At long last, Big 12 finds ‘strength in numbers’ (and more) in conference realignment
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark made it abundantly clear that he wanted his conference to act quickly and add new members with longtime powers Oklahoma and Texas leaving for the SEC at the conclusion of this athletic year.
A league made up of a dozen teams would be fine, but 14 or 16 (or even more) would be better. He said this on the record and loudly shared his conference expansion hopes with anyone who would listen.
Why?
“There are strength in numbers,” Yormark said last month at Big 12 media days.
Well, Yormark got his wish. The Big 12 is about to become bigger (and arguably stronger) than it ever has before, dating all the way back to when the Big Eight merged with the Southwest Conference and created this league in the middle of the country in 1996.
The Big 12 took a long, meandering and unpredictable path to this point. Many assumed the league was on life support at various times over the past dozen years when it lost Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M to other conferences. But the Big 12 found a way to survive. Now it is in position to potentially thrive thanks to the latest rounds of conference realignment.
Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah have all decided to leave the Pac-12 at the conclusion of this season and join the Big 12 in 2024. BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF are already in the fold as new members.
Add them on to the Big 12’s O.G. group of members (Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, K-State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech) and its two other most recent additions (TCU, West Virginia) and you’re looking at a 16-team conference that spans all the way from Orlando to Phoenix.
Fans will be watching Big 12 games all day long on fall Saturdays, practically from coast to coast.
Big 12 football should give us plenty of fun, wide-open races to the championship game. At least until a new dominant team or two emerge from the pack. It will be fun to see what Houston, UCF and Utah can become in new conferences. It will be fascinating to see if K-State, Oklahoma State or TCU can carry the Big 12 flag the way Oklahoma and Texas used to.
Big 12 basketball figures to be even stronger than it already was. The conference that has won two of the past three national championships, thanks to Baylor and Kansas, will now also feature Arizona and Houston. Some new basketball rivalries are about to become must-see TV.
Even if you think the Big 12 was stronger with teams like Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas at the top of the league football standings, a sense of calm has finally arrived. Has that ever been the case before?
If nothing else, the Big 12 has never enjoyed more stability.
“The addition of Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah as members of the Big 12 Conference further solidifies our league as one of the strongest in the country,” K-State athletics director Gene Taylor said in a statement. “These four institutions provide significant brand value and a history of strong athletic and academic achievement.”
“The future is remarkably bright,” added KU athletics director Travis Goff.
The Big 12 is still chasing the Big Ten and the SEC in terms of television revenue. That will probably always be the case unless further expansion occurs or something unforeseen happens in the media rights space. But the Big 12 is well-positioned to become the nation’s premier conference behind those big two.
It might already be there, as the ACC is dealing with its own (Florida State) problems at the moment.
“We are in one of the top three conferences in the country,” K-State men’s basketball coach Jerome Tang said on Friday.
No one strives to win a bronze medal at the Olympics, but it’s a nice achievement for a conference that was left for dead the last time a bunch of teams decided to switch leagues. At long last, the Big 12 has benefited from conference realignment.