[College Football] Big Ten, Texas have initial talks

yeah, i'm hearing different.

i'm hearing TX and OU are definitely saying they won't move apart from one another....and that TX ultimately will not move apart from A&M.

Which has everyone reassessing just how bad it was (or really, how it wasn't that bad) that Nebraska and Colorado have left. OU and UT still sit in the driver's seat in that conference. The Big XII is working on new revenue streams from TV and there is tons of money for everyone if they go to a playoff system, ultimately.

The lack of playoffs is driving a bunch of this....if we had legit playoffs, all this realignment talk wouldn't be happening.

From what I understand....and I dont' know this stuff first-hand, but it's someone I trust a whole lot...don't expect Texas, OU and A&M to go running immediately if Nebraska leaves today. That there is real emphasis on working to keep the Big XII together and snatching some schools away to join.

The Pac 16 scenario looks more and more precarious. And Colorado may end up looking kinda foolish out of this for jumping away so quickly to move to a conference where their closest opponent is over 800 miles away.

 

Let me assure you that the Big 12 is in no trouble whatsoever. In fact, we are looking to expand! Rumors or innuendos you hear to the contrary are simply propagands spread by the evil West Coast, Midwest and Southeast media conglomerates!

 

I hear Colorado wanted out anyway. I didn't think they were too fond of playing in the weak Big 12 north.

 

The only reason they were included in the Big 12 was because of Ann Richard's political clout as governor.

 

yeah, cause they were just so amazing and dominated the big 12 north.

 

They actually did for a while. They are tied for 3rd in division titles with 4. I guess dominate might be too strong a word but they didn't do horrible.

 

i'm worn out by all this talk/speculation/throwing darts in the dark.

I give up!

 

no they didn't...but financially, their athletic department is a wreck. they are in a bad way, right now.

if no one else goes to the Pac 10, their closest conference game is over 800 miles away. not a big deal for football...but very expensive and a pain in the ass for the rest of the sports.

 

just to be clear...i'm not saying there's no trouble...or that the Big 12 won't ultimately fold. i'm saying UT and OU are seriously considering how strong their respective positions are in conference....i'm hearing that Mack and Dodds are both very skeptical of leaving. and that people aren't rushing out as quickly as the media would have you believe.

 

I agree with you on this

 

does it really make a difference? I think they already faced this problem. I mean the closest current big11 school as the crow flies is Manhatttan, Lubbock and Lawrence KS at a mere 464, 483 and 531 miles away.

 

great point. maybe it doesn't matter as much. except that their closest opponent is now 2x as far as the one before.

you can road trip 464...you're not road-tripping 800, most likely.

i know 3 colorado grads...not exactly a full sample size...they're not thrilled...all 3 say they're gonna be super not thrilled if the whole Pac 16 rumor doesn't come to fruition.

 

If the Pac16 doesn't happen, it's almost certain Utah goes to the Pac10. I think regardless of anything else, it was in Colorado's interest to go. The Pac10 is just a much healthier conference financially and academically than the B12.

The worst thing that could happen is for the B12 to lose NU/CU and gain a couple of MWC schools or something like that. The Pac10 and B10 will have improved, the SEC will remain strong, and the B12 will have weakened.

 

Losing NU would/will hurt. I don't think losing CU is nearly as big of a deal. If we could imagine losing only CU...and if you replaced them with someone like.....TCU....I don't think that weakens the Big XII at all.

Eyes on Nebraska today.

 

I thought this was funny:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...stories/061110dnspocowlishaw_hp.9184c10e.html

Love Colorado being mentioned as "the first domino" to fall when the school announced it was joining the Pac-10 on Thursday. As a former Buff (27 hours with a very solid C-plus average my freshman year count for something), I had to laugh.

The Big 12 shouldn't fold at the thought of losing Colorado. It should have just made a list of other possible patsies for Big 12 North football.

Also, the idea that the Pac-10 has now "captured the Denver market." The Buffs own the Denver market much the way Dallas stands still for SMU football.

 

They were part of the reason the North was weak. Did they want to play in the Big 12 South and finished down with Baylor every year?

 

No clue. Just saying what I heard on the radio. They didn't like being in the north and that it was weak. Never implied they were good. Like I said earlier in the thread, they had a freaking girl kicker at one point.

 

http://www.kctv5.com/sports/23868261/detail.html#

DALLAS, Tex -- A highly-placed source tells KCTV5 that the head of a television network has again told Big 12 officials they would like to form a Big 12-Pac-10 Network and that the conference's next television deal is lucrative enough to keep remaining Big 12 teams together.

Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe is using the potential contract to try and urge the remaining universities in the conference to stay together.

Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione told the Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman, "We have a very, very strong sense from our television partners that the revenue stream would be very, very good going forward. Better than where we are today.”

The current Big 12 television contract is a seven-year contract through 2016 with ABC that pays them $480 million, and the Fox Sports Network contract pays them $78 million and ends in 2012.

In 2008, the SEC signed a 12-year, $2.25 billion deal with ESPN/ABC and has a 15-year, $825 million agreement with CBS. Each SEC's school reportedly receives around $15-17 million per year from the television contracts.

Th Big Ten has a 10-year, $1 billion deal with ESPN/ABC and a 25-year, $2.8 billion deal with the Big Ten Network. Fox Sports owns a 49 percent stake in the Big Ten network and would likely want a similar deal with the Big 12 and Pac-10, KCTV5's sources said.

 

i see much ado about nothing when all the smoke clears.... the longer this goes on the longer i think the Big12 will remain intact.

talk about anti-climatic.

 

You're looking at these schools from the perspective of how they are on the field - but that's not really terribly important in the grand scheme of things. These decisions are made by University Presidents, not athletic directors or coaches. They are done with a long-term 20+ year time horizon.

No matter what collection of schools you put together, you're always going to have bottom feeders - someone has to end up in 16th place in the Pac16, and that school is going to struggle to improve. How good the school is today is really not a factor. It's what they bring as a whole to a conference and what the conference brings to them.