Editor’s Note: With all the rumblings of re-alignment going on with the Big 12 and Pac-12 recently, we felt it was appropriate to re-release this article and change its status from premium to free. It’s also been reported the Colorado University Board of Regents has scheduled an emergency meeting for Wednesday and that Pac-12 status is on the agenda. (Originally released February 25.)
STILLWATER – The Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark spent Valentine’s Day not with his lovely wife, Elaina Scotto, but in Stillwater, OK, watching Oklahoma State battle Kansas inside Gallagher-Iba Arena. He spent a little over an hour before hand addressing Oklahoma State student-athletes across the board in the “O” Club on the concourse level of GIA.
I wasn’t privy to that meeting, nor the time he spent with Oklahoma State University President Dr. Kayse Shrum, or with athletic director Chad Weiberg, or with head football coach Mike Gundy. All I know is everyone from the Shrums to Weiberg to Gundy to the athletes was impressed. Yormark is confident, almost to the point of absolute certainty when he speaks.
He always has a plan. This is not a man that flies by the seat of his pants. He has a plan now; and through conversations, observation, study and nearly 40-years of learning about the college athletic industry, as well as television from the close to 20-years in that business and plenty of freelancing since has given me the confidence to put together a good hypothesis.
In the end, Yormark is going to help the Big 12 and the sport of football by magnifying the second sport of basketball.
Yormark has a plan. Last week, Florida State University athletic director Michael Alford told his school’s Board of Trustees that something had to change fast or FSU and every other Power Five school not in the SEC or Big Ten was in competitive and business trouble. Alford was referring to the expected payouts from the SEC and Big Ten to their schools estimated at near $100 million annually.
"Something has to change because we cannot compete nationally being $30 million behind every year," Alford said later to ESPN. "It's not one year. We're talking about $30 million compounded year after year."
Of course, with the SEC it is ESPN that is making those huge shares possible with the television contract that starts in the 2024-25 academic and athletic calendar.
The Big 12 is in better shape than the ACC, which signed a bad television deal with, yes, ESPN, and it goes through the year 2036. The Big 12 and Yormark garnered a better deal with ESPN and FOX Sports with a $2 billion six-year extension of their deal that goes through 2030-31.
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The new schools have good brands, especially BYU.
It is that target that I feel Yormark is working toward now. The recent finality of getting Texas and Oklahoma out of the Big 12 and on to the SEC after this upcoming academic and athletic year helps. BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati, and Houston come in this year, so the college athletics community can now see exactly what that looks like.
You can look up on YouTube and on the internet and watch any various podcast or videos with crazy screaming and yelling guys talking about all forms of conference realignment and latest rumor heard in the bleachers from Stillwater to Morgantown to Lubbock. Forget all that.
Yormark is not a screamer. Like we said, he is a planner and a thinker. If you pay attention, then his plan becomes very clear. The man fully understands that football is the king. The television numbers make that clear. Yormark can’t do anything about losing Texas and Oklahoma, two monster football brands. He can do everything in his power to build up his remaining brands.
Oklahoma State is steady, TCU is surging, Kansas State is steady, Texas Tech is surging, and the newcomers like Cincinnati, and Central Florida have lots of potential. BYU is a national and iconic brand. There is lots to work with.
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Mike Gundy (right) has confirmed that Yormark knows how important football is. He also knows he can build up basketball.
Deep down, Yormark is a basketball guy. He’s shown with his NACAR and ROC Nation experience that he can build up and market about anything, but he’s had the most career practice with basketball.
Up until now conferences have negotiated their multi-media rights all together. Networks and outside media companies bid on the conference as a whole. You get football and basketball, but you also have to work with women’s basketball, baseball, softball, soccer, track and field, swimming and diving, and all of the sports.
Watching Yormark, I believe he hopes to change that by the time the upcoming Big 12 extension with ESPN and FOX Sports ends in 2030-31.
Yormark pledged expansion when he was in Stillwater and this man doesn’t pledge unless he is certain of the outcome. We know that Yormark has shown he wanted into three expansive situations.
1. He wants schools to created Pacific time zone football options for the future (Big 12 after dark).
2. He wants more basketball, perhaps powerhouse Gonzaga as a basketball-only member.
3. He wants to East Coast basketball influence for the Big 12.
Yormark has talked about the Big 12 rebranding and being a coast-to-coast conference. The Pac-12 media rights negotiations have been somewhat of a disaster and Yormark helped by jumping the Pac-12 with the major sports dedicated networks and getting the Big 12 deal done ahead of the Pac-12.
He has his eyes on Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Arizona State but Oregon and Washington aren’t off the table until something happens with the Ducks and the Huskies.
I believe Yormark with get his west coast additions to create 9 p.m. (Central) inventory of football Saturdays. If you get Arizona with their basketball, then that is a plus.
I think Gonzaga will come into the Big 12 as a basketball only member. They would only share in basketball revenue but that would be so much more than anything they have collected through the West Coast Conference.
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Yormark knows the Big 12 is the best league for hoops. How much more money is there if you make it better.
I believe Yormark will add an odd number of East Coast basketball schools as basketball-only members. This could be one school to go with current eastern time zone schools West Virginia, Cincinnati and Central Florida, or it could be three schools. Add the odd number to Gonzaga and the existing Big 12 and you have either an 18-or-20-team basketball conference.
Now, the real innovation from Yormark is his negotiating strategy for the future. He will bid the Big 12 television/multimedia rights out separately, football in one negotiation and basketball in the other. I could see the other sports being tied into those sports. The one sport, even with Oklahoma leaving that might be a potential money enticer vs. lump in would be softball. ESPN has discovered how attractive it is becoming. Oklahoma State and Baylor are still strong, especially Oklahoma State.
In the end, two negotiations: football bigger, but the best basketball conference in the Power Five not on steroids with Houston, Gonzaga, and more could make more money bid out on its own merits.
I could be wrong on all of this. There is a certain amount of guessing to my hypothesis, but I feel like this is on track.
