Anyways, Chip Brown from Orangebloods.com reports OU may apply to the Pac-12 by the end of the month.
Oklahoma will apply for membership to the Pac-12 before the end of the month, and Oklahoma State is expected to follow suit, a source close to OU's administration told Orangebloods.com.
Even though Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said Friday the Pac-12 was not interested in expansion at this time, OU's board of regents is fed up with the instability in the Big 12, the source said.
The OU board of regents will meet within two weeks to formalize plans to apply for membership to the Pac-12, the source said.
Messages left Sunday night with OU athletic director Joe Castiglione and Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder were not immediately returned.
If OU follows through with what appears to be a unanimous sentiment on the seven-member Oklahoma board of regents to leave the Big 12, realignment in college athletics could be heating back up. OU's application would be matched by an application from Oklahoma State, the source said, even though OSU president Burns Hargis and mega-booster Boone Pickens both voiced their support for the Big 12 last Thursday.
There is differing sentiment about if the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors are ready to expand again after bringing in Colorado and Utah last year and landing $3 billion TV contracts from Fox and ESPN. Colorado president Bruce Benson told reporters last week CU would be opposed to any expansion that might bring about east and west divisions in the Pac-12.
Currently, there are north and south divisions in the Pac-12. If OU and OSU were to join, Larry Scott would have to get creative.
Scott's orginal plan last summer was to bring in Colorado, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and put them in an eastern division with Arizona and Arizona State. The old Pac-8 schools (USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State) were to be in the west division.
Colorado made the move in June 2010, but when Texas A&M was not on board to go west, the Big 12 came back together with the help of its television partners (ABC/ESPN and Fox).
If Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were accepted into the Pac-12, there would undoubtedly be a hope by Larry Scott that Texas would join the league. But Texas sources have indicated UT is determined to hang onto the Longhorn Network, which would not be permissible in the Pac-12 in its current form.
Texas sources continue to indicate to Orangebloods.com that if the Big 12 falls apart, the Longhorns would consider "all options."
Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe held an emergency conference call 10 days ago with league presidents excluding Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M and asked the other league presidents to "work on Texas" because Beebe didn't think the Pac-12 would take Oklahoma without Texas.
Now, it appears OU is willing to take its chances with the Pac-12 with or without Texas.
There seemed to be a temporary pause in any possible shifting of the college athletics' landscape when Baylor led a charge to tie up Texas A&M's move to the Southeastern Conference in legal red tape. BU refused to waive its right to sue the SEC over A&M's departure from the Big 12, and the SEC said it would not admit Texas A&M until it had been cleared of any potential lawsuits.
Baylor, Kansas and Iowa State have indicated they will not waive their right to sue the SEC.
It's unclear if an application by OU to the Pac-12 would draw the same threats of litigation against the Pac-12 from those Big 12 schools.
Originally Posted by Razaele:
What about leaving the Big 12 cost Nebraska its "soul"? Not being able to pummel K-State every year? Their classic period rivalry was probably Oklahoma, but that even started to fade when the Big 12 came along and cut the number of meetings in half.
There is no "soul" to this. No team regrets leaving the Big 12, no team that's still in the Big 12 wants to be there.
I don't see any reason why teams that have left would regret it... none of them were particularly relevant or successful before leaving, and now they're not successful but with more money. OU will be more interesting and Texas to a lesser extent.
Saying every team in the B12 doesn't want to be in the B12 is obviously making up shit though, especially with Texas on the way out and other schools joining. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bearcat:
I don't see any reason why teams that have left would regret it... none of them were particularly relevant or successful before leaving, and now they're not successful but with more money. OU will be more interesting and Texas to a lesser extent.
Saying every team in the B12 doesn't want to be in the B12 is obviously making up shit though, especially with Texas on the way out and other schools joining.
True, on the first part. No arguments there at all.
What I meant with the second was more along the lines of, which of those schools would not rather be in the B1G or the SEC? Obviously, the remains of the Big 12 are not the worst place in collegiate athletics that you could be. But things in the Big 12 are certainly not better than they were, and the prospect of adding less notable schools to replace the ones leaving will not change that. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bearcat:
I don't see any reason why teams that have left would regret it... none of them were particularly relevant or successful before leaving, and now they're not successful but with more money. OU will be more interesting and Texas to a lesser extent.
Saying every team in the B12 doesn't want to be in the B12 is obviously making up shit though, especially with Texas on the way out and other schools joining.
Texas and their Longhorn network and their money and threat of leaving, ruled the Big 12. They are giving that up. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Titty Meat:
And is about to have it vacated
Let's vacate every BB and football title in NCAA history that has ever been won by a school that later turned out to have some recruiting or athletic violation/scandal during that time!
Originally Posted by Razaele:
True, on the first part. No arguments there at all.
What I meant with the second was more along the lines of, which of those schools would not rather be in the B1G or the SEC? Obviously, the remains of the Big 12 are not the worst place in collegiate athletics that you could be. But things in the Big 12 are certainly not better than they were, and the prospect of adding less notable schools to replace the ones leaving will not change that.
Or another option for folks: we don’t care abiut conferences in the first place [Reply]
RADIO SILENCE:
It’s been quiet in the last few days and for good reason. The Pac-12 is engaged in an exclusive, 30-day negotiating period with ESPN and Fox. I’m told ESPN has been “active, interested and creative” by a conference source.
Is the silence good?
Bad?
Neither?
One sitting athletic director characterized the silence as “good.”
The conference’s exclusive negotiating period expires Aug. 4.
I’m told that ESPN and the Pac-12 are a good bet to come to an agreement before that window ends, but Fox would still get to bid on the Pac-12’s rights or can wait until the period expires or waive those rights. The hunch here is that we may see some resolution before the July 29 Pac-12 Football Media Day.
AWKWARD MEETING:
Pac-12 Media Day is being held in downtown Los Angeles. It’s going to be awkward and potentially entertaining.
UCLA and USC will have to sit and answer questions about their defection to the Big Ten. I suspect Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff will want to have something newsy and optimistic to share with the public at that time.
I also think this will be the final Media Day held in Los Angeles. Moving forward, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the event moved to Las Vegas or rotated among Seattle, Phoenix, the Bay Area, Salt Lake City and Portland.
Former Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott brought the event to Los Angeles in 2011. Scott started his remarks that day with: “First, let me start by welcoming you to the FOX Studios here in Los Angeles, the first time we're holding our media day here. In Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world, an important center for the Pac-12 conference.”
Reading that quote again reminded me of Kliavkoff’s remarks in March during the Pac-12 Conference Basketball Tournament in Las Vegas.
Said Kliavkoff: “The emergence of Las Vegas as a sports capital of the world is significant.”
FIRED UP:
California Gov. Gavin Newsome was not happy that he wasn’t consulted prior to UCLA’s decision to bolt to the Big Ten.
“No big deal. I’m the Governor of the state of California,” Newsom said. “Maybe it’s a bigger deal that I’m the chair of the UC Regents. I read about it. Is it a good idea? Did we have a chance to discuss the merits or de-merits? I’m not aware of it. It was done in isolation.”
Newsom has spirited opinions about it. He wasn’t consulted. Never asked for an opinion and said, “Trust me when I say this, ‘We’re not going to be looking into it, we are already looking into it within minutes of reading it in the newspaper.’”
Former Washington state Senator Mike Baumgartner is the former chair of the Washington State Senate’s Commerce, Labor and Sports Committee and former vice chair of Senate Ways and Means and Senate Higher Education Committee.
Said Baumgartner: “In all my years as the vice chair or higher education in the Washington Senate, I can’t think of anything either UW or WSU did that even approached this level of significance without Regent’s voting approval.”
I’ll update here with more… sorry for posting twice in one day, but this stuff is super interesting to me and I think relevant to you.
Originally Posted by displacedinMN:
Big 12 leftovers and Pac 12 leftovers would be a good conference.
I don't think the Big 12 is going to take all of the remaining Pac 12 teams. At most, they may try to see a max of 4, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they only took 2. Then pause and look at the landscape.
If you're trying to merge all the Big 12 and the Pac 12, the more mouths they have to feed (re: less cut for all schools involved), the more complex interleague dynamics will be, and the more challenging scheduling will be.
Expansion should only happen if it makes sense on a variety of levels besides just money. The Big 12 may not take everyone… just the ones that make the most sense. They don’t want to become the WAC 2.0 that had 16 teams, but it was too unwieldy, so it crumbled and split in two. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Coach:
I don't think the Big 12 is going to take all of the remaining Pac 12 teams. At most, they may try to see a max of 4, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they only took 2. Then pause and look at the landscape.
If you're trying to merge all the Big 12 and the Pac 12, the more mouths they have to feed (re: less cut for all schools involved), the more complex interleague dynamics will be, and the more challenging scheduling will be.
Expansion should only happen if it makes sense on a variety of levels besides just money. The Big 12 may not take everyone… just the ones that make the most sense. They don’t want to become the WAC 2.0 that had 16 teams, but it was too unwieldy, so it crumbled and split in two.
The remaining Pac 12 teams do not want to join the Big 12. There probably is not a noticeable revenue difference either way in the watered down Big 12 or the "new" Pac 12 so what difference does it make to them. ESPN needs late programming too. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BWillie:
The remaining Pac 12 teams do not want to join the Big 12. There probably is not a noticeable revenue difference either way in the watered down Big 12 or the "new" Pac 12 so what difference does it make to them. ESPN needs late programming too.
Pac-12's numbers also are a product with one of the largest media markets and populated places in the world (Los Angeles) being invested in the league. When USC and UCLA do leave, how much do they lose numbers when those folks become more and more inclined to watch the Big Ten instead moving forward? That is the big question.
This spreadsheet kind of explains the numbers. Again, these are projections/assumptions, but notice the years 2023 to 2025 for the Big 12 and Pac 12 numbers. Pac 12 takes a huge hit in 2024.
Sadly, I oversimplified the math by just using % loss/gain per team w/o factoring in the difference between 10 team PAC10 & a 16 team B1G in 2024. I've corrected the data at the original spreadsheet link: -B1G doesn't overtake SEC -PAC still $15-20M behindhttps://t.co/B6jenz2djkpic.twitter.com/0lUvdFXN0l
These numbers are not lost on school administrators and athletic directors. They stand to lose a lot of cash from 2023 to 2024 in the Pac 12. And if UO and UW demanding larger part of the pot, I'm sure that will not sit well with some of other schools. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Pablo:
But don't you want to belong?? Don't you want to chant your conference name like a braindead drone?? Where's your pride man?
I know when the Bungholes were in the Superbowl this year I was screaming AFC! AFC! AFC! AFC! at the tv and man it fuckin' felt good.
I used to do that when John SmellWay would win Supes. I’d go on Steeler boards and brag about AFC West Pride [Reply]
Originally Posted by Razaele:
True, on the first part. No arguments there at all.
What I meant with the second was more along the lines of, which of those schools would not rather be in the B1G or the SEC? Obviously, the remains of the Big 12 are not the worst place in collegiate athletics that you could be. But things in the Big 12 are certainly not better than they were, and the prospect of adding less notable schools to replace the ones leaving will not change that.
If it just comes down to "would you like more money or less money", then of course we all know the answer.
And if a school can compete in SEC football more often than not, there's obviously a huge draw for the best product in college sports.
After that, I think it gets a lot more complicated if an AD is looking beyond just the money to whether the school can be competitive, whether you have a voice at the table, etc.
And on top of that, what looks great right now might not be any better than your current situation in 10 years or in 20 years or whatever. As mentioned a little bit ago, one of those conferences expands a bit too much and schools leave for whatever reason because the money dries up or isn't worth it for whatever reason.
I mean, everyone was saying the same things 12 years ago about the Big 12 like there was going to be a mass exodus out of every conference not the SEC or B1G and you better grab a seat, and here we are.... :-) [Reply]
