Big 12 Network
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I'd take Colorado back if the interest was mutual; it'd just be tough justifying expanding west if we still have a school in the Appalachians. As things currently stand, you'd have a tough time convincing Mizzou to walk away from so much cash, but as streaming content shapes the future they may become more interested in easing traveling expenses & restoring old rivalries. There's no exit fee for leaving the SEC & West Virginia's poor academic standing would be a perfect fit. Colorado State would be a nice fit as well ~or~ if we were to take BYU as football only, we could potentially continue round robin scheduling with eleven teams in our Olympic sports.
I agree with a previous poster we should return to an 8 game schedule in football to get more bowl eligible teams like the SEC does. Use divisions for scheduling purposes, but not determining the championship game. Take the two top teams no matter what.
They get far more games on Cyclones.TV then they would on a Big X or Big XII network. Keep the games on Cyclones.TV but then sell or agree to share the rights with a Big XII streaming network. So if someone had subscribed to KSU.TV then they could watch say a KSU at ISU softball game. Perhaps that's what they are doing with this ESPN+ deal. But having the Big X network determine programming is not advantageous to an Iowa or ISU.
Colorado can rot...they left for greener pastures only to find the PAC 12 field littered with buffalo chips and a costly TV network. They paid a $6.8M penalty to the Big 12 when they left and have a revenue stream that is more than $5M per year short of any team in the Big 12...and the gap is widening each and every year. Just a quick back of the napkin calculation shows that they are roughly $30M behind Iowa State looking at the past 5 years or so.
One thing for sure is that 2023-2024 will be fascinating.
So far your responses are "there are more sports than football" and "you're very wrong" while I give thought out responses which lean towards the idea that we don't need a conference network.
If you honestly think Olympic sports viewership (because the big sports are already available on major tv networks) justifies a need for a whole conference network... yikes.
That deal ends and they aren't getting it renewed. So Texas doesn't really get that choice.
Do you think TV partners (and I use that term loosely) are going to pay the same money if the BIg 12 were to replace one conference game with a game against a cupcake non-p5 school?
Probably not, but with the new espn+ deal it may be less than initially thought. I think the real question would be about opportunity cost. Would the money we would lose from the tv contracts be more or less than the revenue generated from having 1 or 2 additional bowl games, a much better chance for the playoffs, with a team in the playoffs big 12 teams all get shifted up a bowl game, an additional home game for each team over a 2 year span? I don’t know the answer but these would be additional factors to consider.
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The P5 teams have figured out the game...you get to pay them lots of money now if you want them to come to your place. And the Big 12 isn't the SEC...the Big 12 will get mercilessly beat over the head for that extra cupcake game come playoff selection time.
The payouts for the lower tier bowls basically cover expenses for the teams to travel to the game.
Colorado had been looking for a way into the Pac-10 even before the Big 8 became the Big 12. They just finally got the opportunity/window they were waiting for.
it would be just the Big 12’s luck that if we went to the 8 conference game schedule that would be the year the committee all of a sudden decides SOS is the major deciding factor, but still ignore the fact the SEC and ACC do it as well, haha. I would assume the conferences get some additional payout for the lower bowls broadcasting as well in addition to the bowls independent payout. Again I rarely know any answers, just spitballing.
Colorado always wanted to be in the Pac 12, when they got the offer, they went, while the other 5 schools returned to the Big 12, that is all the proof you need. Colorado is not ever coming back, only way they would think about it is if the Pac 12 network continues to perform the way it has, and each school is 10' of millions of dollars less than what other conferences are getting. I would not bet it would even happen then. They are where they always wanted to be, a member of the PAC 12 conference.
The fact that most people that yap about this topic either have an agenda they are trying to push or are completely ignorant about the stability of the Big 12 and PAC 12 doesn't change reality. Big 12 is stable and making good money, with OU and UT getting to call all the shots while making fairly close to $ they would make in the SEC or Big 10 when all things are considered.
PAC 12 is in deep trouble. They are horribly run and bleeding money. They have a timezone problem. Their football is not very strong and their basketball as straight garbage right now.
So both in terms of planning for the future and conference moves and poaching, the simplest way to look at it is value goes from being in high population centers to bringing eyeballs and people that actively seek out and subscribe to services to watch games. Rutgers is the best example of this shift. They go from cash cow to anchor in a conference scenario with shared revenues.
If future models are driven more by who actively subscribes and pays to watch a team or conference's games, will the value of being a "national brand" diminish? I believe college football fans overwhelmingly see their favorite team's games as appointment viewing, with all the rest being simply watching the most interesting game that happens to be on given their current channel options. For example, now a typical ISU fan might hang out and watch Clemson-Miami because it's on ABC or ESPN. If they have to make an effort or pay additional money to watch that game, it's much less likely to happen. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out
But the deal does not run out until 2031, by then this will all be rapped up. What will happen is ESPN will add the LHN into what it already has with the rest of the conference and stream it. Pay UT the same amount, but keeping them in the conference.
https://awfulannouncing.com/league-networks/what-does-the-future-hold-for-longhorn-network.html
Man ESPN made one heck of a bad deal on the LHN. I think it gets folded in the 2024-25 time period with all the other anticipated change. There is no way they continue the same payment for a channel that flopped big time.
One small problem... ESPN signed a contract so either way they are still going to have to pay UT a crap ton of money.
Not a cupcake. A power 5 matchup. Make it part of the deal. The extra scheduling freedom could allow for restored rivalries such as ATM-Texas, Pitt-WVU, Kansas-Mizzou, etc.
The next wave of conference realignment will involve teams leaving the Pac12 for the Big12.
