KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The evidence is mounting. The signs are there for the Big 12. The conference has to do something to address its future.
While there remains a slow, deliberate pace among Big 12 members considering expansion and/or a conference championship game, the league's clock is ticking.
“The last time they went through this [expansion] admittedly it was a fire drill,” commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. “They were down to eight members and they were scrambling. But it wasn't a very thorough process.”
This will be. No more knee-jerk West Virginia expansion when, in hindsight, Louisville would have been the better choice.
Meanwhile, no school is leaving. Not in the near future. It's more about shoring up a future that, without some kind of change, looks uncertain. This is about the Big 12 continuing to exist into a distant future.
Bowlsby summed it up this way when asked the financial gap between his league and the SEC, a number that currently stands at about $9 million per year in rights fee revenue.
“If we do nothing, 12 years from now, we'll be $20 million per school behind the SEC and the Big Ten,” he said.
Sure, that sounds crass, but the bottom line is the bottom line.
“Success isn't all tied to the money, but it certainly isn't unrelated,” Bowlsby added.
During the week of its signature event -- the Big 12 basketball tournament begins Wednesday -- the conference still has just about everyone in college athletics a bit on edge.
Expansion could cause a mini-domino effect among Group of Five schools. Right fees envy has Bowlsby's peers watching closely.
As the week began, CBS Sports sat down with the commissioner to discuss the state of his league and others across the country.
The Big 12 is sitting on a potential pot of (inventory) gold: About $75 million worth. The number equates the market value of 70 football and basketball games owned by conference schools outside of the current media rights deals. There are 10 football games -- one per school each season -- worth about $4 million each. Even though we're talking mostly body-bag non-conference games, that's $40 million to be sold to a potential network partner.
There's another 60 basketball games controlled by the schools worth about $35 million. Those games are usually shown on pay-per-view or local/regional cable systems. A network partner would have to buy up that inventory. Programming is anchored around football and men's basketball.
The addition of two more teams in expansion adds to that inventory. Meanwhile, Fox and ESPN reportedly continue struggling financially. “They [rightsholders in general] don't have any choice but to continue to buy content,” Bowlsby said.
Texas' pride: If eventually there is a Big 12 Network, it's clear Texas' collective ego will have to be soothed. It sort of has look like was their idea to fold the struggling Longhorn Network into a conference-wide network.
LHN, to this point, has been a financial failure, losing a total of $48 million, according to the San Antonio Express-News. A source told CBS Sports that the network continues to lose single-digit millions.
Bad for ESPN but not so bad for Texas, which continues to collect on a 20-year deal that pays it an average of $15 million per year. But it's also clear that, until Texas football rebounds, LHN isn't worth much of a watch. A reasonable solution could be Texas being the centerpiece of a Big 12 Network.
“Texas is always going to dominate the content on the network,” an industry source said. “They're good in baseball. They're good in softball. They're good in volleyball. They're good in swimming. They're going to have a lot more presence than other schools just because they're better than other schools most of the time.”
See how the Texas ego begins to be soothed? We're essentially talking LHN branded as the Big 12 Network.
While there remains a slow, deliberate pace among Big 12 members considering expansion and/or a conference championship game, the league's clock is ticking.
“The last time they went through this [expansion] admittedly it was a fire drill,” commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. “They were down to eight members and they were scrambling. But it wasn't a very thorough process.”
This will be. No more knee-jerk West Virginia expansion when, in hindsight, Louisville would have been the better choice.
Meanwhile, no school is leaving. Not in the near future. It's more about shoring up a future that, without some kind of change, looks uncertain. This is about the Big 12 continuing to exist into a distant future.
Bowlsby summed it up this way when asked the financial gap between his league and the SEC, a number that currently stands at about $9 million per year in rights fee revenue.
“If we do nothing, 12 years from now, we'll be $20 million per school behind the SEC and the Big Ten,” he said.
Sure, that sounds crass, but the bottom line is the bottom line.
“Success isn't all tied to the money, but it certainly isn't unrelated,” Bowlsby added.
During the week of its signature event -- the Big 12 basketball tournament begins Wednesday -- the conference still has just about everyone in college athletics a bit on edge.
Expansion could cause a mini-domino effect among Group of Five schools. Right fees envy has Bowlsby's peers watching closely.
As the week began, CBS Sports sat down with the commissioner to discuss the state of his league and others across the country.
The Big 12 is sitting on a potential pot of (inventory) gold: About $75 million worth. The number equates the market value of 70 football and basketball games owned by conference schools outside of the current media rights deals. There are 10 football games -- one per school each season -- worth about $4 million each. Even though we're talking mostly body-bag non-conference games, that's $40 million to be sold to a potential network partner.
There's another 60 basketball games controlled by the schools worth about $35 million. Those games are usually shown on pay-per-view or local/regional cable systems. A network partner would have to buy up that inventory. Programming is anchored around football and men's basketball.
The addition of two more teams in expansion adds to that inventory. Meanwhile, Fox and ESPN reportedly continue struggling financially. “They [rightsholders in general] don't have any choice but to continue to buy content,” Bowlsby said.
Texas' pride: If eventually there is a Big 12 Network, it's clear Texas' collective ego will have to be soothed. It sort of has look like was their idea to fold the struggling Longhorn Network into a conference-wide network.
LHN, to this point, has been a financial failure, losing a total of $48 million, according to the San Antonio Express-News. A source told CBS Sports that the network continues to lose single-digit millions.
Bad for ESPN but not so bad for Texas, which continues to collect on a 20-year deal that pays it an average of $15 million per year. But it's also clear that, until Texas football rebounds, LHN isn't worth much of a watch. A reasonable solution could be Texas being the centerpiece of a Big 12 Network.
“Texas is always going to dominate the content on the network,” an industry source said. “They're good in baseball. They're good in softball. They're good in volleyball. They're good in swimming. They're going to have a lot more presence than other schools just because they're better than other schools most of the time.”
See how the Texas ego begins to be soothed? We're essentially talking LHN branded as the Big 12 Network.
