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Over the next two days, the University of Missouri’s Board of Curators will meet and surely discuss the possibility of switching from the Big 12 to the Big Ten. If parliamentary procedure is followed, that discussion should take 10 seconds.
All in favor? Aye. Next on the agenda …
Not that leaving behind ancient associates/rivals from the old Big Eight is cause for celebration. Not that leaving a very advantageous football and basketball position in the weak half of a powerful conference is without consequence. Not that football recruiting in Texas won’t suffer.
But you gotta do what you gotta do. If the Big Ten offers, Missouri would be nuts to say no. It’s just a better financial deal than the Big 12 — for the school and the athletic department. Everyone involved in conference realignment is acting solely on self-interest, and a home in a stable conference whose federal grant money and football TV revenue dwarfs the Big 12’s is in Missouri’s best interest.
That is the bizarre thing about the Big 12’s ultimatum to Missouri and Nebraska. They must declare allegiance. Or else? Or else everyone else in the league with another offer is going defect. It confirms the dysfunction of the relationship in the first place. Of course Missouri and Nebraska are going to leave if they get the chance. This process wouldn’t have gone this far if they didn’t want to leave and didn’t have a pretty good idea they would be invited.
A last-minute decision by Notre Dame to join the Big Ten could leave Missouri and/or Nebraska in the lurch, but committing to the Big 12 is no less risky and a lot less rewardy — if Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany can make up words like “executy” in his cryptic e-mails, so can I. Who’s to say half the Big 12 won’t decide to bolt in the near future regardless of what Missouri and Nebraska do? If we learned anything during the conference realignment saga, it is to trust no one.
I mean, is Texas interested in keeping the Big 12 intact out of loyalty? No, it’s because Texas officials were smart and powerful enough to dictate the terms of the league when it formed and the conference has been a good platform for the Longhorns to succeed in every sport. The Big 12 has worked for Texas, and Texas wants the status quo. There’s nothing wrong with that motivation, but let’s not confuse it with loyalty.
This story has been propelled by information from anonymous and occasionally imaginary sources. What smiling school and conference officials say into microphones and what they mean are unrelated. Despite the scarcity of unbiased information, the reputations of the key players have been redefined throughout the process — almost universally for the worse.
The Big 12’s Dan Beebe is the read-and-react commissioner who is getting outfoxed by his more aggressive rivals, such as Delany and the Pac-10’s Larry Scott. When Beebe took over three years ago, he inherited all the problems that would drive his league apart — a mediocre television contract, unequal revenue sharing, resentment from the old Big Eight schools that Texas wields too much power in the Big 12 — but he hasn’t come up with any proactive solutions. The lingering image from last week’s conference meetings was of Beebe fleeing reporters into an elevator after he was blindsided by the news that the Pac-10, with whom he planned a partnership that would save the Big 12, was more interested in a hostile takeover.
Proud institutions are now routinely deemed academically inferior by talk-show hosts who would be overmatched by an entry-level math course. Texas Tech was considered a “problem” that would have to be solved or swallowed in order for the Big Ten to land Texas, according to an e-mail from Ohio State President Gordon Gee to Delany. By virtue of geography, population and lack of football tradition, Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State have been labeled as the Big 12’s losers. Baylor and Colorado are hoping to avoid that fate by being the throw-in on a six-school exodus to the Pac-10.
As for Missouri’s portrayal in the media, it has changed drastically in six months. In December, Athletic Director Mike Alden complained publicly about revenue sharing and the blown opportunity for a Big 12 Network. He was voicing the frustrations of several of his Big 12 North brethren. Chancellor Brady Deaton and President Gary Forsee suggested MU would be willing to listen to Big Ten offers. Missouri’s academic attributes, including its membership in the prestigious American Association of Universities, were highlighted. Missouri’s value to the Big Ten as a state with 2.2 million households ready to subscribe to the Big Ten Network was duly noted.
More recently, though, Missouri has been characterized as underachieving, overcomplaining and just plain irrelevant — some have suggested Nebraska’s decision alone will determine whether the Big 12 continues or collapses.
What changed? Well, it wasn’t anything Missouri officials said. They haven’t said anything more substantive than, “We are a proud member of the Big 12 Conference,” on or off the record in months.
But the rest of the Big 12 continues to talk, often anonymously, and that view is being repeated.
That’s just the price for not playing the media’s game. Reporters tend to champion the causes of those who call them back. Journalism abhors a vacuum.
In the end, it doesn’t make much difference anyway. What the media and the rest of the Big 12 think of Missouri has become a moot point. What the Big Ten decision-makers think is what matters.
Reach Joe Walljasper at 573-815-1783 or e-mail
jwalljasper@columbiatribune.com.
