Baylor players heartbroken by Pepper Hamilton report

Boren said the board also directed commissioner Bob Bowlsby to evaluate universities that have shown interest in joining the Big 12, which include Houston, Colorado State and Cincinnati. It shouldn’t take long. Cincinnati, Memphis, Connecticut, Houston, South Florida, Central Florida, BYU, Boise State and Colorado State are all teams speculated to be among possible candidates.

Boren: Expansion by two or four teams is both on the table.

“We want to do everything possible to put this conference in a position to play for national championships”, Boren said. “It indicates we live in a fast-changing world”. New technologies are being adapted.

A UConn student sent a report prepared by the school’s alumni to West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons that points out the Storrs-based school provides access to TV markets (including NY and Boston) with the potential to reach 11.7 million homes while the combined markets reached by Cincinnati, UCF, South Florida and Houston is 12.3 million homes. “We simply don’t know enough at this point in time to evaluate what the financial terms may be and whether or not a network, a linear network, what the shape of it will be or what the financial terms will be going forward”.

The league will consider adding two teams, which would return the Big 12 to its original 12-team setup, or four teams, making the conference a 14-team league on par with the SEC and Big Ten. The current television contracts with ESPN and FOX run through 2025. The Big 12’s TV deals call for its partners to increase payments pro rata for every new school added.

Big 12 leaders have acknowledged that none of the schools most likely to be added are a natural fit. Boren said at the OU Board of Regents meeting on June 21 the topic was all but dead.

Bowlsby said he could not provide a timeline. Any schools willing to jump on board now can expect to make significantly less than the current members.

“We’ve been contacted by a number of institutions, and I would imagine after this news breaks we’ll be contacted again”, Bowlsby said.

“I think it’s a statement that we want to move forward”, he said.

The expansion talk be a smoke screen created to cover the Baylor sexual assault scandal.

Right now, the conference is more focused on adding revenue and stability. Several of those schools publicly lobbied for Big 12 inclusion earlier this summer when the league appeared interested in expansion. The school admitted it didn’t have a Title IX investigative office in place until 2014 – three years after a federal law made one mandatory for compliance. He said the conference was “psychologically disadvantaged” by having only 10 teams. The other nine school were concerned about guilt by association. It’s not a decision yet on a particular university or college or even a decision on whether we would expand. The board heard presentations from two consultants and came to the conclusion that expansion was in the best interests of the conference.

Big 12 membership will bring a windfall, but the full value of membership will take time to reap.