History of the Big 12 Conference
A December 18, 1986 Dallas Morning News article stated: Recruiting experts say the allegations have chased Texas's home-grown talent to other conferences.
UT athletic director DeLoss Dodds reflected on the importance of Arkansas' departure, saying, “What had to happen, [was] there had to be a crisis for change.” [10] Arkansas athletic director Frank Broyles, who played at Georgia Tech when the Yellow Jackets competed in the SEC, said that he was encouraged to leave by UT's and Texas A&M's leaders, because it would destabilize the conference, allowing them to do the same.
Adding a single school was not going to change that dynamic,[10] it would only create the public perception of a healed conference and prolong UT and Texas A&M's suffering.
[14] Some reports state that Stanford refused to vote to admit UT in an effort to protect the Cardinal's conference dominance in non-revenue sports.
[clarification needed][17] Reports at the end of 1993 disclosed the discussions of the Big Eight about adding BYU and half of the SWC, with SMU, TCU, Rice, and Houston "priced out" of the new conference.
[citation needed] After the SEC announced their intent to leave the CFA, the Big 8 and SWC members re-opened discussions to sell their rights together.
Richards' former Chief of Staff, John Fainter, is on record saying "She just was not involved to any great degree in working that out...I'd have to say she was informed, but she wasn't pounding the table or anything like that."
[31] The greater influence held by the schools in the southern division would later be cited repeatedly as a key component in Nebraska's eventual decision to leave.
[citation needed] The Big 12 lost four members between 2010 and 2013, replaced by two others (Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, and Texas A&M left; TCU and West Virginia joined).
[a] Following these departures, the Conference chose to retain the "Big 12" name and logo despite dropping to ten schools,[36] a marketing decision similar to the Big Ten Conference's choice to keep its name after its membership increased to 11 in 1990 with the addition of Penn State (its membership now stands at 18 with the later additions of Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers, UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington).
[37] In March, the Big Ten received the initial report from consultants hired to investigate five potential expansion candidates, including Missouri.
This new offer acknowledged that Texas was unlikely to leave the Big 12 without Oklahoma due to the Red River Rivalry's importance to UT's athletic budget.
[citation needed] Although the Pac-10's attempt bears a number of similarities to the Big 8's raid of the SWC, fans of the targeted Texas schools were resistant.
[citation needed] A&M's president at the time, R. Bowen Loftin, was particularly miffed, recalling in a 2021 interview that he felt discomfort with Texas' dominance in Big 12 internal affairs since attending his first conference meeting as president in 2009, and that he had felt especially insulted by remarks that UT's then-president Bill Powers made when Loftin asked him about UT's flirtation with the Pac-10 in a 2010 meeting.
In return, ESPN promised to televise two non-conference football games over the next four seasons, broadcast some other non-football programming, $5 million cash and help from the network to try to arrange a home-and-home series against a top BCS conference school.
[65] Texas Athletics eventually announced that the Kansas Jayhawks had agreed to let their game against the Longhorns on October 29 be shown on the network (KU's third tier media rights are also managed by LHN co-owner IMG College).
[83] Further realignment was temporarily halted on September 20, when the Pac-12 reiterated its desire to remain a twelve-school conference,[84] as Texas would not compromise on the Longhorn Network or commit to equal revenue sharing.
[89] On October 6, the Big 12 Conference Board of Directors, acting upon a unanimous recommendation of the expansion committee, authorized negotiations with Texas Christian University (TCU) to become a member.
[97] On October 6, the day after the revenue sharing change, the Big 12 Board of Directors voted 8–0 to formally grant their media rights to the conference.
On August 31, 2016, ESPN reported that the BIG 12 had narrowed its list of potential schools down to 12, Air Force, BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, Colorado State, UConn, Houston, Rice, South Florida, SMU, Temple and Tulane.
[125] The following Monday on July 26, both Oklahoma and Texas notified the Big 12 Conference that the two schools do not wish to extend its grant of television rights beyond the 2024-25 athletic year.
[131] The Big 12 Conference sent ESPN a cease and desist letter on July 28, claiming that the network conspired to damage the league by luring Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC.
"[132] More specifically, media reports indicated that then-Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby believed that ESPN was encouraging a raid from the American Athletic Conference,[134][135] up to and including absorbing the remaining Big 12 members.
A story by CBS Sports journalist Dennis Dodd specifically pointed out that this nullifies a potential Texas advantage in any future legal proceedings.
All four schools were reportedly preparing membership applications, and their future entrance could be approved as early as the next scheduled meeting of Big 12 presidents on September 10.
[139] BYU's own announcement stated that it would join in 2023–24, presumably because the WCC had a shorter notice period for departing schools than the 27 months required under American Conference bylaws.
[142] Another interesting situation involved the only then-current Big 12 member that sponsored men's soccer, West Virginia, which had announced it would move that sport to Conference USA (CUSA) in July 2022.
Affiliate member Coastal Carolina was set to depart once its full-time home of the Sun Belt Conference (SBC) reinstated men's soccer, which at that time was expected for 2023.
The first involved James Madison, a Colonial Athletic Association[b] member that sponsors men's soccer and announced its plan to move to the SBC in 2023.
This did not satisfy the other schools in the conference and on August 4, 2023, the Pac-12's other three members in the Four Corners states—Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah—announced they would follow Colorado in departing the Pac-12 to join the Big 12 beginning in the 2024–25 academic year.
