Big 12/Bowlsby Issue Statement, but Those Statements Are Becoming Hollow

STILLWATER – Roughly three hours after Oklahoma and Texas made it official that they intend to depart from the Big 12 Conference by taking the first step of announcing that they would not extend their grant of rights to television revenue to the Big 12, the Big 12 Conference office responded with a statement. The move by OU and UT was symbolic of saying we are leaving. The statement from the Big 12 and commissioner Bob Bowlsby was a response. That has been the habit too much for Bowlsby and the Big 12 to react and not be proactive and it looks like it is going to cost all 12 schools a conference home. 

“Although our eight members are disappointed with the decisions of these two institutions, we recognize that intercollegiate athletics is experiencing rapid change and will most likely look much different in 2025 than it does currently,” stated Commissioner Bob Bowlsby.  “The Big 12 Conference will continue to support our member institutions’ efforts to graduate student-athletes, and compete for Big 12 and NCAA championships.   Like many others, we will use the next four years to fully assess what the landscape will look like in 2025 and beyond.  The remaining eight institutions will work together in a collaborative manner to thoughtfully and strategically position the Big 12 Conference for continued success, both athletically and academically, long into the future.”

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It looks lke Bowlsby is losing his conference.i

Bowlsby has been in the business for a long time as a student-athlete, administrator, athletic director at several schools, and then as commissioner of the Big 12. He realizes that with the actions of Oklahoma and Texas all of the other schools are also looking out on the conference landscape for their future home and with the future at stake they can’t afford to wait around for whatever band-aid Bowlsby can come up with for the Big 12.

Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey might have issued a warning shot in his “State of the SEC” address which opened the SEC Football Media Days in Hoover, Ala. last week. Read this line from his address and see if you don’t agree he was signaling that the SEC is going to carve out its own future with no regard for the other conferences. 

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Sankey making his address at the SEC Media Days. He knew OU and Texas were coming his way.

“We have to move forward and produce legally defensible, relevant, results and regulations,” Sankey said seemingly recognizing that the NCAA and maybe even a compact number of like conferences can’t govern college athletics. “We must recognize the expectations, demands, and pressures that are present on the campuses of this conference are not uniform across all of Division I and expectation every conference to come together to debate and discuss and produce effective decisions for everyone is not our modern reality. We must begin to adapt.” 

This is a statement that comes from a man that has his eye on pushing his conference to the front and not waiting for circumstances to dictate to the SEC and its membership what is going to happen.

It’s time in the Big 12 to adopt that attitude. The attitude shown by the commissioner of the conference that is for all reality is helping to close down the Big 12.