Big 10 Report: Conference Realignment

[Mr. Laz]

A source in St. Louis familiar with the situation told NewsCenter 16 Thursday afternoon that Missouri will leave the Big XII and soon join the Big 10. Other schools expected to follow the Tigers are Syracuse, Pitt, Rutgers and Nebraska.

Many have speculated that such an expansion would include Notre Dame but ND athletic director Jack Swarbrick told me today that the Irish prefer to stay independent in football and in the Big East for other sports. Swarbrick said maintaining football Independence is such a part of what Notre Dame is.

He went on to say the Big East is a great partner for the University in other sports.

"We do have to monitor what is going on," Swarbrick said. "There will be significant shifts. "Hopefully we can navigate them by keeping our football independent and keeping our Big East affiliation because that is what we care about."

The move of Syracuse, Pitt and Rutgers to the Big Ten from the Big East could categorically change the landscape of the Big East itself. Thus, what Swarbrick is referring to when stating the University must continue to monitor what is going on.

The interview with Swarbrick was done before the late afternoon announcement.

http://www.wndu.com/sports/headlines/92447574.html

[jjchieffan]

Originally Posted by teedubya

I really think it's going to be called the Big 16.

I hope so... just bought Big16.tv which is a solid site for sports videos.
And Big16Sports.com that I snagged earlier.

It's the SEO part of my brain that makes me snag these domains. lol

Have you ever successfully bought up a domain name and then later sold it to someone or are you just hoping to get lucky on this idea?

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Exactly.

I've been in OKC this week and all these folks on the radio are saying is "Screw missouri, we don't need them."

Guess what folks -- Mizzou damn sure doesn't need the Big XII if they get an invite from the Big 10.

It's an incredible amount of sour grapes.

All the brave faces and false bravado in the world won't change things. The Big XII could very well fall here and for people to act as though Mizzou is just bailing because they can't compete is absurd. MU is moving up in the world and there's simply no rational argument to be made to the contrary.

And don't forget:

Oklahoma can Die In Fire!

[KChiefs1]

http://missouri.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1090740

The Big 12 meetings are reaching their climax Thursday and Friday in Kansas City with the presidents and chancellors from the league coming together to discuss pressing issues, including sites for championships. (Look for the Big 12 title game in football to stay at Cowboys Stadium for the next three years.)

But when it comes to possible realignment, the Big 12 meetings may be premature.

Why?


Because it appears the Pac-10, which has its meetings in San Francisco starting this weekend, is prepared to make a bold move and invite Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado to join its league, according to multiple sources close to the situation.

Left out would be Iowa State, Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, Nebraska and Missouri.

Messages left with Pac-10 officials by Orangebloods.com on Thursday were not immediately returned.

The six teams from the Big 12 would be in an eight-team division with Arizona and Arizona State. The other eight-team division would consist of USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State.

The thought is the Big 16 (or whatever they decide for the name) would start its own television network that could command premium subscriber dollars from cable providers on par with the Big Ten Network and pay out upwards of $20 million to each of the 16 schools in TV revenue.

Such a merger between the six Big 12 schools and the Pac-10 would build a conference with seven of the country's top 20 TV markets (Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco, Houston, Phoenix, Seattle and Sacramento). And such a league would likely command attention from every cable system in the country and command a premium rate from every cable system west of the Mississippi.

Those projected TV revenues would double the current payouts of roughly $9 million to Big 12 and Pac-10 members. If the Big 16 reached its projections, the league would also surpass the SEC's projected payout of $17 million per school reached in a 15-year TV deal with ABC/ESPN and CBS signed in 2008.

According to the Omaha World-Herald, the TV revenues paid out to the Big 12 in 2007 (the last year revenue was made public) were as follows:

1. Texas: $10.2 million
2. Oklahoma: $9.8 million
3. Kansas: $9.24 million
4. Texas A&M: $9.22 million
5. Nebraska: $9.1 million
6. Missouri: $8.4 million
7. Texas Tech: $8.23 million
8. Kansas State: $8.21 million
9. Oklahoma State: $8.1 million
10. Colorado: $8.0 million
11. Iowa State: $7.4 million
12. Baylor: $7.1 million

AN OFFER THAT CAN'T BE REFUSED?

An invitation from the Pac-10 will be hard for the six Big 12 schools being targeted not to consider. Why? Because Fox Cable Networks (a division of News Corporation), which serves as the chief operating partner of the successful Big Ten Network, appears ready to make the Big 16 Network happen.

Fox is the chief television partner of the Pac-10 currently, and its subsidiary Fox Sports Net currently holds the rights to the Big 12 cable package, which comes up for bid in the spring of 2011. The Pac-10 also has television deals with Fox up for re-bid at the same time.

The Big Ten has shown the conference network model works. According to published reports, the TV revenue paid out to Big Ten schools jumped from $14 million for the fiscal year 2006-07 to $22 million for the fiscal year 2007-08.

A&M TO THE SEC?

There does appear to be some resistance to an invitation from the Pac-10 from at least one of the six schools being targeted - Texas A&M. According to a source close to the situation, A&M officials have had serious conversations with the Southeastern Conference about the Aggies joining that league.

In Thursday's editions of the Houston Chronicle, A&M athletic director Bill Byrne was asked if the SEC is an option for the Aggies should the Big 12 break up, and he said, "It might be. You know what? It might be."

Byrne, the athletic director at Oregon from 1984-92 before going to Nebraska, has been openly critical of having student-athletes travel west, only to return home at odd hours.

Byrne has used the example of when the Aggies had their men's and women's basketball teams in Spokane and Seattle for the NCAA Tournament in March and couldn't get back to College Station until 6:30 a.m. with students having to attend 8 a.m. classes.

It's no coincidence Byrne's example included cities in the Pac-10's dominant time zone.

There is also reason to believe Oklahoma could be enamored with joining the SEC. But that does not appear to be an option Texas officials would be willing to consider. There is a sense among UT officials the academics in the SEC are not on par with Texas.
If A&M and Oklahoma were to splinter off and join the SEC, the Pac-10 would obviously have to revise its invite list.

Any move the SEC made in terms of expansion would likely cause the 15-year, $3 billion in TV contracts the SEC landed with ABC/ESPN ($2.2 billion) and CBS ($825 million) to be re-opened for negotiation.

The question would be how much more money the SEC could command in TV revenue without starting its own network?

A&M is starved for cash because its athletic department fell $16 million into debt and received a loan from the school's general fund to pay it off, causing a rift between the university and athletics. That rift, in part, led to A&M school president Elsa Murano to resign under pressure because she was pushing for the money to be paid back and was met with resistance by A&M system chancellor Mike McKinney, whose sons played football at A&M, and possibly even Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an Aggie who is still very involved in the school's politics.

Surprisingly, the Legislature doesn't appear to be an obstacle for the state's two biggest schools to split off into separate conferences, although that is not an ideal situation for either school. If A&M opted to head to the SEC and Texas opted to go elsewhere, there is a very good chance Texas would no longer play the Aggies in any sports.

NEW OPTIONS

So after this weekend, there will be a new option for half the schools in the Big 12 to find a new home.

There also appears to be a chance Nebraska will not get invited to the Big Ten, which means the only school the Big 12 stands to lose to the Big Ten is Missouri. The Big Ten and its efforts to move south, thus far, have been rebuffed by Texas, which doesn't like the logistics of serving as the southern boundary of the Big Ten.

So the Big Ten continues to focus on Notre Dame and is seriously considering whether to invite Missouri as well as three schools from the Big East (Rutgers, UConn and either Syracuse or Pittsburgh) . Such a move would likely collapse the Big East, where Notre Dame plays its sports other than football, and might cause the Irish to finally acquiesce to joining the Big Ten.

If that happened, there would be a strong likelihood that four super conferences of roughly 16 teams could emerge: the Big Ten, the SEC, a collaboration of the Big 12 and Pac-10 as well as a collaboration of the Big East and ACC.

Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe warned against that when the Big 12 meetings started this week in Kansas City.

"I think it's very serious," Beebe said. "And I think it's something that we better be very careful about. If we come to a day where there are four 16-member conferences, then it's going to be a sad day, and it's going to be very difficult to not have more legal issues and interventions. The pressures will be immense for certain programs to be successful, (and) there will be less chances to win conference championships and national championships."

CAN THE BIG 12 SURVIVE?

Believe it or not, it's still Texas' goal to hold the Big 12 together, and simply create a non-conference football scheduling alliance with the Pac-10 that would help generate a big-money, cable TV deal for both leagues.

Such a move would continue to allow Texas to pursue its own network and create a unique, potentially lucrative revenue stream UT wouldn't have to share. If Texas ended up as one of the six schools going off to join forces with the Pac-10, it would likely have to forgo its own network.

Larry Scott, the Pac-10 commissioner, told Orangebloods.com recently his schools are "very interested" in exploring a conference network and that it would have to be an "all rights in situation."

Can Texas convince the rest of the league the Big 12 is the way to go? Would all the wandering eyes like Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Nebraska and Missouri commit to staying in the Big 12 immediately if Texas committed to staying in the Big 12 in light of the Pac-10 offer?

Missouri probably would not. The Tigers already have one foot in the Big Ten. But Nebraska has no assurance it will be invited to the Big Ten and could be left completely out of the power conference structure if it's not careful. Texas A&M doesn't have the resources to start its own network and doesn't appear eager to be in a league that allows Texas to generate added revenue. The same might be true for OU.

So the plot thickens. The Pac-10, which is hamstrung by geography and would love to have its sports aired into the Central time zone, wants a merger. And it appears ready to upstage the Big Ten in this game of musical conferences. No one would have its own network in the Big 16, which could compel A&M and OU to accept an invitation.

The Pac-10 doesn't want to waste time by going out on dates with the Big 12 with a non-conference football scheduling alliance. It wants to take half of the Big 12 and get married. Now, we'll see, who, if anyone, meets them at the altar.

[KChiefs1]

http://www.buffzone.com/ci_15222068

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn said he and other school officials have been led to believe the Pac-10 Conference is on the verge of issuing invitations to six members of the Big 12 to join its ranks.

Bohn said CU has not had any contact with the Pac-10 or its representatives and he was not clear on how he came to believe invitations could be forthcoming. But he said Colorado, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech could receive invitations possibly as soon as this weekend when Pac-10 officials meet in San Francisco.

"The longer that we were together in Kansas City it appeared that that rumor or speculation did have some validity to it," Bohn said in an interview with the Camera as he left the Big 12 spring meetings here today.

Orangebloods.com reported Thursday that the Pac-10 is set to invite those same six teams from the Big 12, forming a 16-team superconference that would encompass three times zones with the ability to produce huge television revenue.

Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott issued a statement Thursday evening in response to the report.

"We have not developed any definitive plans,” Scott said. “We have not extended any invitations for expansion and we do not anticipate any such decisions in the near term."

Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe did not take questions from reporters following a day of meetings at the Intercontinental Hotel here where a media horde was staked out outside conference rooms where the league's athletic directors met with Beebe as well as school chancellors and presidents.

Beebe is scheduled to speak with media members Friday morning when the spring meetings conclude with a board of directors meeting, that will likely produce votes on future championship sites and other matters.

Beebe came to Kansas City hoping to galvanize the league against rumored attempts from other conferences to pick off members. Missouri and Nebraska are possible targets for the Big Ten, which is studying expansion by 1-5 teams.

Colorado and Texas previously received invitations from the Pac-10 in the mid-1990s but chose to stick with the fledgling Big 12. It now appears the Pac-10 will offer CU and Texas once again, along with four other teams from the Big 12 South Division.

"We're led to believe that that may be the case, but, again, there are so many different reports and different dialogues and different developments within our league and outside our league that prevents me from being able to predict what will happen," Bohn said.

Bohn said at this point Colorado remains a committed and proud member of the Big 12 and he believes the conference has a bright future if its members remain together.

"There is great equity in the Big 12 Conference and currently the financial model and the competitive equity we have as a league is currently serving us well," he said. "The future television partnership opportunities bodes well for long term financial viability."

Bohn said Beebe did not ask for letters of commitment from Big 12 members as of Thursday afternoon and did not seek to make leaving the conference more difficult by attempting to raise exit fees. Both options could still come up before the meetings conclude Friday.

If Colorado does receive an invitation to join another conference, Bohn said school officials would seek a wide range of opinions on any possible change in affiliation from students, faculty, alumni and boosters. Any change in conference affiliation would be subject to approval by the Board of Regents requiring a majority vote.

The Big 12 requires exiting schools to provide two years notice if they intend to leave the conference. Departing schools would also forfeit 50 percent of conference distributions during those two years. The cost for leaving rises if less than two years notice is given.

If Colorado accepts an invitation to join another conference and provides two years notice, it would likely cost the athletic department at least $9 million over two years based on recent distributions it has received from the Big 12.

[KChiefs1]

http://www.columbiatribune.com/weblo...alf-of-big-12/

UPDATE, 6:30 p.m. KANSAS CITY — A bizarre day at the Big 12 meetings just unofficially concluded in an elevator. Commissioner Dan Beebe and Texas President Bill Powers abruptly canceled a news conference that was originally scheduled for 5 p.m. and pushed back to 6 p.m. ... then pushed back until Friday.

"There will be no further comments until the conclusion of tomorrow's meetings," Beebe told a crowd of reporters in the pavilion floor of the Intercontinental hotel.

This truly is the Panic on the Plaza.

As reporters continued to fire questions at Beebe, mostly in response to the Pac-10 expansion report, the commissioner smiled and said, "I used to be an investigator, so I know how to ask all the good questions." And with that, he stepped into the elevator, the doors closed and the college sports world froze for at least another day.

Interpret the abrupt exit at your own risk — there are plenty being floated here — but it doesn't exactly inspire hope in the future of the Big 12.
As I wrote earlier, Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione was the day's most vocal advocate of the conference, marking the second consecutive day that Castiglione was the most forceful speaker here.

---

UPDATE, 5:20 p.m. KANSAS CITY — It's starting to get surreal at the Big 12 meetings. Do the 40 or so print reporters here have a front-row seat to the crumbling of a conference?

Around 4 p.m., athletic directors began emerging from the afternoon's meetings and were immediately met with the report that the Pac-10 plans to raid the Big 12 of half its membership.

Neither Missouri's Mike Alden or Oklahoma's Joe Castiglione were aware of the report from Orangebloods.com. Castiglione initially debunked the news as more of the same speculation that's come to define this story, but eventually, the Sooners' AD openly began addressing the possibility that doomsday is coming.

"I came here to talk about the Big 12," he said in a crowded hallway. "That’s all we’ve talked about."

Later, though, Castiglione moved the scrum of reporters into a room, took the podium and showed a rare glimpse of vulnerability on the topic. Asked if Oklahoma has been contacted about joining the Pac-10, Castiglione answered, "Not yet. Hopefully, we don't have to be."

Pressed further on his way out of the room after a lengthy Q&A session, Castiglione was asked again about joining the Pac-10. "If another situation develops, then we'll have to start considering those things," he said, no doubt referring to Big Ten expansion as the "another situation."

Asked several times, Alden declined to reveal any specifics from today's closed-door meetings.

"Guys we don’t talk about the things that go on during those meetings," he said. "You know better than that. again, that stuff goes into speculation, rumors all that stuff. But we don’t make comments on what goes on during our meeting."

---

KANSAS CITY — Congratulations, Chip Brown. You have succeeded in raising the collective blood pressure of a few dozen sportswriters who have otherwise been spending the last few hours sitting on their rumps chugging Diet Coke here in the bowels of the Intercontinental hotel at the Big 12 meetings.

While the Big 12 athletic directors and CEOs met behind closed doors on Thursday afternoon, Brown unloaded this bombshell at Orangebloods.com, the Rivals.com site that covers Texas: The Pac-10 is prepared to invite six Big 12 schools with hopes of launching a conference-wide television network through Fox. Brown reported that multiple sources have indicated that the Pac-10's wish list includes Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado.

That report is sure to create commotion once afternoon meetings break here in Kansas City. Unless the school officials are tuned into their smart phones or laptops during their meetings, some are likely to get blindsided by the report in a few short hours. (Should we all yell "SURPRISE!" when they walk out of their meeting room?) Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe and Texas President Bill Powers are scheduled to address the media here at approximately 5 p.m.

Asked yesterday if he could imagine Texas A&M joining the Pac-10, Athletic Director Bill Byrne expressed skepticism.
"There’s a two-hour time difference," he said. "And the travel between Eugene" Ore., "and College Station is 2,400 miles. That’s a long way, sports fans."

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by KChiefs1

http://www.columbiatribune.com/weblo...alf-of-big-12/

I find it interesting that the A&M Athletic Director knew the distance between Eugene Oregon and College Station. Why would he know that off-hand if he hadn't given it some previous thought?

[ChiefsCountry]

A&M is going to go to the SEC, replace them with Utah in the PAC-16.

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry

A&M is going to go to the SEC, replace them with Utah in the PAC-16.

I think BYU would be a better fit.

[luv]

So, no more Big 12?

[ChiefsCountry]

Originally Posted by KChiefs1

I think BYU would be a better fit.

No Utah is the better fit. BYU is too conservative for the PAC-10 schools.

[-King-]

Texas doesn't seem like a typical Pac-10 team.

[MoreLemonPledge]

Originally Posted by luv

So, no more Big 12?

Probably not. The writing's been on the wall for a while now.

[luv]

Originally Posted by MoreLemonPledge

Probably not. The writing's been on the wall for a while now.

Well, I knew about the talks about MU and NE. First I'd heard of everyone else. Guess I haven't paid attention.

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry

No Utah is the better fit. BYU is too conservative for the PAC-10 schools.

I guess I was thinking more tv sets for BYU than Utah.

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by luv

So, no more Big 12?

http://espn.go.com/blog/big12/post/_...ig-12-meetings

KANSAS CITY -- Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe took one route, outrunning the gaggle of cameras and microphones into a hotel elevator. Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn went another without answering a question. But reached on his cell phone by the Boulder Daily Camera's Kyle Ringo, it was Bohn's brief words that made the biggest splash at the close of the Big 12 spring meetings' third day.

"The longer that we were together in Kansas City it appeared that that rumor or speculation did have some validity to it," Bohn said, lending credence to an earlier report from Texas' Rivals.com website Orangebloods.com that said five South schools -- minus Baylor -- and Colorado were being targeted by the Pac-10 for a group invitation.

Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott swiftly issued a statement shooting down the report.

"We have not developed any definitive plans. We have not extended any invitations for expansion and we do not anticipate any such decisions in the near term," Scott said in the release.

But truth or fiction, one thing is clear: Thursday did not go as planned for the first day of meetings with university heads. Beebe emerged after 10 hours of meetings with plans to deviate from the day's schedule, canceling a post-meeting Q&A with reporters alongside University of Texas president William Powers, who is also the chairman of the conference's board of directors.

But other than the general, vague conflicts foreshadowed in earlier comments by Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione, the why is unknown.

The only thing that's clear is that nothing is clear. A unified front and clear consensus would have made answering questions a reasonably simple exercise for two men with backgrounds in law. But that front never materialized on Thursday, leading to the postponement of Powers' and Beebe's comments until late Friday morning.

And the reports about the Pac-10's shockingly proactive move -- which sounds far closer to a possibility than a probability -- obviously contributed to that delay.

The only people sleeping in Kansas City tonight with an idea of how close -- or how far -- that consensus is from forming spent the day inside the meeting room. And even they might not know.

But no one outside the room knows, and there's no promise that will change after Friday.