Here is something I’m curious about. Texas and Oklahoma owe some $150m… is that if they leave at the end of the GOR? Or is that assuming an early departure?
What I’m wondering is if we could issue invitations to Big 12 programs that allow them to wait however long they need to in order to minimize exit penalties. About the one advantage we have is that if they all want to wait until 2026 we are fine until then. The Big 12 needs schools to joint more urgently.
Would still cost them a boatload in exit penalties from UT and OU, though, so I don’t think we can really make this a financially winning proposition for them. But it’s a thought that crossed my mind.
If ESPN wants to land a knockout punch all they have to do float this one sentence through media twitter hack:
“Sources close to ESPN executives confirm that ESPN will not conduct further business with the B12 while constituted under that banner, or governed by current leadership.”
That would stop ice cold any migration to the B12 by any AAC program. Ice_______cold!
ESPN is trying to kill off the Big 12. Who knows the end game? Those schools have to play somewhere, and it seems fairly certain they won’t be playing in a P4 conference. ESPN has the SEC, ACC, and the best G5. Are they trying to hurt Fox, which has half the Big 12? Remember, both Fox and ESPN said they wouldn’t negotiate a new Big 12 deal. It’s plain crazy. Who waking up this morning thought they’d see all this?
Well, if Bowlsby thought they had a tough time negotiating last time…
I just think he killed any potential market value down the road.
How does he think ESPN will respond when he threatens to sue them, offers two of their product to his conference, and comes back in two years asking for money?
Heard a G5 report stressing the lack of results so far that CDH NEEDS a 9-3 season this year. I don’t agree with CDH on everything but was hoping Tilman’s attempt to install something longer term would have time to bear fruit. CDH still has the same pressure as Neal Brown WV now.
I think it’s funny that the Big 12 is complaining about ESPN (or whoever) trying to kill it, when it’s been on the ventilator for years, just waiting to be unplugged and put out of its misery. Sorry Big 12, you are dead, and nearly buried. Good riddance, slimeballs.
My dream for UH was to get an invite from any league beside the Big XII because even Stevie Wonder could see it was a UT/OU pulling the plug away from certain death. The rest of the schools were just lying to themselves by not seeing it.
What’s interesting about this to me is that for this move to work, the AAC (or someone else) would have had to poach enough schools to make the remainder of the Big XII unpalatable to any other schools, otherwise the leftovers could just slap schools together and build a conference out of toothpicks and marshmallows and get hundreds of millions in free GOR payments. Unless they were planning to have every school in the conference picked up, this would have been close to impossible to execute – C-USA and Sun Belt schools would have found it hard to turn down a couple years of Big XII payments. I wonder if the plan might have been for the AAC to pick up the stragglers on the condition that the top couple of schools leave on their own accord?
I don’t think this would be sufficient to get schools to make the jump now, as opposed to in 2025. They’d be shaving probably at least $20MM a year off their contracts for two years. Unless there’s a pretty massive difference there, the seemingly obvious move is to take the payout, and then try to hop elsewhere in 2025, especially if you’re one of the conference’s more valuable schools (i.e. KU) and you know your market price is more than you’d be getting in the new conference.
