MORGANTOWN — It is a simple matter of math, and in this case, it’s math that doesn’t exactly add up where it concerns Texas leaving the Big 12 for the SEC.
There are certainly a number of other points Texas has given in its reasons for leaving, including future stability, future revenue and, basically, well, a better future.
All of that is fine.
But, when the national talking heads throw up current fiscal numbers as to why this is a great move for the University of Texas, they’re simply not correct.
Truth is, Texas — thanks to the Longhorn Network — has been getting paid better than SEC teams for years.
In terms of 2021 revenue distribution, the Big 12 generated $409.2 million, according to published reports, and handed out $34.5 million to each of its 10 schools.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that figure was down from $37.7 million distributed in 2020.
In either case, yes, the Big 12 total figures were less than what was generated by the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12.
The difference for Texas is the Longhorn Network, which launched in 2011 and reportedly adds another $15 million annually to Texas’ checkbook.
By my calculations, Texas earned $49.5 million in 2021, which is more than any SEC school earned ($45.5 million) through TV money, and the only schools in the country that made more than the Longhorns are from the Big Ten.
In 2020, SEC schools made $44.6 million each through TV money. Texas made $52.7 million.
So, from the standpoint of dollars and cents, tell me again why Texas was so hell-bent on leaving?
Remember 2016?
If you’re a conference commissioner and can swing a deal that is both beneficial to the conference, as well as your TV partners, then you can rest well at night.
That’s exactly what SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey did by reeling in Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12.
What if a conference expansion deal, though, did not please everyone involved?
That was what the Big 12 was on the verge of doing in 2016.
The league put feelers out to different schools and even had 11 official interviews, in which potential members came in and put together presentations on why they should be added to the Big 12’s roster.
The problem was none of those 11 schools were from a Power Five Conference and were considered to be mid-major football schools.
The Big 12’s TV deal with ESPN and Fox in 2016 had a pro rata clause that would have added an additional $25 million to the league for each school it added. Except, ESPN and Fox didn’t feel like shelling out an extra $50 or $75 million for the rights to televise BYU, Houston and Cincinnati, and made their opinions on that subject very clear.
In the end, Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby and the schools’ presidents didn’t want to anger their TV partners and voted against expansion.
Fast forward to 2021, when Bowlsby is now sending cease-and-desist letters to ESPN, accusing it of conspiring against the Big 12 to help the SEC add Texas and Oklahoma.
Is it a commissioner’s job to do what’s best for his league or what’s best for the TV guys?
By not ticking off ESPN and Fox in 2016, how has that really paid off for the Big 12 in 2021?
Not very well at all, and it seems ESPN didn’t even blink in worrying about ticking off the Big 12.
Hindsight is always 20/20, sure, but I’d rather have the extra cash in hand, as well as the extra schools, and then sign off down the road with a TV partner that isn’t ticked off at you.
Those new additions, with the recruiting advantage of being in a Power Five league, could have blossomed into much better programs over the last five years.
You’d also be on some better footing when Texas and Oklahoma left, and you had to have at least some idea they were itching to go ever since they almost joined the Pac-10 in 2010.
Again, it’s all hindsight. We didn’t know just how popular online streaming was going to become. We didn’t know that CBS would lose its deal with the SEC, opening up a potential TV partner.
All we knew is that the Big 12 didn’t want to mess with ESPN and Fox, and, well, that hasn’t exactly worked out.
Moving forward
A Big 12 scheduling alliance with the Pac-12 makes sense, but not for West Virginia.
The Mountaineers are situated more than 1,400 miles to the closest Pac-12 school (Colorado).
WVU men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins is already not a fan of getting back to Morgantown at 4 a.m. from a weekday road game at Texas Tech. Imagine adding a few more hours to that in returning from Seattle.
If WVU athletic director Shane Lyons gets the Mountaineers into the ACC, give that man a lifetime contract.
There is no guarantee the ACC wants WVU, and if it happened, the earliest it would be announced is 2023, probably later.
If not the ACC, then WVU has to really look at the pros and cons of the big-fish-in-the-small-pond theory. More to the point, could WVU survive as a member of the American Athletic Conference?
Would it thrive financially? No, but survival is a heck of a lot better than the alternative.
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