The Big 12 is the newest and least historic “P5” and was always BY FAR the least cohesive P5 conference culturally.
What binds PAC together? West Coast culture, coalition of top Cali schools, top academics
What binds SEC together? Southern culture, great football
What binds ACC together? Top academics, great basketball
What binds B1G together? Rust belt culture, top level academics, football, solid basketball
What bound Big 12 together? OU and UT
The Big 12 as any kind of real P5 high level money making conference is dead. ESPN doesn’t want the AAC raided (my opinion) or pay any more money to to the little 8 than is reasonable market value now. Hence B12 must cease to exist. Little 8 can fold into AAC at $10M/year or kick rocks.
Where I disagree with the Kansas City Star is when they say they are united against a common enemy. How are they united if one or more schools was talking privately about coming to the AAC?
B12’s media contract is pretty much dead as it exists. It will be modified (lowered) one way or another. Power 5 reputation is now killed with UT/OU leaving.
Big East had all of this and exists as a shell of what it was as a basketball. conference.
The only thing that the B12 still has that the AAC doesn’t is that it is an autonomous conference. This is the only reason I would see keeping the B12 intact and adding to it. What value does maintaining autonomous status have these days? I don’t know, with NIL and other changes that have dulled the NCAA, players, schools and ultimately conferences have more freedom to do what they want, therefore making autonomous status relatively moot.
Otherwise, it’s a decision based on the best media deal, most likely through ESPN. I don’t think Fox will have as much sway.
Mid tier schools that have the potential of threatening the sec if they were given a real chance. UH has real potential but has never been given the chance. And espn will ensure we never do and our fans our happily cheering it on.
They don’t care either way about any school. Their responsibilities is to the shareholders as decided by their corporate superiors. Nothing more, nothing less.
And you know what makes them the most money? An sec only division of college football. Espn will save millions by not paying us and eventually forcing us into irrelevancy. If espn knows the only thing to watch is the sec which they fully control, they are going to do everything in their power to make sure no other conference is able to compete.
I don’t think that necessarily makes them the most money.
If there are only two conferences, imagine how much leverage those conferences have when negotiating with ESPN? With four or five conferences, they can play them off against one another. Not being able to do that stands to cost them a lot more than they are paying us (which is not very much).
Your logic makes sense, unless you think of it as a monopoly. If the ONLY college football is sec football that alone will make them more money than god.