Gonzaga? Yes and Possibly Even More to Come in the Big 12

how could that possibly be a good thing?

We can't finish in the top half of the conference as it is, but more importantly what are the financial implications?

or worse, the scheduling effects? We're already expanding to 14 teams, how could 15 or 16 be better unless we split in to divisions and eliminate the conference tournament?

What if any positive spins do you folks see? I can't name one at this initial reaction.

How would you distribute the money with a school that doesn't participate in any other sport in the conference except for basketball! Also, it appears all their other sports would remain competing in the WCC???

Augmenting the Big 12's football position by creating and marketing the country's best basketball conference has to be a plus to the Big 12's overall revenue position. It would be more difficult for OSU to compete at the top level in conference basketball, but why would we shy away from raising the bar?. Football will always be the tv revenue king, but that doesn't mean we can't improve our conference's media value by improving basketball. Gonzaga would undoubtedly improve the value of Big 12 basketball. I think it's a clever strategy. We're not going to become the SEC or Big Ten in football revenue, but we do have a shot at creating the highest value basketball conference which could help close the gap in overall sports revenue.

They get paid based on what the conference gets for their basketball games. The added inventory would generate the funding, and they'd bring NCAA tournament money with them. Estimates are about 25% of the TV money so $7.5M.

I would think the TV partners are willing to pay for this also so they'd probably just bump the contract. Pro-rata is for teams they've pre-approved, but they can agree to include teams they approve at any point in the contract. They were aware of these talks, and it probably fueled FOX' desire to get the Basketball games.

Yormark has good relations with the TV people and knows what they'd pay for and what they won't.

I haven't been a fan of basketball only adds, but if Yormark has a plan to make it generate more money for the conference then I'm god with it.

NJAggie said:

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and they'd bring NCAA tournament money with them.

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no, probably not, most likely they would just take up one of the existing B12 slots (7 teams), and someone else from the B12 would be left at home (like maybe OSU)

Based on the last two weekends, any chance we could play them in Football?