As much as I would like to see that money at ISU, I say we take Memphis, get their 10 million, take someone else from a big city (not sure who or from where) and go after a couple big schools, offering them $20 million each. The 10 current members of our conference each take 1 million as consolation. The two new big schools have their 20 mill, we have some money, Memphis and whatever other school we invite get in with the big boys. Our conference is expanded to 14 and also has an enlarged TV footprint, making us much more attractive to TV execs. We leverage this to a better TV deal, ultimately making more money than the 4 million we would have if we had just split the money in the first place.
NO. And NO.
If we learned one thing from this whole mess, it is that the Big XII is not necessarily a wounded product with the loss of Nebraska and Colorado. The league has a certain national appeal. And unless you are going to form a Conference Network, the television imprint is a bit irrelevant.
Adding Memphis is going to gain us $10 million annually. But Memphis would also get a split of Conference TV revenue which will be about $14 million. So you actually end up losing about $4 million on the deal.
Does Memphis really add $4 million of extra revenue each year? Not IMO. Adding Memphis just gives the TV another option of NOT showing ISU and so we would be looking at decreased revenue.
The Big 12 has two really, really big names. Texas and Oklahoma. The rest have some appeal. And some have little appeal. Adding teams with little appeal or even modest appeal lessens the chance of a lower profile team like ISU to get on TV. And that means less exposure and less money.
We need to stick to 10 teams period. NO League Championship game. We play a round robin, so there is no need for it. We have a highly likely scenario of getting two BCS bids every year because of that. That increases revenue and makes for better bowls for those of us farther down the pecking order.
We are in good shape in basketball as it is. So it looks like we are decent with revenue with not much money to be added to the pot even if we would expand. Dividing that limited amount of money by 10 makes more sense than dividing it by 12.