SteveDeace
Well-Known Member
Note: this was originally written for a Michigan blog site
Mark it down: either Texas will join the Big Ten or join Notre Dame as an independent in 2015 when the new BCS contract expires.
I’ve covered the Big 12 since 2000, and the league is a joke. It’s essentially become the Texas-Oklahoma all-sports conference. All other schools, especially given Nebraska football’s lost luster in the last decade, are simply feeding fodder for the Sooners and – especially – the Longhorns.
For goodness sakes, you’re talking about a conference that in 2007 lost its commissioner to the Big Ten Network. Not the Big Ten, the Big Ten Network. He’s now the deputy commissioner of the Pac-10. The current Big 12 commissioner was promoted from within after a “national search.†Let’s face it, most of the time when you promote from within after a “national search†it’s because you couldn’t get anyone else you really wanted to take the job.
That’s why you’re seeing Missouri and Nebraska publicly campaign to join the Big Ten, and the Big Ten’s expansion plans could be over tomorrow if they called those two schools and somebody from the Big East (Syracuse, Rutgers, or Pittsburgh).
So why hasn’t the Big Ten made the call?
Because at this point it has bigger fish to fry and nothing’s bigger than Texas. The Big 12 as we’ve known it is about to collapse. It’s already lost numerous wrestling and baseball programs, and hockey isn’t a revenue sport in the region like it is at several schools in the Big Ten. It doesn’t have the media demographics to generate a new revenue stream like the Big Ten has with its own network, and the major markets it does have outside of the Lone Star State – like Denver and the I-70 corridor – are tired of watching the old SWC schools getting first dibs on what spoils it does have.
Now that the Big Ten is expanding, the Pac-10 will as well, for sure with Colorado and its 12th team is likely to be Utah, BYU, or TCU. The Buffaloes will say yes the minute the Pac-10 makes the call—guaranteed. The Big 12 isn’t a family like the Big Ten is, with real revenue sharing, for example. It’s more like a marriage of convenience and a family reunion of in-laws you don’t like. As soon as you can get out of it with a better offer you will.
And the better offers are coming.
The reason Texas will look much more seriously at the Big Ten than you might think is because the Big 12 as we’ve known it is about to go away, and since Texas has the most to gain from the Big 12’s current construction it therefore has the most to lose from its future deconstruction. By allowing Colorado, Nebraska, and Missouri to bolt the conference Texas will be left in a largely regional league and lose its national identity over the long-term. This is exactly what happened to Texas in the old SWC. It’s just that most folks on message boards are too young to remember the Fred Akers, David McWilliams, and John Mackovic eras in Austin.
This is why Texas is currently exploring its own statewide television network, which the current Big 12 television contract doesn’t look too kindly at but you know they’ll make an exception for Texas anyway. This is also why Texas will join the Big Ten on its own terms before Missouri and/or Nebraska do, or will take its ball and completely go home by joining Notre Dame as an independent.
If Texas was ever going to make that kind of bold move now would be the time. Its name cache and logo have never been more popular nationally, and it has the built-in recruiting base combined with population centers to make it happen. In fact, it’s probably the only publicly-funded state university in America at the moment that does. Texas is unlike anything we have in the Big Ten from a revenue-donor standpoint, Michigan and Ohio State included.
For example, a few years ago Iowa State’s sports information director told me that Texas had a booster come to them offering a $2 million donation to the football program. Problem was the football program didn’t need it. That’s right, they didn’t need it. So he offered it to the basketball programs, but they didn’t need it, either. By the time they worked their way down the list the track-and-field programs at Texas ended up with a $2 million facilities upgrade.
Considering how slow the process has been for Michigan to raise the money for men’s basketball upgrades the past few years that speaks volumes about where things currently stand at both schools.
Texas will not risk not having a place to sit down when the NCAA’s latest round of conference alignment musical chairs begins. It will move before it is moved and if it doesn’t think it can go it alone as an independent it will join the Big Ten for hundreds of millions of reasons, as laid out in this must read blog (along with the accompanying links on the side): http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/big-ten-expansion-index-follow-up-1-superconferences-conference-tv-revenue-and-more-reasons-why-texas-to-the-big-ten-makes-sense/
In short, Northwestern with its small campus population and the fact it ranks fourth behind Notre Dame, Illinois, and Michigan in popularity in the Chicagoland area, makes almost twice as much a year in television revenue as the entire Big East conference and even more than Texas does.
The Big Ten already has more inherent advantages than any other conference does. Now imagine what happens if Texas added. That means television markets #5, #10, #37, and #49 would be added to the conference’s primary media footprint, which would give the Big Ten primary access to 10 of the top 50 television markets in the country—including five of the top 15. Think of how that would enhance the Big Ten Network’s ability to generate revenue for its member conferences? Especially given the interest in Texas in sports like baseball and softball, which outside of a few schools in the Big Ten there’s not much commercial inventory interest for within the conference’s network.
That does quite a bit for Texas’ media access and revenue, too. There’s no other way the Longhorns could create such a media and revenue giant. It’s just a matter of how important its regional traditions are to its fans and alumni.
If they’re more important than money, then Texas will become an independent by 2015 or try to barter with the Big Ten by seeing if it can bring Texas A&M and Oklahoma with it. That arrangement would give the Longhorns the best of both possible worlds: access to the Big Ten’s money printing press while maintaining its regional traditions at the exact same time.
And I believe the Big Ten would say yes to that counter-proposal.
I also believe the only way the Big Ten is going to settle for expanding to 12 is by adding either Notre Dame or Texas. Since the Irish are not an option, that leaves Texas. The last time the Big Ten started conference realignment by adding Penn State in 1990 it was eventually trumped by the formation of 12-team super conferences and their championship games. This go around Jim Delaney is going to learn his lesson. He will not simply react to what everyone else is doing. He’ll try to get a step ahead of the curve this time, especially since this is likely his last big move as the league’s commissioner before he retires. This will be his lasting legacy.
So it’s Texas by itself, Texas in a super conference, or a super conference without Texas that includes at least one other team from the current configuration of the Big 12.
College football in 2015 could look a lot different:
Pac-12 North
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
Washington
Washington State
Pac-12 South
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
UCLA
USC
TCU
Big 12 West
Baylor
Boise State
BYU
Houston
Utah
Texas Tech
Big 12 East
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Nebraska
Missouri
Oklahoma State
Big Ten North
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Ohio State
Penn State
Wisconsin
Northwestern
Big Ten South
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Oklahoma
Purdue
Texas
Texas A&M
Mark it down: either Texas will join the Big Ten or join Notre Dame as an independent in 2015 when the new BCS contract expires.
I’ve covered the Big 12 since 2000, and the league is a joke. It’s essentially become the Texas-Oklahoma all-sports conference. All other schools, especially given Nebraska football’s lost luster in the last decade, are simply feeding fodder for the Sooners and – especially – the Longhorns.
For goodness sakes, you’re talking about a conference that in 2007 lost its commissioner to the Big Ten Network. Not the Big Ten, the Big Ten Network. He’s now the deputy commissioner of the Pac-10. The current Big 12 commissioner was promoted from within after a “national search.†Let’s face it, most of the time when you promote from within after a “national search†it’s because you couldn’t get anyone else you really wanted to take the job.
That’s why you’re seeing Missouri and Nebraska publicly campaign to join the Big Ten, and the Big Ten’s expansion plans could be over tomorrow if they called those two schools and somebody from the Big East (Syracuse, Rutgers, or Pittsburgh).
So why hasn’t the Big Ten made the call?
Because at this point it has bigger fish to fry and nothing’s bigger than Texas. The Big 12 as we’ve known it is about to collapse. It’s already lost numerous wrestling and baseball programs, and hockey isn’t a revenue sport in the region like it is at several schools in the Big Ten. It doesn’t have the media demographics to generate a new revenue stream like the Big Ten has with its own network, and the major markets it does have outside of the Lone Star State – like Denver and the I-70 corridor – are tired of watching the old SWC schools getting first dibs on what spoils it does have.
Now that the Big Ten is expanding, the Pac-10 will as well, for sure with Colorado and its 12th team is likely to be Utah, BYU, or TCU. The Buffaloes will say yes the minute the Pac-10 makes the call—guaranteed. The Big 12 isn’t a family like the Big Ten is, with real revenue sharing, for example. It’s more like a marriage of convenience and a family reunion of in-laws you don’t like. As soon as you can get out of it with a better offer you will.
And the better offers are coming.
The reason Texas will look much more seriously at the Big Ten than you might think is because the Big 12 as we’ve known it is about to go away, and since Texas has the most to gain from the Big 12’s current construction it therefore has the most to lose from its future deconstruction. By allowing Colorado, Nebraska, and Missouri to bolt the conference Texas will be left in a largely regional league and lose its national identity over the long-term. This is exactly what happened to Texas in the old SWC. It’s just that most folks on message boards are too young to remember the Fred Akers, David McWilliams, and John Mackovic eras in Austin.
This is why Texas is currently exploring its own statewide television network, which the current Big 12 television contract doesn’t look too kindly at but you know they’ll make an exception for Texas anyway. This is also why Texas will join the Big Ten on its own terms before Missouri and/or Nebraska do, or will take its ball and completely go home by joining Notre Dame as an independent.
If Texas was ever going to make that kind of bold move now would be the time. Its name cache and logo have never been more popular nationally, and it has the built-in recruiting base combined with population centers to make it happen. In fact, it’s probably the only publicly-funded state university in America at the moment that does. Texas is unlike anything we have in the Big Ten from a revenue-donor standpoint, Michigan and Ohio State included.
For example, a few years ago Iowa State’s sports information director told me that Texas had a booster come to them offering a $2 million donation to the football program. Problem was the football program didn’t need it. That’s right, they didn’t need it. So he offered it to the basketball programs, but they didn’t need it, either. By the time they worked their way down the list the track-and-field programs at Texas ended up with a $2 million facilities upgrade.
Considering how slow the process has been for Michigan to raise the money for men’s basketball upgrades the past few years that speaks volumes about where things currently stand at both schools.
Texas will not risk not having a place to sit down when the NCAA’s latest round of conference alignment musical chairs begins. It will move before it is moved and if it doesn’t think it can go it alone as an independent it will join the Big Ten for hundreds of millions of reasons, as laid out in this must read blog (along with the accompanying links on the side): http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/big-ten-expansion-index-follow-up-1-superconferences-conference-tv-revenue-and-more-reasons-why-texas-to-the-big-ten-makes-sense/
In short, Northwestern with its small campus population and the fact it ranks fourth behind Notre Dame, Illinois, and Michigan in popularity in the Chicagoland area, makes almost twice as much a year in television revenue as the entire Big East conference and even more than Texas does.
The Big Ten already has more inherent advantages than any other conference does. Now imagine what happens if Texas added. That means television markets #5, #10, #37, and #49 would be added to the conference’s primary media footprint, which would give the Big Ten primary access to 10 of the top 50 television markets in the country—including five of the top 15. Think of how that would enhance the Big Ten Network’s ability to generate revenue for its member conferences? Especially given the interest in Texas in sports like baseball and softball, which outside of a few schools in the Big Ten there’s not much commercial inventory interest for within the conference’s network.
That does quite a bit for Texas’ media access and revenue, too. There’s no other way the Longhorns could create such a media and revenue giant. It’s just a matter of how important its regional traditions are to its fans and alumni.
If they’re more important than money, then Texas will become an independent by 2015 or try to barter with the Big Ten by seeing if it can bring Texas A&M and Oklahoma with it. That arrangement would give the Longhorns the best of both possible worlds: access to the Big Ten’s money printing press while maintaining its regional traditions at the exact same time.
And I believe the Big Ten would say yes to that counter-proposal.
I also believe the only way the Big Ten is going to settle for expanding to 12 is by adding either Notre Dame or Texas. Since the Irish are not an option, that leaves Texas. The last time the Big Ten started conference realignment by adding Penn State in 1990 it was eventually trumped by the formation of 12-team super conferences and their championship games. This go around Jim Delaney is going to learn his lesson. He will not simply react to what everyone else is doing. He’ll try to get a step ahead of the curve this time, especially since this is likely his last big move as the league’s commissioner before he retires. This will be his lasting legacy.
So it’s Texas by itself, Texas in a super conference, or a super conference without Texas that includes at least one other team from the current configuration of the Big 12.
College football in 2015 could look a lot different:
Pac-12 North
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Stanford
Washington
Washington State
Pac-12 South
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
UCLA
USC
TCU
Big 12 West
Baylor
Boise State
BYU
Houston
Utah
Texas Tech
Big 12 East
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Nebraska
Missouri
Oklahoma State
Big Ten North
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Ohio State
Penn State
Wisconsin
Northwestern
Big Ten South
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Oklahoma
Purdue
Texas
Texas A&M
It's always a little difficult to tell on the internet.
