Recently, I’ve been reading more message board and social media chatter from Big 12 fans, specifically Oklahoma and Texas fans, about the next round of realignment, and where their schools might ultimately end up.
So let’s roll up our sleeves and jump back into this puddle of mud, shall we?
This spiel I’m about to embark on is akin to grabbing the thread of a sweater and then pulling on it until nothing remains, and that analogy isn’t lost on me. We could very well see this conference come to an unceremonious end.
But I’m not reading this as an inevitable conclusion, for one gigantic reason:
How shitty a position the Pac 12 and ACC are currently in as well
To catch some folks up, the Big 12, the Pac 12, and the ACC have TV deals that are far worse than those of the other two “Power Five” conferences in college athletics, the Big Ten and the SEC. Each school in these conferences receives a share of the television revenue their conference gets in exchange for providing broadcast rights to given TV stations like ABC, ESPN and FOX. But that two conferences get substantially more money than the other three leaves the teams in those trailing three leagues susceptible to poaching.
The promise of more money is a powerful lure.
So to repeat, two leagues are in a power position right now, and three leagues aren’t. The Big 12 is often given the worst odds at survival, however, because of how loosely affiliated the schools are with one another. They don’t share revenues to the same extent that other leagues do, they’ve often publicly bickered with one another, member institutions have already bolted, and the affiliation itself is barely 20 years old.
All of that stuff is true. What’s also true is schools in the Big 12, today, are earning more money from television than the schools in either the ACC or the Pac 12.
The Pac 12, in particular, has had a rough time of things since the Big 12 was last making headlines in the expansion game, and there’s some speculation the league could be fracturing some.
Does that mean that the Big 12 could poach those other leagues instead of the other way around?
I don’t believe in that, and you shouldn’t either.
Yes, the lure of more money is enticing. But so is stability, and if you’re making long-term bets, there are many better bets than the Big 12, given its history. And justifiably so. Recall, if you will, that the Pac 12 hasn’t lost a team to defection since 1959. Those ties run relatively deep, and the academic swagger of being in such a league still matters.
Now, let’s not gloss over how much the money matters. More so, in fact, than anything else. This is why you might see a team leave one of these weaker P5 conferences for another. It’s just not a good bet. The absence of money AND stability makes it less than a sure thing. Literally every school wants both — including the schools in the Pac 12 you might think you have a shot at (looking at you, Arizona and Arizona State).
This is all especially relevant when it comes to OU and UT rumors, since those are the ones that never seem to go away. No one can explain to anyone else (least of all me) how Texas or OU is supposed to make more money in a Pac 12 or ACC than they do now. And while it would be stupid to rule out either “taking the money and running” with an exit to either the Big Ten or the SEC, the downside to that move is clear and present: You will get lost in the shuffle.
In a “normal” conference like they’re in now, Texas and OU have clout, prestige, and an easier path to the playoffs. (This particular talking point is super important and why Bob Bowlsby should be working overtime trying to expand the playoff for his own survival — an auto-bid for the Big 12 winner is a hell of an enticement for the big dogs to stick around. Naturally, he doesn’t appear to be doing this at all.) But the point remains: Neither fan base wants 9-3 seasons that end in the Gator Bowl.
Now, that’s just common sense, and common sense doesn’t rule the day in this talk; money and the illusion of stability do. So you can’t rule out either of them bolting. Thusly, if you’re the leadership of the Big 12, instead of sitting pat, what you really need to be doing is giving OU and Texas the aforementioned reasons (money and stability) to stay, so that they don’t try to find them in the SEC or Big Ten.
(Incidentally, I hope by now we’ve established that if you’re placing bets on either/both OU & UT leaving and you’re picking landing spots, it should be the SEC or Big Ten. Any other choice is just plain unrealistic. They will leave for money/stability. Neither the ACC nor the Pac-12 provides both.)
I outlined a case for Big 12 expansion in an earlier post, but that ship, I’m afraid, has sailed. The Big 12, as of a couple of years ago, had its broadcast partners in a potential headlock with a provision that their total revenue would grow should they expand. So they could have, in theory, added randoms like UCF and still not seen their money affected in a negative way. That provision got quickly and quietly eradicated, indicating outwardly anyway, that ESPN had more leverage in this situation than it had been letting on. But regardless, either way, expansion with the G5 now looks like a total non-starter.
So we’ve eliminated poaching other P5 leagues, and expanding with G5 teams. So where does that leave us?
The Big 12 should explore a Pac 12 partnership
The Big 12 has the smallest television viewing area in the country. The Pac 12 is moderately better, but their ratings are generally worse, and thusly their television deal is worse as well. Geography also works against both leagues when considering expansion (they run up against one another with very few appealing G5 options in their immediate surroundings).
But geography can become a relative strength at the bargaining table if they pool their rights.
Why? Well right off the bat, you’re making the product (college football games) more valuable by making them harder to acquire. Right now, the networks have five options they can go to when they want to acquire games to air. If they only have four, they have to pay more to get what they want.
But beyond simple scarcity, pooling also increases the value of your overall product.
Let’s take this week as an example:
Pac-12 games
Utah-Colorado
USC-UCLA
Oregon St.-Washington
Stanford-Cal
Arizona St.-Oregon
Arizona-Washington St.
Big 12 games
TCU-Baylor
West Virginia-Oklahoma St.
Texas Tech-Kansas St.
Kansas-Oklahoma
Iowa St.-Texas
If I’m the schedule-maker at a FOX or ESPN, getting to pluck the cream of the crop from that list of games, rather than being locked into Oregon St.-Washington or TCU-Baylor sounds super appealing to me. Plus, you’ve got an extra time slot to play with thanks to all those West Coast games.
Possible pooled schedule
West Virginia-Oklahoma St.
Stanford-Cal
USC-UCLA
Iowa St.-Texas
Arizona St.-Oregon
The rest of the games can get farmed out in secondary deals.
Finally, if you’re a TV network, by partnering with this alliance, you’re essentially buying the entire western half of the United States (which has TONS of growth potential).
Would a conference merger be necessary? Of course not. Oh, it’s fun to think about, wherein you reorganize the league into two 11-team divisions and/or start trying to “trim the fat” and figure out who makes the cut … but you don’t even have to go down that road. Just come up with a packaging of your inventory that will enable you to make the most money, then profit. (There isn’t even a mystery step 2 in that process.)
If you desperately want to get crazy creative here, though, start scheduling a bunch of cool inter-conference games. “We’re live from Oregon-TCU! USC-Oklahoma, next week!” Those games will bring in even more money in a TV deal, and the fans will love them.
If I’m Texas, this kind of arrangement sounds about a millionty percent better than trying to depart the Big 12 for the Pac 12, bring some Texas rival/scrubs like Tech along with me, maybe make about the same money, and play all of my games at 10 o’clock at night. Or, maybe I join the SEC and get my brain cratered by Nick Saban annually and continue to lose the stranglehold I once held in my own state. Instead, I can get to keep doing what I’m doing, maximize profits, and add an annual game with someone like USC every year.
Sign me up.
The Big 12 has historically been the least proactive — and the structurally weakest — conference in the country. So I’m not holding my breath on literally any of this occurring. It wouldn’t surprise me if Bowlsby, given most of his public moves to date, were completely oblivious to the possibility.
But if current trends continue, cord-cutting will continue, and networks feeling the pinch will try to low-ball the weaker leagues, making them even weaker in the process (making them even riper for poaching). The ACC is in a shite position, surrounded by two stronger leagues with more money. The Big 12, if it enjoys the concept of survival, should look at this kind of a partnership to ensure more money (and as a result, more stability) into the coming decade(s).
If not, get ready to watch some classic Oklahoma-Minnesota or Texas-Mississippi State clunkers while the rest of the conference spreads to the winds.
As a fan of traditional/geographical rivalries, of Kansas State specifically, and of college football in general, that sounds pretty damn dystopian to me.