We Get Out of Our Box to Check the ACC, Conference Realignment, and Yormark Targets
STILLWATER – It’s got to be fun for people like Dr. Kasey Shrum at Oklahoma State, Dr. Linda Livingstone at Baylor, and Dr. Gordon Gee at West Virginia University along with all of the other University CEOs in the Big 12 and the conference commissioner Brett Yormark to see other leagues dealing with uncertainty and internal division. It’s not the Big 12.
“I don’t think there is a better time to be a part of the Big 12 Conference,” Oklahoma State’s athletic director Chad Weiberg told me on Monday at the Cowboys vs. Cancer Golf Tournament where over $173,000 was raised for the fight and activities that OSU athletics sponsors for primarily pediatric cancer fighters.
“I think for a long time this conference has had to deal with the issues that were there from the very beginning and the way it was set up,” Weiberg continued. “I’m not trying to lay any blame, but there were problems from those issues. We didn’t always have great alingment and I don’t think we have ever been better aligned as a conference than we are right now.”
Okay, 12 out of 14 of the schools. I would still consider Oklahoma and Texas definitely out of joint as they finish their penultimate school year in the Big 12 before moving to the SEC. Ironically. it has usually been Oklahoma and, most often, Texas that has caused devisive feelings in the conference.
Look around the landscape of Power Five college athletics and the SEC and Big Ten are each projected to pull in roughly $61 million for each school when annual revenue distribution is announced next month.
The Big 12 will conclude their spring board of director’s meeting on June 2 and Yormark will meet with the media and he is projected to announce revenue of $44.3 million for each member. Projections are for the ACC schools to each receive $42.1 million and the Pac-12 schools each get a check for $37.5 million.
There is the problem. The ACC is wrapping up meetings in Amelia Island, Fla. today (May 17) and there are all kinds of problems. The biggest is all other conferences except the Pac-12 (still negotiating) have new media (television) rights agreements kicking in next year. The SEC and Big Ten will soon be approaching annual distribution of near, possibly over $100 million per year.
The Big 12 has a deal that will push it’s annual distribution to over $55 million with a commissioner that is exploring all options to push that revenue higher.
The ACC is stuck with a deal hammered out in 2016 and one that will extend to 2036 and not come anywhere close to the other conferences.
Clemson and Florida State, with the traditional better football programs in the conference, are squawking anf they aren’t alone. Florida State athletic director Michael Alford has been very outspoken. The Seminoles just got their program back above .500. Seven schools; those two plus North Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Miami, and North Carolina State; have been talking about alternatives ranging from an uneven revenue distribution based on football success to pursuing a way to get out of the grant of rights that each school signed and even forge their own conference. More than likely if Clemson and Florida State got out, they would be pursued by the SEC and if not, Yormark would put on a push to add them to the Big 12.
"We're all in this together,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips told the media at the end of the conference meetings. “We believe in the ACC and we want to continue to work together."
Phillips said his school presidents told him this, but he understands the severity of the situation.
"These are schools that are under a lot of stress and a lot of pressures and, and I understand that," Phillips said. "The reality is our conference is third in the country in distribution, and as we look at the projections, at least in this decade, we're going to continue to be there. Now, we want to close the gap. We need to close the gap between the top two conferences that have started to run away from us."
Phillips first needs to face facts and reality. The ACC will be fourth in revenue distribution this school year. They could be fifth in the future because their situation is locked in and we don’t know about the Pac-12. Admittedly, it doesn’t look good for the West with USC and UCLA going to the Big Ten after next season.
The Big 12 can also let Phillips know, and he does already, that uneven distribution is bad for solidarity and conference alignment. It didn’t work in the Big 12 as that was part of what Chad Weiberg was referring to. That ended about a decade ago, but it left the teams that were making more in OU and Texas looking and they decided on the SEC.
There is still the grant of rights, but is it good to keep schools in a conference against their wishes? It appears to be legal, maybe iron-clad legal. It doesn’t promote harmony and a positive environment.
As mentioned, if the ACC came apart, Yormark, who is always moving forward and aggressive, would be ready to pounce.
“Commissioner Yormark is doing a great job of bringing all kinds of things to the table for us to consider and that is true with possible expansion,” Weiberg said. “What the Big 12 is positioned for is opportunity and if that comes up then we can take advantage. It is something, like I said, the Big 12 hasn’t been in position to do in the past.”
Yormark went on record earlier this spring as stay proactive with expansion. It’s made the feeling between the Big 12 and the Pac-12 chippy.
“It’s gotta be additive ... but we are focused on it, and we’re exploring every and all possibility,” Yormark said and it is believed he has already discussed schools like Arizona and Colorado, who are said to be listening and attentive. Yormark has also shown heavy interest in NCAA basketball champion UConn and Memphis back the other direction. Yormark has pride in the Big 12 basketball dominance and feels that whille football is the big financial engine that he can monetize the Big 12 as the best basketball conference in college athletics.
“I say that while also saying that I love the composition, the makeup of this conference going forward.
“I love the four new schools that are coming in in July, the continuing eight,” Yormark continued. “I think we’re in a great place, but if there’s a chance to get better, it’s incumbent on me as the commissioner to explore those possibilities, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“That is exciting to be part of,” Weiberg said. “When you have alignment that allows you to go do things and be creative, be aggressive. Those are things the Big 12 has never been able to do before and they are things we are certainly doing now.”
Who knows? By the end of summer, Yormark could have as many as six new schools either set to join or considering to join the Big 12. The number of 20 teams in a conference has come up with Yormark before.
Oklahoma State head football coach Mike Gundy told us in past years the commissioner and league officials might have spent 20-to-30 minutes in the head coach meeting. Gundy said Yormark was there all five hours.
“I know he was engaged and when he had something to say, he stood up and said it. I know I just said, ‘Yes sir.’”
The former marching band member and marketing whiz for sports from NASCAR to the NBA is full of energy. He doesn’t stand still and for commissioners like Jim Phillips and George Kliavkoff, you’d best hold on to your schools or you may find them over in Yormark’s conference.