too obvious, rational, and simple?It probly won’t happen, but in terms of location and traditional culture and rivalries, Hog Calls are more appropriate among those Prairie and Plains colleges than among the swamps and bayoux. Anybody think Arkansas might jump the SEC for the Big Tweleve Less Two?
dawesm - June 15, 2010 at 10:46 am
If this a trend and conferences will be changing numbers annually, then they should pick a name that doesn’t reference the number of teams in the conference. Besides, the Big Ten currently has 11 members and will add another. How about Arkansas and Notre Dame join the Big 12 and the number will tie in again to the conference name?
hire_ed_cav - June 15, 2010 at 10:50 am
jffoster – I think it is very reasonable for Arkansas to jump ship. I can see TCU and Arkansas jumping into the Big 12.
commentarius - June 15, 2010 at 11:10 am
And while the UT athletic department can add another layer of gold leaf to its 24-karat toilets, the rest of the University (remember that?) is going to absorb another 10% cut in state appropriations starting in FY2012 on top of the 5% cut taken for FY2011. Wouldn’t it be pretty to think that the Big 12 TV windfall might help moderate that cut? Let’s all hold our breath.
dmaratto - June 15, 2010 at 4:25 pm
#4, I doubt $20 million would make much of a dent in a 15% state budget reduction, which I’d imagine is likely into the hundreds of millions. I agree, however, that in college life and American life in general, ‘the rich get richer.’ Ever since the Big Ten started its own TV network, the rest of the conferences have been thinking, “Me too!” Advertising is where a ton of money is made.
dmaratto - June 15, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Will Nebraska join the research side of the Big Ten, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, as well? or just the sports side?
jffoster - June 15, 2010 at 9:49 pm
Hire_ed_cav (3), et al. If you and I turn out both to be right, then the battle between the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs will again be, as it used to be, the battle of the ugliest mascots in College Football!
princegilgamesh - June 16, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Today, the front page of Wikipedia reads “Did You Know … that Jim “the Darp” Ostendarp, Amherst College football coach for 33 years, refused to allow ESPN to televise a game saying, “We’re in education. We aren’t in the entertainment business”?
sohbetsiteleri - July 2, 2010 at 8:56 am
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