[College Football] Big Ten, Texas have initial talks

One of the comments was that Texas currents gets about 12mil a year from TV contracts. Every Big10 school gets 22mil. That alone would offset the travel cost and then some.

I'm also no fan of playing in 20 degree weather in snow, but I can't help but be intrigued at the possibility. If Texas were to join the Big10, the schedule would probably look something like this:

5 divisional games
2 big-12 games (OU, A&M)
3 cross-division games
1 cupcake season opener
1 marquee OOC matchup

Sign me up :grin:

 

This would really put Texas SOS over the top and will only help I believe. This would also even more impact the recruiting and give Texas a bigger advantage in Texas. Who would now want to play in a Big12 with no Texas. The kids who were borderline between Texas and OU/or some other school will lean more towards Texas considering that Big12 will be a much worse conference than the Big10.

This move is the best thing for Texas itself. It will be in the best interest of Texas, OU, and A&M to continue their games yearly.

As far as the throwing the conference under the bus, who cares. Texas should do what is best for them, not what is best for bunch of schools who were probably rooting for them to lose in the National Championship game this year.

 

This is most definitely a power-play on the part of the Longhorns. They, and everyone else, knows that the Big XII is at their mercy, and if they were to leave, it would basically leave a giant black hole in the Big XII's pockets. The Big XII will do whatever it takes to keep Texas in the conference. At the end of the day, I still think Notre Dame will end up joining the Big 10.....it just makes too much sense.

 

You could Pencil in Texas as the Big 10 Champion for a minute

Rocket River

 

Posturing.

 

Whatever happens, either joining Big 10(11) or staying in Big XII and having them step up tv contracts or whatever, Texas wins.

Hook 'em Horns. Get money, get paid.

 

Why not? Texas was looking at the Pac10 back in the late 1980's / early 1990's when they wanted out of the SWC. If Mizzou gets pulled into the B10 or Colorado gets into the Pac10, the whole B12 is on the verge of collapse. It's in Texas' interest, academically, athletically, and financially to make a move to either the P10 or the B10. The main thing standing in Texas' way is the politics of it, and possibly having to drag A&M along whereever it goes.

Here's is a great article on the whole thing from a "why they'd do it" standpoint - it makes a pretty interesting case. I won't post the article itself because it's ridiculously long, but skip down to the Texas part:

http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2...-expansion-index-a-different-shade-of-orange/

Here's a followup:

http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2...oast-family-and-fallout-in-other-conferences/

 

On further thought, here's the Texas part of that first article:


TEXAS
Academics: 25
TV Value: 25
Football Brand Value: 30
Basketball Brand Value: 10
Historic Rivalries/Cultural Fit: 3
Mutual Interest: 3
Total: 96
Overview: You’re not seeing a misprint – the University of Texas-Austin is the single best possible addition for the Big Ten and the Longhorns are a whole lot more open to it than what the public seems to realize. The average sports fan that has been raised to view college conferences in a regional geographic context probably believes the notion of Texas going to the Big Ten is weird, crazy, upsetting and will never happen. However, as I stated under the Notre Dame overview, the college sports landscape has completely changed from a decade ago where national TV contracts and cable channel distribution now rule the day.

Putting aside any geographic concerns for the moment, Texas is a perfect fit in almost every possible way from the Big Ten’s perspective. The academics are top notch where Texas is one of the nation’s top 15 public universities in the latest U.S. News rankings and its graduate programs are right alongside Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin as among the elite for public flagships. The football program in Austin was just ranked as the most valuable in all of college football by Forbes magazine (#2 is… Notre Dame) and, unlike Nebraska, the Texas basketball program is playing at an elite level, as well. As I’m writing this blog post, both the Texas football and basketball teams are ranked #2 in the country. At the non-revenue sport level, Texas would completely put Big Ten baseball back on the map. Finally, the value of the Big Ten’s traditional TV deals and Big Ten Network revenue would skyrocket with the addition of the #5 (Dallas-Fort Worth) and #10 (Houston) TV markets in the nation plus the entire state of Texas (the country’s 2nd most populous after California). While it’s questionable whether Syracuse or Rutgers could really break the Big Ten into the New York area, there’s absolutely no doubt that Texas would deliver the Big Ten Network to every single cable household in the Lone Star State. The market impact is incredible – the Big Ten, which already has the largest population base of any conference, would further increase such base by over 1/3 with Texas to over 90 million people. When you start thinking about Texas as a possible Big Ten candidate, the thought of inviting Missouri, Syracuse or Rutgers feels like a inconsequential move.

It’s clear why the Big Ten would want Texas. So, why on Earth would Texas want to join the Big Ten? Well, the financial implications are massive. As I stated earlier, the Big Ten receives $242 million per year in TV revenue to split evenly among its 11 members, which comes out to $22 million per year for every single school. In contrast, the Big 12 receives $78 million per year in TV revenue that is split unevenly among its 12 members based on national TV appearances. That comes out to $6.5 million per year for the average Big 12 school. Even Texas, which is a beneficiary of the Big 12’s unequal revenue distribution model since it receives a large number of TV appearances, received only about $12 million in TV revenue last season according the interview with Missouri’s AD that I linked to earlier. In other words, every single Big Ten school makes $10 million per year more than Texas does on TV revenue whether such school is on ABC 12 times or the Big Ten Network 12 times. Remember that the $10 million difference is more than what Notre Dame receives from its vaunted NBC contract. If Texas were to simply bring enough to the Big Ten to maintain the status quo of per school revenue, that would be an 83% jump in TV revenue for the Longhorns immediately off the bat. Considering that the addition of Lone Star households to the Big Ten Network’s distribution would yield an even greater increase in revenue, Texas would easily see in excess of a two-fold increase and maybe even close to a three-fold increase in TV revenue whether it wins or loses.

The average sports fan will look at those numbers and retort, “It’s not all about the money. It’s about rivalries and the passion.” That’s a fair enough point. However, consider that Texas has only been in the Big 12 for 15 years, compared to the original Big 8 members like Nebraska and Oklahoma that have been together for nearly a century. Texas cares about playing Oklahoma (which was a non-conference rivalry for decades up until the formation of the Big 12 in 1994) and Texas A&M. After those two schools, the general consensus among Texas fans is that they could care less about Texas Tech, Baylor and virtually everyone from the Big 12 North (who are all old Big 8 members). Similar to how most of the schools in the East (particularly Big East schools) consider Penn State to be a rival yet the Nittany Lions don’t reciprocate that feeling, all of the Southwestern schools think of Texas as their main rival while the Longhorns simply don’t care about them. Also note that outside of the states of Texas and Colorado, the Big 12 is a decidedly Midwestern conference, only those Midwestern states pale in population size compared to the Big Ten’s Midwestern base. What this means is that the Texas ties to the Big 12 are fairly loose and not ironclad at all in terms of history while the geographic factor really isn’t that important considering how many Big 12 schools are in the Midwest. If Texas maintains its rivalries with Oklahoma and Texas A&M in the non-conference schedule, the Longhorns keep their two most important regional rivalries alive while opening themselves up to the entire nation during the conference schedule.

Speaking in terms that the average sports fan in Texas ought to understand, think of the Dallas Cowboys. When the NFL realigned its divisions in the 1990s, it strongly considered moving the Cowboys to the NFC West. It made geographic sense and, at the time, the Cowboys were in the middle of its run of great games against the San Francisco 49ers, so there was some emotional juice that could’ve been taken to a higher level with those teams in the same division. However, Jerry Jones completely insisted that the Cowboys stay in the geographically-challenged NFC East. Why? Because the Cowboys wouldn’t be able to continue being “America’s Team” by playing teams in the South and West Coast. In order to obtain a national fan base, you need to play in the major markets in the East. If Texas were to move to the Big Ten, it would break out from being a school with a strong regional fan base into one that could be the equivalent of the NFL Cowboys with a national fan base by playing in a disproportionate share of the largest markets in the country located East of the Mississippi River.

Academics are also an extremely important selling point for Texas. The issue with the academic standards in the Big 12 is that there are no academic standards in the Big 12. Texas is the highest ranked Big 12 school in the U.S. News rankings tied at #47 (the Big Ten schools ahead or tied are #12 Northwestern, #27 Michigan, #39 Illinois, #39 Wisconsin and #47 Penn State) while every single other school in the Big 12 except for #61 Texas A&M is ranked lower than every other Big Ten school (the lowest ranked are Indiana, Michigan State and Iowa tied at #71). No one else in the Big 12 comes even close to the academic research abilities of Texas. The potential entry of Texas into the Big Ten would include membership in the CIC, which opens up a whole new level of academic research opportunities for the school that simply doesn’t exist in the Big 12. The first general rule that I mentioned about discussing Big Ten expansion was that people need to think like a university president as opposed to a sports fan. If moving to another conference would (1) make more money for the athletic department AND (2) improve the academic standing of the university, you’ve made quite a powerful argument to the Texas university president.

Finally, there’s a CYA aspect to all of this for Texas. Please take a look at this discussion about expansion options on Barking Carnival, which is my favorite Texas blog. I was shocked to find very few “BIG TEN FOOTBALL SUX”-type comments and instead saw a whole lot of consternation about the long-term viability of the Big 12 overall. Here’s something that I didn’t think about before: if Missouri were to hypothetically leave the Big 12 for the Big Ten, then the Big 12 could end up imploding (i.e. Colorado would bolt for the Pac-10) or at least be severely weakened. The reason is the subpar Big 12 TV contract that I mentioned earlier. St. Louis and Kansas City are decent markets and Missouri is a decent state for a conference like the Big Ten, but none of them have much of an impact when the conference already has Chicago, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and the entire states of Ohio and Michigan. In contrast, St. Louis and Kansas City are respectively the 4th and 5th largest markets for the Big 12 (and more importantly, respectively the 2nd and 3rd largest markets outside of Texas) and Missouri is by far the largest state in the conference other than Texas. Therefore, the loss of Missouri would cause the currently bad Big 12 TV contract to get even worse since no possible replacement school from, say, the Mountain West (i.e. BYU, Utah, etc.) would come close to replacing those markets and households. In turn, all of the Big 12 schools might be sent scrambling for new homes. While that might be a doomsday scenario, Mizzou leaving for the Big Ten would severely damage the Big 12 at the very least.

So, if all of the Big 12 schools could be theoretically up for grabs, why the heck would the Big Ten go after a minnow (Missouri) when it could get a whale (Texas) instead? Why the heck would the Big Ten take Missouri or even Nebraska and let Texas possibly walk off to the much less financially powerful Pac-10? Why the heck would Texas just let a middle tier school like Missouri leaving for another conference put its future in limbo? Simply put, if a decent-but-not-great school like Missouri leaving could have that much of a potential impact on the Big 12, then that’s clearly evidence that the conference is unstable and maybe a powerhouse school like Texas will understand that it needs to start evaluating more stable options (if it hasn’t already). This presents a monster opportunity for the Big Ten to swoop in and solidify its place as the nation’s most powerful sports conference.

Sports-wise, the Big Ten has a reputation of being staid and conservative. In terms of overall conference management, however, the Big Ten is quite forward looking and thinks outside of the box. It’s easy to say that the Big Ten Network is an obvious cash cow for the conference as of today, but at the time of its formation, it was a massive risk considering that it could’ve easily taken a massive traditional rights deal from ESPN in the same manner as the SEC without the pain of a year of fighting for basic cable distribution in the Midwest and Pennsylvania. It now looks like the Big Ten is going to benefit from that risk. Similarly, I’m convinced that the Big Ten isn’t going to make a “meh” move simply to get to the 12 teams needed to stage a football conference championship game. The new school has to be strong enough where if Notre Dame all of the sudden decides that it wants to join a conference in 10 or 20 years, the Big Ten can comfortably say “No” and not have buyer’s remorse about the 12th member that it added. I don’t think that Missouri, Syracuse or Rutgers would come close to meeting that standard, but Texas hits the mark and even more. Therefore, there’s one task for the Big Ten over the next year or so:

Hook ‘em.

 

UT and OU have only been in the same conference for a few years. Losing Missou and picking up another texas team (let alone 2) would be extreme overkill and really weaken the conference.

Who cares? What loyalties do SMU, TCU and Houston have to Texas? What did they do that was so great for Texas? They are seperate schools, why should they look out for one another? The move to the Big 12 was a great move for Texas.

 

If this happens, can we say once and for all that Texas > A&M? I really don't mind this at all. I think Texas has a crapload in common with the Big 10 and PAC 10, the only two conferences with schools that parlayed their size and athletic prowess into academic and institutional semi-respectability.

But god, you play in the Big 10 in a good year, when Ohio State, Michigan and a Paterno-free Penn State are all in their stride, I dunno Texas. I think we Southerners are a little shortsighted about Pennsylvania and Ohio's recruiting value.

 

But Texas would never have to compete with those teams over recruits. They would essentially own every big name recruit in the state since the big 12 would totally go into the crapper.

 

It's okay; we're already stealing their recruits

http://www.burntorangenation.com/2010/2/2/1284184/recruiting-spotlight-jordan-hicks

 

Texas will kick some Big10 ass then no biggie, OSU's joke of an offense wont match up to our defense or offense.

 

I could not agree more. This would be awesome.

 

Except for A&M, which is known as a strong research institution.

We are going to judge a college academically based on where they play football? Whatever dude.

 

Why should Texas let Tech and Baylor leech off them, and most of the Big 12 for that matter. What do we get from our northern state neighbors in the Big 12, or from Waco or Lubbuck, pretty much nothing.

UT should go to the Pac 10 (my 1st choice, best combination of direct flights, academics, athletic programs match with UT, and nice weather/destination cities), Big 10/11 or the SEC. Huge TV markets, recruiting markets and lots of marquee programs/schools to play.
(If we go the Pac 10 they have to agree to earlier night start times though, say 6:00 PM PST, same as MNF, which would probably help them get a killer TV deal anyway)

OU and A&M are good candidates also in terms of academics, athletic revenue, school size, alums, market--I think probably distant #2 & #3 in the Big 12 (you could make an argument for Mizzou in the ballpark of those two). I am OK with one or both moving with Texas--the other can have a non-conference regular match up the way the big Florida/Georgia/S. Carolina schools in different conferences do. Politically I think we need to keep the Aggies (in conference or assured of continued play), and OU in football at least is too special of a rivalry to give up. If they had to make up 2 of 4 non-conference football games, fine too. SC in the Pac 10 always has ND + usually a good power conference team--we can do the same.

To end, there is next to no reason Waco, Manhatten, Stillwater, Lubbuck, Ames, Lawrence (football), Lincoln (BB) should be places Texas has to go play at. Beating them doesn't do much good, while those teams salvage a season with a good day against us--it is a bad deal for the Longhorns. Doesn't help recruiting, markets, revenue or even make you particularly satisfied when you beat them, while they fight like real Spartans to beat the Longhorns (and not the Michigan kind) .

 

Nope, that's not what I did at all. Main topic was football so "Texas > A&M" was really meant to describe their sports programs. That Texas actually is a better school academically by a country hectare is a long, one-sided discussion for another time.

 

Yeah, but what I meant to infer was that the Big 10 powers have an equally robust talent pool from the upper Midwest and Northeast (where else would they play?) that would make their programs perenially deeper and harder to compete with than Ok. State, Nebraska or Baylor.

 

Here is some stuff from some place:

Can't disclose where its from, fellow Aggies would Gig me.

 

UT and USC playing every year. that sounds fun