Big 12. 10. 9. 8. 7. . .
Exactly 15 editions ago, Ingram's published an extensive look at the forces driving the near-collapse of the Big XII conference.
Nebraska and Colorado had just proved that money meant more than loyalty to the conference that for so long had allowed them to shine on a national sports stage, but conference Commissioner Dan Beebe gave all indications that damage control had succeeded.
The remaining members of the league, he said, had reaffirmed their commitments to one another. It might be misnamed, but the Big XII would move forward with 10 shareholders.
That cover story in the June 2010 edition of Ingram’s included a walk-off passage that warned us more of the same was coming. I hate to say we told you so, but it’s clear the sources we interviewed were spot-on: Television money, in particular the big-dollar contracts for rights to broadcast football games, would continue to drive conference re-alignments. The gravity of four 16-team conferences, conveniently structured to lend themselves to a championship playoff format, was simply too powerful.
Well, Judgment Day just arrived boomer sooner than even we’d expected.
As of this writing, regents for the University of Texas have given their blessing for the Longhorns’ president to explore other conference affiliations—with the possibility of remaining in the Big XII being one, however unlikely that may now be. Regents for the University of Oklahoma have done the same, and exploratory talks with other conferences could include Oklahoma State as a package deal with the Sooners. Texas Tech, if invited, could go wherever Texas leads.
That leaves the regional schools bracketing Kansas City—Missouri, Kansas and Kansas State—out in the cold, along with Baylor and Iowa State. The truly pathetic part of this is that for decades, those schools accounted for an awful lot of the wins that made the names of Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma among the most-recognized in college football. Some thanks?
Given that the demise of the conference would cost the Kansas City area dearly—not just in emotional pain but real dollars, as the league’s basketball tournament fades away—I think the fans here are entitled to a few answers.
First of all, during all this happy talk about renewed loyalty to a scaled-down Big XII, who was lying then: Was it Big XII Commissioner Dan Beebe, who should have been in a position
to put a legal hammerlock on the remaining members, but didn’t? Or were the bad guys the executives from Texas A&M, who pledged their allegiance even as they laid the groundwork for a dash to the Southeastern Conference? Or perhaps the ones in Austin, Norman, Lubbock and Stillwater, conveniently citing Texas A&M as an excuse to break their pledges?
We’re still waiting for the fat lady to sing in court, and there’s a chance—a slender one—that legal action against Texas A&M may prevent that switch to the SEC. But the damage has been done: realignment talks are rattling executive offices in virtually every conference tied into the Bowl Championship Series. Just last week, two founding members of the Big East, Syracuse and Pittsburgh, said they would join forces with the Atlantic Coast Conference; two others, Rutgers and Connecticut, which have enjoyed some recent success on the football field and command a lot of televisions in the East, could follow.
There’s talk that the remaining Big East members could team up with survivors of the Big XII’s to form a two-division conference, possibly with a headquarters in KC. Creation of a new conference that retains BCS status would help salve some of the injury. Somehow, though, the enthusiasm we’ve had for conference rivalries with regional schools seems like it would be lost affiliating with West Virginia, Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida.
I try hard to find a lesson in just about everything, and I guess if you step back from the anger a lot of fans are experiencing, there is something that all of us in business can learn from this: The world is not static. Whatever you build today, whatever you create from the labor of your own hands, is susceptible to forces beyond your control. Constant vigilance is the price you pay for business success, because you never know what, or who, will rise up to present an existential threat or just stick a shiv in your ribs.
Even your so-called partners. So to update my close: Nebraska deserts the Big XII. Nobody cares about Colorado. Shame on Texas A&M. And, fire Dan Beebe.
As to today’s defectors, it’s my fervent hope that members of an expanded Pac-12 Conference reap from admission of the Texas programs exactly what the old Big 8 got by saving their cow hides from the collapse of the Southwestern Conference back in 1996.
But be assured: Money will continue to drive college football and the fans to new and unpredictable outcomes.
This isn’t over. 
Joe Sweeney
Editor-In-Chief & Publisher
JSweeney@IngramsOnLine.com