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tie 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby addresses the media. Bowlsby has sparked discussions of expanding the conference in recent months.
Maicke: Regardless of stature, the Big 12 must add more teams
▶ MIKE MAICKE
@M| Maicke
The Big 12 saved face by scooping up West Virginia from the other imploding power conference, the Big East, who was putting non-Catholic institutions on the clearance rack, then grabbed the perennially competitive mid-major TCU to return to a ten-team league.
The Big (almost) 12 Conference has been openly starving for more teams.
Nebraska kicked off the Big 12 exodus in 2011 by joining the Big 10 conference, which actually sports 14 teams now, and Missouri, Texas A&M and Colorado soon followed suit. Missouri and A&M joined the football-dominant SEC while Colorado was headed west to link up with the PAC-12.
But is a 10-team league
Four "old school" programs with large fan bases departing sent the conference into a bit of a tailspin. The rest of the eight teams in the former 12-team conference all wisely began to draft their own secession plans.
Simple answer: No, absolutely not. And the Big 12 is crippling themselves financially by not having 12 teams.
enough for a Power 5 conference?
That's already a financial incentive enough; however, let's not forget the merchandise. Every competitive collegiate fan base has an inevitable degree of arrogance. (I can't tell you the last time I heard a fan talk Jayhawk basketball without
It's all about divisions within the conference. The SEC, Big Ten, ACC, and PAC-12 all have two divisions. This is enormously important because it allows a football conference championship game to be played.
Not only does that take the incredibly anticlimactic round-robin style winner out of the equation, but it allows another week of Big 12 football to be played. This would be a game between blue blood football programs with passionate fans who would either watch the game on television and boost ratings, or purchase tickets and travel to the city where the game is played at a neutral site.
bringing up the streak of 12-straight titles.) But this arrogance is profitable. This arrogance buys thousands of "Conference Champion" t-shirts, sweatshirts, posters and whatever else.
Now here's the hot take:
It makes no difference if
it's Connecticut joining the conference or Northern Illinois. This conference expansion isn't about building the most dominant conference, it's about giving already established programs like Oklahoma, Texas, Baylor and whoever
else a chance to make more money for the conference by playing an extra week and drawing in passionate fans.
Would it be nice to get competitive teams? Absolutely! But is it the most important part of the expansion process? No way
So sure, try for Connecticut, Memphis, and Cincinnati. But I'm just as fine with Tulane and Northern Illinois.
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