Big 12, Pac 10 and Baylor Athletics

[Big Daddy Weaver]

[Sandy]

As a native of Pac-10 country (Bear Down, Arizona!) I've been watching this discussion and approach with interest. It is clearly all about the money. Baylor's problem is that it is relatively small in the two areas where the $$$ roll in, television market and alumni base. A year or so ago the talk was about expanding to 12, or perhaps even 14 teams by adding in some schools related to their geography, with Utah, BYU, Colorado and Boise State being the most often mentioned, but that didn't really do anything for the television markets, with Denver being the only real viable one, and Colorado having to share it with professional sports. But talk of adding Texas, A&M, Tech, OU, OSU and Colorado, and creating two eight team divisions by putting the Arizona schools in with the six captures from the Big-12, and the old Pac-8 schools in the other, and that's generated some excitement. You keep the natural rivalries, you have schools with large enrollments and large alumni bases and the conference has the six largest television markets in the west in LA, Phoenix, Seattle, Denver, SF Bay area, Austin-San Antonio plus you add in Oklahoma City, and a good chunk of Dallas and Houston. Baylor and Waco would not be major players in that league.

Baylor's last big hurrah in football, the last year Grant Teaff was coach, they got an invitation to the Sun Bowl in El Paso to play Arizona, the third place team from the Pac-10. I was there. It was a great matchup, the two teams were pretty evenly matched on the field, and Baylor, the underdog, eventually pulled it out. The game was a complete sell-out, equally distant between the two schools, but Arizona sold over 35,000 of the 50,000 tickets, and then bought about 2,000 more that Baylor couldn't sell. But they have 40,000 students, and an alumni base ten times the size of Baylor's.

It's the money.

[Blake]

All I gotta say is

[Chris]

Anything that calls itself "Big Ten" and, yet, has 11 teams, has a screw loose somewhere.

[Sandy]

Wonder what they will call themselves if they expand, as they are also considering doing? Big Ten is a traditional name, even though their are eleven. But if they add a couple more, maybe three, it seems a little strange to become the "Big 14."

[Chris]

Call it "The Big Appetite!"

[Big Daddy Weaver]

[Chris]

As the crow flies, it is 1480 miles from Austin TX to Palo Alto, CA (Pickng a PAC 10 team at random). THIS IS NUTS!

This would be akin to the ACC inviting the Univ. of Colorado!


From Atlantic to Pacific; Gee, the traffic is terrific!

[Big Daddy Weaver]

The distance probably isn't a huge deal when we're talking about one Saturday football game. But think of the non-football sports that have to travel back and forth for 3 game series and such. I heard one athletic director call it a logistical nightmare - a situation that would take the "student" out of student-athlete during the season.

[Sandy]

The proposal from the Pac-10 is pretty practical when it comes to the way the league would schedule sports, even outside of football. It is similar to the SEC, Big 12 and the ACC. The "North Pac" would be Washington, WSU, Oregon, OSU, Stanford, Cal, UCLA and USC. The "South Pac" would be Arizona, Arizona State, Texas, Texas A&M, Colorado, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. So you'd play nine football games in conference, everyone in your division plus two from the other, and a similar schedule in other sports. Travel wouldn't be all that bad.

The Pac-10, as it is currently structured, requires a unanimous vote when it comes to expansion. ESPN's Colin Cowherd's program this morning, quoting the Pac-10's new league president, said that the most likely scenario at the present time is the addition of Colorado and UT, and that UT would probably also mean A&M and Tech. The Pac-10 splits all of its gate and athletic event revenues evenly among all of its schools, and it is not likely they will vote to bring in the smaller Big 12 schools, or another private university. Football is the biggest revenue generator, and Baylor averages 20,000 fans and a Waco-Temple-Killeen television market of about 250,000, compared to Colorado averaging 50,000 and a Denver television market of 2.5 million.

The Big 10 is heavily courting Nebraska and Missouri. If they split away, you know OU isn't going to stay put. Baylor's best move might be a pre-emptive move to the Mountain West, a league they where their football program could get some real traction and where they would dominate in basketball and baseball.

[Big Daddy Weaver]

There definitely won't be a preemptive move to Mountain West. The Regents and folks in Waco with power are already lobbying the Baylor alums in political office: Kirk Watson & Company. I'm sure Chet Edwards is already leaning on A&M to advocate for Baylor as well. Will be interesting to see what kind of national influence Ken Starr has. Financially, it doesn't make sense to include Baylor. But certainly the state has an interest keeping the Texas teams together. The Waco economy would definitely take a hit. Lots of new and newish hotels and food establishments that make big bucks off Big 12-related travel to Waco.

If the Big 12 falls apart, both basketball coaches would immediately leave. No doubt about that. Kim Mulkey will not coach in the Mountain West and Baylor already is going to have to throw Scott Drew some $$$ to keep him here after last season.

I like Cowherd but he's such a homer and so biased when it comes to the West Coast. He really has no love for the Big 12 - other than UT.

A point of correction: Baylor averaged 34K in 2008. When A&M and UT are homegames, Baylor averages closer to 50K but pretty lousy attendance for the non-conference games. Suffice it to say, if you are truly invested in Baylor sports, your interest naturally extends well beyond the world of football - that part of sports universe Baylor has thrived in...

[Sandy]

Under Larry Scott's leadership, the Pac-10 expansion is clearly about $$$. The wrench in the works for Baylor, and for Iowa State, and the Kansas schools, is the equal split of athletic revenues that all Pac-10 schools receive. That, combined with the fact that expansion requires a unanimous vote of all 10 schools puts a lot of power in the hands of the smaller universities, namely Stanford, Washington State and Oregon State. Those three schools generate less revenue than they actually receive from the conference. Local television market revenue for the Pac 10 exceeds the total revenue of most conferences, so those smaller schools are going to veto any other school which would receive more revenue sharing from the conference than it would generate. Stanford was more or less the driving force that pushed the conversation away from adding Utah and BYU, and shifting it to Colorado and Texas, and they've more or less indicated they'd take A&M and Tech as part of the deal. They are the most likely no vote on Baylor, though I think WSU and OSU would probably do the same. They'll vote to increase their athletic budget, but not to decrease it. That's why Baylor, along with Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State, won't be part of the conversation. If it turns out that this develops into reality, and UT decides it is to their advantage to join, they won't let having to drag Baylor along stop them.

[Chris]

Lemme git this straight. Rat now, we have a conference called "Big Ten" which has 12 teams. We have a conference called "Big 12" which has 10 teams! TCU needs to be in the Big 12 so they will have a easier route to the BCS games. TCU should have always been there instead of Baylor (IMHO). How about putting UTEP in the Big 12 to bring it back to 12?

[Big Daddy Weaver]

From all I've been hearing and reading, it sounds like the Big 12 is going to stick with 10 teams. This way they won't have to play a Conference Championship game which perennial powers Oklahoma and Texas absolutely HATE.

I agree that TCU was probably more deserving back in the 90s. I think it's safe to say that Baylor, at the time, held more influence in the state of Texas than TCU. Same is true today, I think. A number of influential people are Baylor alums and friends of Baylor. Of course, influence will only take you so far and it definitely wasn't taking us to a major conference if the Big 12 died. But, Baylor's influence probably takes us further than TCU's influence in most instances.

[Gary]

[Chris]

[Gary]

[Big Daddy Weaver]

Aggie jokes, eh? Like the Aggie who violates a couple verses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy?

At the last Aggie - Baylor men's game here in Waco, the Baylor students in the "Bear Pit" behind the goal were tossing around inflatable sheep..