The Big 12 expansion groundswell

[Uncle Ted]

It's all good. Theyll just make Mizzou stick around for 27 months.

If Mizzou can cough up the exit fee then they will be gone. Remember, according to their number crunchers the SEC could be worth an extra $12M/yr to them. This does, however, make it difficult for them to leave for anything much less than the full exit fee amount since it would be much easier for the Big 12 to sue them when the conference could show real damages in this case. aTm may also be in the same boat on paying something closer to the full exit fee. If they stay for 27 months, the Big 12 may force them sign the six year assignment of their rights to do it given everyone (else) has agreed to do it. Otherwise, next year, the Big 12 may be facing OU knocking on the door of some other conference again, like the SEC. Of course, they might (without UT) get rejected by that conference as well.

[Uncle Ted]

Chip Brown's update:

What the heck is going on with Missouri? I get that question a few times a day, and from what I'm told Missouri has not even talked exit fees with the Big 12 at this point.

Some believe Missouri is dragging its feet on announcing its departure for the SEC because it wants to gather as much intel as it can on West Virginia's deal with the Big 12 to soften its exit fees. (If Missouri can show the Big 12 won't be damaged by its departure, the maximum exit fee of $28 million could be reduced significantly. Nonetheless, Mizzou is indeed dragging its feet.)

Texas A&M, meanwhile, faces a maximum exit fee of roughly $31 million, and there is a committee appointed by the Big 12 to handle this issue, and it includes Baylor.

And from what I'm told, that committee intends to make A&M pay a minimum of $22 million, which would be substantially more than the $9 million Nebraska paid and the $6 million Colorado paid.

The most interesting news of the day, however, is that Texas Tech may be emerging as the likely candidate to face Texas on Thanksgiving in 2012.

Tech may be the Thanksgiving opponent of UT until the Big 12 gets an answer on Notre Dame - most likely in January.

My sources in the Big 12 are very optimistic the Fighting Irish will announce they are moving their non-football sports to the Big 12 after the first of the year. If that happens, the Big 12 will push for up to six football games between ND and Big 12 schools. My sources also think ND could become a full member in the Big 12 - meaning football, too, in the near future.

The Big 12 will not look to expand beyond 10 schools until it hears from Notre Dame, my sources said. If Notre Dame agrees to move its non-football sports into the Big 12, Texas will push for a 10-year to 13-year granting of Tier 1 and 2 television rights back to the conference. Currently, there is agreement for 6 years. If Notre Dame ever decided to move its football into the Big 12, then and only then, would the Big 12 consider adding a 12th school to reach a championship game. And I'm not sure it would get approved.

There is much to play out still in realignment.

Stay tuned. (BROWN)

Why would the Big 12 want to stay at 11 teams? Besides ND wouldn't leave its "partner" behind unlike some other school we know.

[Jarid in Cedar]

Chip Brown's update:



Why would the Big 12 want to stay at 11 teams? Besides ND wouldn't leave its "partner" behind unlike some other school we know.

I am sure that ND would be more than willing to drop its partner, NBC, if they can make more scratch from ESPN/abc, and if they were ready to ditch independence.

[ERCougar]

I gotta think that Mizzou wants out ASAP but is delaying its official departure until the Big 12 finds a replacement. For waiting I bet the Big 12 is giving Mizzou a break on its exit penalties. But how long will Mizzou be willing to wait? Another year? I can't imagine them wanting to go through a year and a half of being a Big 12 lame duck. Plus the SEC needs a resolution soon as well.

Is this all really just a matter of the right price for the be? Or do they need Pitt, Syracuse, and WV to stick around for some reason?

If Mizzou can cough up the exit fee then they will be gone. Remember, according to their number crunchers the SEC could be worth an extra $12M/yr to them. This does, however, make it difficult for them to leave for anything much less than the full exit fee amount since it would be much easier for the Big 12 to sue them when the conference could show real damages in this case. aTm may also be in the same boat on paying something closer to the full exit fee. If they stay for 27 months, the Big 12 may force them sign the six year assignment of their rights to do it given everyone (else) has agreed to do it. Otherwise, next year, the Big 12 may be facing OU knocking on the door of some other conference again, like the SEC. Of course, they might (without UT) get rejected by that conference as well.

I agree. Hence, the and my point in reviving this thread. This is just one more piece of baggage that WVU brings, and one that doesn't seem to just go away, unless I'm completely misunderstanding the legal play here.

So, I'll repeat--how toxic must BYU be for the B12 to bypass them as a ready and willing partner in favor of a baggage-laden WVU? Either the baggage just must not be as big as it appears or something strange is going on. I really wonder if this is part of an extended negotiation tactic.

Or, the 15th best program in the country is worth whatever price must be paid!

[TripletDaddy]

Let's go Mizzou! hit the road!

[Viking]

I'm not sure if chip is getting misinformation or if he's truly jumped the shark but sitting here and enjoying a beautiful day at the beach in Leblon, I called one of my Dallas Jesuit CP mates who is heavily involved in ND and his feedback: NFW

ND loves the BEast for hoops and has no financial reason to move to the B12.

I'm sure anything can happen and these are all snapshots in time, but the B12 must realize how screwed it is if MU leaves, WVU can't go, BYU joins the BEast, UL re-ups for the BEast and it has 9 members...of course, they'll just lower the exit fee to MU to stay but I dont know if that's enough.

What the B12 needs to do is invite BYU NOW and get this over with.

I dont know Chips contacts but As far as BYU football is concerned, mine might as well be God himself and Doccoug can confirm that.

[jay santos]

I'm not sure if chip is getting misinformation or if he's truly jumped the shark but sitting here and enjoying a beautiful day at the beach in Leblon, I called one of my Dallas Jesuit CP mates who is heavily involved in ND and his feedback: NFW

ND loves the BEast for hoops and has no financial reason to move to the B12.

I'm sure anything can happen and these are all snapshots in time, but the B12 must realize how screwed it is if MU leaves, WVU can't go, BYU joins the BEast, UL re-ups for the BEast and it has 9 members...of course, they'll just lower the exit fee to MU to stay but I dont know if that's enough.

What the B12 needs to do is invite BYU NOW and get this over with.

I dont know Chips contacts but As far as BYU football is concerned, mine might as well be God himself and Doccoug can confirm that.

With Villanova, Marquette, Depaul, Georgetown, St John's, and Notre Dame together, there's really nothing you could do with football to "blow up" the Big East as a basketball conference. I'm not sure I buy this stuff about ND and the Big 12. ND can go to any conference it wants anytime.

[Uncle Ted]

Notre Dame's old Athletic Director's thoughts...

When Corrigan was reached by phone earlier this week, there was an awkward pause, then a filibuster of a laugh and then more silence when Corrigan was asked what the potential downside would be for Notre Dame losing its independence to cannonball into the bigger-but-soon-to-be-less-coastal ACC.

“I think it’s hard, because Notre Dame has always been there as an independent in football,” Corrigan said, “and that’s a difficult thing to give up. But times have changed. Times have changed like none of us could ever have predicted, really in the last five years.

“I would love to see them in it, because I love Notre Dame and I love the ACC. Nothing would make me happier, but I shouldn’t have a vote in this thing. I live in Charlottesville, Va. But, boy, if I had a vote, I would love for them to be in there, because I just think they fit so well.”

There’s an academic fit, the public school/private school fit. The other viable conference options - should ND bail on its limited partnership with the increasingly Conference USA-esque Big East - are the Big 12 and the Big Ten. The latter has just one private school among its 12 members - Northwestern. Same for the 10-team Big 12 (Baylor), though TCU is committed to coming aboard.

The ACC has four - Wake, Duke, Miami and Boston College, with Syracuse on the way as a fifth.

“You look at the public institutions. North Carolina and Virginia are two of the top ones there,” Corrigan said. “You look at the other sports besides football - the women’s and men’s soccer, the men’s and women’s lacrosse. They are all the sports that the ACC is good in. So there’s a lot of fit across the board in sports that certainly doesn’t exist with the Big East.

“Except geography, I can’t imagine there’s a better or more logical place for them to be.”

Then again, given Notre Dame’s resistance to being “regionalized,” playing in a conference whose footprint stretches from Massachusetts and soon Upstate New York to South Beach provides a potential conference schedule with a more national feel.

“And my guess,” Corrigan said, “is there are certain schools that Notre Dame plays that they want to continue to play. I couldn’t imagine them not playing Southern Cal - forever. I’m sure Southern Cal doesn’t want to stop playing Notre Dame, either.”

What Corrigan does not see happening is the ACC entertaining an arrangement with ND in which it plays a partial ACC schedule in exchange for relative football autonomy.

“Other than the Big East,” he said, “nobody is going to take Notre Dame if they don’t bring everything.”

[...]

Every day, it seems, though, the view changes. And sometimes, it changes in extreme ways no one saw coming. Certainly, not Corrigan.

“What’s happened in the last couple of years with the conferences is just startling,” he said. “I can’t get over it. Every time I hear something, it makes me blink and go ‘Holy Cow, how did we ever get to 12-team conferences and things like that?’ My goodness. It’s a rare time in intercollegiate athletics.

“Notre Dame has looked at a conference for quite a while, and it makes it more logical for them to investigate everything you possibly can. The one thing that you don’t want to do is you don’t want to get caught not being able to play games that you want to play. If everybody else is in a conference, and toward the end of the season, you can’t get any games, it’s not a very happy place to be.

“So I just think it’s one of those things where it would be natural for them to be investigating whatever their opportunities are. I know they’ve done that before. Even when I was there, we looked at whether it would be the right thing. And really there was no need for us to do it at that time.

“But these are very different times.”

Interesting how the Pac-12 was never mentioned as an option for ND.

[Viking]

ND to ACC or B10 are the only moves (conf) that make se se for them. ND is an East coast focused team and the B12 has zero rivals for ND and smaller TV mkts than ACC and B10. To think they will go to the B12 is insanity

[Blueintheface]

I'm not sure if chip is getting misinformation or if he's truly jumped the shark but sitting here and enjoying a beautiful day at the beach in Leblon, I called one of my Dallas Jesuit CP mates who is heavily involved in ND and his feedback: NFW

ND loves the BEast for hoops and has no financial reason to move to the B12.

I'm sure anything can happen and these are all snapshots in time, but the B12 must realize how screwed it is if MU leaves, WVU can't go, BYU joins the BEast, UL re-ups for the BEast and it has 9 members...of course, they'll just lower the exit fee to MU to stay but I dont know if that's enough.


What the B12 needs to do is invite BYU NOW and get this over with.

I dont know Chips contacts but As far as BYU football is concerned, mine might as well be God himself and Doccoug can confirm that.

Is there a school in this entire country in which you don't have an 'insider'?

[Uncle Ted]

I'm not sure if chip is getting misinformation or if he's truly jumped the shark but sitting here and enjoying a beautiful day at the beach in Leblon, I called one of my Dallas Jesuit CP mates who is heavily involved in ND and his feedback: NFW

ND loves the BEast for hoops and has no financial reason to move to the B12.

I'm sure anything can happen and these are all snapshots in time, but the B12 must realize how screwed it is if MU leaves, WVU can't go, BYU joins the BEast, UL re-ups for the BEast and it has 9 members...of course, they'll just lower the exit fee to MU to stay but I dont know if that's enough.

What the B12 needs to do is invite BYU NOW and get this over with.

I dont know Chips contacts but As far as BYU football is concerned, mine might as well be God himself and Doccoug can confirm that.

Basketball is nice and everything but it's football that pays most of the bills for athletic programs. ND has financial reasons to join the B12 over other conferences like the B1G. For example, owning tier 3 rights and the possibility of having its own network like Texas and OU. Texas with just their 3rd tier rights is getting as much as ND is from their NBC contract. Of course, ND is not joining any conference until all these super conferences are pretty much formed and it becomes harder and harder to schedule games (other than D1 FCS teams) as an independent. If BYU was smart they would be in serious talks with the B12 as well.

[Viking]

Is there a school in this entire country in which you don't have an 'insider'?

The nature of my biz means I get to know a lot of university people.

That said I know hardly anyone outside Texas and the mega schools and 9 out of ten of those dont have prominent athletics.

[Viking]

Basketball is nice and everything but it's football that pays most of the bills for athletic programs. ND has financial reasons to join the B12 over other conferences like the B1G. For example, owning tier 3 rights and the possibility of having its own network like Texas and OU. Texas with just their 3rd tier rights is getting as much as ND is from their NBC contract. Of course, ND is not joining any conference until all these super conferences are pretty much formed and it becomes harder and harder to schedule games (other than D1 FCS teams) as an independent. If BYU was smart they would be in serious talks with the B12 as well.

ND already has its own network and that deal goes through 2015, I think

ND playing TTU is just a silly thought. Not going to happen

[Uncle Ted]

ND already has its own network and that deal goes through 2015, I think

ND playing TTU is just a silly thought. Not going to happen

Yes and ND gets $15M/yr from its "network" (aka. NBC). UT is getting $17-18M/yr from the Big 12 network contracts plus $15M/yr from the LHN.

As for playing tech I guess you think Navy, air force, etc. are night and day better.

[TripletDaddy]

I thought it was interesting that the prior Notre Dame AD mentioned only one school specifically when discussing schools that ND will want to continue playing in any realignment scenario.