The Death of the Big 12
The SEC board voted to not admit Texas AM at this time, but the board would not rule out admitting AM in the future. With the kickoff of a new football season less than two weeks away why would there be all of the speculation about moving to another conference when your team may be in the hunt for a National Championship?
There two reasons the first and foremost is most and the second is the perceived perception of their arch rival the University of Texas and the Longhorn Network. The Longhorn Network is a partnership with the University of Texas and ESPN whereby the ESPN gives Texas $10 million for the next ten years. The Longhorn Network had envisioned airing Texas high school football games. Most coaches in the nation felt this airing of football games gave Texas an unfair recruiting advantage.
Earlier this month the NCAA issued a decision that would bar the Longhorn Network from airing any high school football games. So why with the ruling is AM looking to SEC? The SEC has amassed an enormous amount of money from playing in multiple BCS games every year. The Big 12 is lucky if more than one team playing in a BCS bowl on a regular basis.
There are a few things the Big 12 can do to compete financially with the other conferences. First the Longhorn Network needs to be rebranded to become the Big 12 Network and have programing from all member schools. The second is for the conference to expand to at least 12 teams. A few of the teams the conference should target are TCU, Houston and maybe the University of Memphis. Why Memphis, because it is a major city in the fertile SEC recruiting area.
Texas AM was not issued an invitation from the SEC. However if some changes are not made with the current arrangement of the Big 12 that invitation for AM to join the SEC may come soon after this football season comes to an end.
