The Big 12 was dead. Gone. No pulse.
The funerals were planned in Lubbock and Austin on Tuesday. And again in
Norman and Stillwater on Wednesday. Texas A&M would show its last
respects later in the week, when it pushed off for Birmingham, Ala., to
pop corks with SEC commissioner Mike Slive.
The Big 12 was so dead. The surviving family - Missouri, Kansas, Kansas
State, Iowa State and Baylor - did things you only promise to a dead
person. Things you probably don't ever expect to have to pay - like
promising the $35 million to $40 million in buyout penalties from
Nebraska and Colorado to Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma.
(Everyone wants to know how those three get to $20 million guaranteed in
the new Big 12-Lite? That's how.)
But let's go back and revisit how a corpse not only regains a heartbeat
but goes out and wins a 400-meter race in record time four days after
receiving a toe tag.
Wednesday, June 9 - Orangebloods.com reports, according to a
source close to the Nebraska Board of Regents, that the Cornhuskers are
going to the Big Ten and will make a formal announcement two days later
on Friday.
I'm driving home from a live remote radio show and call one of my
sources at UT. I'm told president William Powers and athletic director
DeLoss Dodds have gathered the coaches at UT and tell them, "We've done
all we can to save the Big 12 but were unsuccessful."
A plan to join the Pac-16 is basically laid out.
Thursday, June 10 - The Pac-10 announces it is adding Colorado.
Orangebloods.com reports that Nebraska will announce on Friday that it
is headed to the Big Ten. And OB also reports that Texas A&M is
seriously considering the Southeastern Conference and may be put on the
clock to respond to its Pac-10 invitation.
This is the first time it's becoming apparent that Texas A&M might
not play ball with the other Big 12 teams being invited to the Pac-10.
But, according to top sources, Texas A&M athletic director Bill
Byrne is basically assuring Texas that the Aggies will join Texas in the
Pac-10. So Texas feels like the Aggies will come around.
Friday, June 11 - Nebraska bolts the Big 12 for the Big Ten and
throws Missouri and Texas under the bus in the process. Colorado holds a
press conference with Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott saying the
Buffaloes are headed west.
Sources would later say Colorado panicked at this point because the
Buffaloes thought they needed to act more quickly than the others
because Baylor might be moving in on their invitation to the Pac-10.
(Now, Colorado owes $15 million in buyout penalties to the Big 12 that
it can't afford.)
Texas schedules a regents meeting for Tuesday at 11 a.m. This meeting is
to announce that the Longhorns are going to the Pac-10. Texas Tech
officials post a regents meeting for Tuesday as well. Oklahoma and
Oklahoma State post regents meetings for Wednesday. All with the
expectation of announcing they are heading west to the Pac-10.
Orangebloods.com reports that all four schools (Texas, Texas Tech,
Oklahoma State and OU) have confirmed they are heading to the Pac-10
with announcements due after the weekend.
Saturday, June 12 - The focus shifts to College Station. Mike
Slive the Southeastern Conference commissioner is in College Station to
visit with A&M officials. But A&M athletic director Bill Byrne
is nowhere to be found. He's at a family reunion in Idaho.
Suddenly Texas' best source for information from A&M is in doubt.
How connected is he to the situation?
According to two of the best sources for Orangebloods.com throughout the
Big 12 Missile Crisis, Texas A&M has a vote of at least 6-3 to go
to the SEC, and we report that.
Other sources around the Big 12 are starting to say Texas A&M is
waiting for Texas to hang itself at the press conference on Tuesday
before the Aggies announce their departure for the SEC.
Athletic director DeLoss Dodds and UT women's athletic director Chris
Plonsky smell the rat: Texas is going to get blamed for breaking up the
Big 12 AND for ripping up the 100-year rivalry with Texas A&M. The
Aggies aren't going to the Pac-10. The Aggies aren't budging.
A shot of the president's box at the Texas-TCU NCAA Super Regional
baseball game on Saturday tells it all. There was Powers, a Cal graduate
who had convinced the Texas Board of Regents the Pac-10 was the right
move for academic and athletic reasons, had Plonsky over his left
shoulder, leaning into his ear. Dodds was casual and calm with Mack
Brown to Dodds' left.
I would joke with Brown on Tuesday that there had to be more going on in
that picture than watching baseball. Mack Brown smiled and said, "Nope,
just cheering on Texas to beat TCU."
Meanwhile, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State's presidents and athletic
directors meet with Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott in Oklahoma City.
Sunday, June 13 - Texas is starting to get the sense A&M is
not turning back from the SEC. That any information it got from Byrne is
useless at this point, according to sources. Gene Stallings, A&M
System chancellor Mike McKinney and other A&M regents led by Morris
Foster, a former ExxonMobil executive, are leading the Aggies toward the
SEC.
The notion of separating from Texas is starting to feel invigorating to
the Aggie power brokers. Foster likes the idea of A&M being the top
research insitution in the SEC. Stallings wants A&M football to
connect with history shared by Alabama (Bear Bryant coaching at A&M
before winning six national titles at Bama).
And McKinney is ready to collect the paychecks of at least $17.4 million
to help get the Ags out of the $16 million hole the athletic department
is in.
With the Big 12's obituary seemingly imminent, Big 12 commissioner Dan
Beebe secures assurances from ABC/ESPN that it will honor its current
contract with the Big 12 through 2016 even if the league is 10 members
and without a conference championship game. Meaning, all of Colorado's
and Nebraska's share of the TV revenue as well as the money from the
championship game would now be divided between the 10 schools.
The five schools who appeared to be the pall bearers for the Big 12 -
Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Baylor - make a
commitment to hand over their share of the $35 million to $40 million in
penalties to be paid by Nebraska and Colorado to Texas, Oklahoma and
Texas A&M.
Now, those three schools are guaranteed to start making $20 million
immediately. No waiting. No fuss no muss - $20 million.
That number is better than the payout of the SEC ($17.4 million) for
Texas A&M. It also is better than the Pac-10, which initially sold
the Big 12 schools on a number of $20 million starting in 2012, but
later said it might take a year or two to scale to $20 million,
according to sources. The initial number might be closer to $17 million
in 2012 and $20 million by 2013 or 2014. So suddenly Texas is better off
by $3 million with no waiting.
Larry Scott and Pac-10 chief operating officer Kevin Weiberg fly from
Oklahoma City to College Station Sunday morning. A meeting between
Scott, Weiberg and A&M president R. Bowen Loftin and a couple
regents is short and not so sweet. Texas A&M tells the Pac-10
officials they are not ready to accept an invitation. The Pac-10, which
is actively falling in love with Kansas, takes this as a refused
invitation.
Scott and Weiberg fly from College Station to Lubbock and are met with a
king's welcome. If Tech's board of regents could have accepted a bid to
the Pac-10 right then and there, they would have. Scott and Weiberg
leave Lubbock feeling like they've got Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and
Tech. All they need now is Texas, and they can figure out the rest (sub
Kansas for Texas A&M).
But by the time Scott and Weiberg get to Austin on Sunday night, DeLoss
Dodds and Chris Plonsky are already feeling queasy about everything,
according to sources.
Dodds and Plonsky are already anticipating that Texas is going to get
blamed for ripping up the Big 12, for tearing apart the rivalry with
Texas A&M and for agreeing to a deal with the Pac-10 that is not as
financially sound as the one now facing them thanks to Dan Beebe's
hustling of ABC/ESPN and the generostiy of the Desperate Five in the Big
12 (Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Baylor).
Texas knows with the $20 million guarantee and the ability to launch its
own network in the Big 12, the Longhorns could be pulling in between
$23 million and $25 million in no time. They'd be the richest school in
the BCS in terms of TV revenue. And that total could scale if the
Longhorn Network was a success and surpassed its consultants early
projections of $3 million to $5 million per year.
And Scott and Weiberg made one critical mistake in the courtship of the
Big 12. Other than its somewhat foggy math that a 16-team Pac-10 could
readily get to $20 million in TV revenue per school, they wanted to
substitute Kansas for Oklahoma State late in the process, according to
multiple sources in the Big 12.
Texas was really starting to feel queasy now, sources said. UT officials
knew deep down Texas A&M wasn't coming to the Pac-10, despite Bill
Byrne's assurances, according to sources. And now Scott and Weiberg were
looking to dump Oklahoma State in favor of Kansas. If A&M was a
no-show, the Pac-10 would add Utah. Scott was looking to add new TV
markets, not stick to the deal that was agreed upon a few days earlier.
According to sources who talked to me Tuesday (two days after the fact),
Dodds and Plonsky couldn't stop thinking about all the negatives. And
now they were dealing with a wheeler-dealer Pac-10 commissioner who
wanted to sub out Boone Pickens' Cowboys for the chance to grab the 8
million households in the state of Missouri.
Dodds had given Oklahoma State his word they would be part of the group
headed west. Now, the Pac-10 wanted to do some late rearranging. Dodds
didn't feel good about it, sources said Tuesday. Now, Dodds and Plonsky
had to convince Powers that the Beebe Plan was the best plan.
Powers had convinced the board of regents the Pac-10 was the answer if
Nebraska came out of the league, according to the sources who talked on
Tuesday.
(Powers had such a strong relationship with Nebraska chancellor Harvey
Perlman that in his mind the conference was toast without Nebraska in
the league.)
I made routine calls to my sources across the Big 12 Sunday night and
got one response at 10:40 p.m. CT on a text message that said, "Texas
may be changing course. Look into it."
I tried to reach more sources. But it was late. I couldn't sleep at all
that night. I just kept scanning other media outlets' web sites to see
if they had the news. Nothing. I still couldn't sleep. I fell asleep for
a couple hours - from about 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. CT - on the couch in my
kids' play room. I took over that room the previous two weeks because it
has a TV in it, and I needed a place where I could work and keep one
eye on my laptop and one eye on ESPN News.
Monday, June 14 - How early is too early to call a source?
In this case, it's never too early. I was carpet-bombing every source I
had in the story thus far to find out if Texas was changing course.
At 8 a.m., another top source in this story told me Texas was not only
changing course, it was almost ready to commit to a remodeled Big 12.
Bingo.
I cobbled a story together about how Texas had gone from nearly being
signed, sealed, delivered to the West Coast to racing back to the Big 12
dinner table to see if there was any food.
I popped my story on Orangebloods.com at 8:36 a.m. and began Twittering
furiously to draw attention to it. I got up to run to Starbucks for an
iced, venti, Chai latte and by the time I got back home, Joe Schad of
ESPN was saying in a story and on television that Beebe's plan had
"zero" chance for survival.
Gulp.
My immediate thought was Schad knows something I don't because I knew
ABC/ESPN was involved in the Beebe Plan. What if The Worldwide Leader
had pulled its assurances off the table? Did Schad get summoned down the
hall in Bristol to some executive's office and learn ABC/ESPN had
pulled the rug out from under the Beebe plan?
I started texting my sources immediately, wondering if even they knew
about some new wrinkle to the story. Then, I got a text back saying, "No
worries. The train is still on the tracks."
I Twittered to my now 12,000 followers, "I'm not backing off my story."
And then all the other texts and calls I'd sent out started responding.
Texas A&M was at the table and seemingly on board. So was OU. I
already knew the Desperate Five were on board. And I knew Texas Tech and
Oklahoma State weren't going to do anything without Texas, OU and Texas
A&M.
(Although Texas Tech's regents put that to the test on Tuesday, waiting
to agree to the Huck Finn blood oath to be a happy camper in the Big
12-Lite until about 3:30 p.m. CT).
All my sources started weighing in, saying the deal to rescue the Big
12-Lite was almost done. By 4 p.m. CT, I had confirmation from all my
top sources the deal was done. Then, a press conference at Texas was
announced for 10 a.m. CT Tuesday, and a teleconference with Beebe was
scheduled for 11 a.m. CT.
Tuesday, June 15 - We learn from the Texas and Beebe media
conferences and some more reporting from sources that ABC/ESPN basically
protected its investments and held off college realignment by allowing
the 10 schools in the Big 12 to keep all the money ABC/ESPN agreed to
pay the league through 2016 when it had 12 members and a conference
championship game.
Why would ABC/ESPN agree to such a bad deal? I'm convinced because it
didn't want to see Texas and Oklahoma disappear to the Pac-16 conference
network likely to be run by Fox. ABC/ESPN, in my opinion, also saw the
possibility of realignment coming if the Big 12 fell apart, and that
could have led to remodeling the SEC and ACC, conferences in which
ABC/ESPN has more than $4 billion tied up in TV contracts.
If the SEC expands by four or the ACC gets picked apart and then
remodeled in some merger with the Big East, ABC/ESPN likely has to
renegotiate those deals, possibly for more than the $4 billion it had
already committed.
So why not just honor the deal it had struck with the Big 12 despite
losing two teams and a conference championship game? By comparison it
was a relative pittance to keep Texas and Oklahoma away from Fox and
protect its investments in the SEC and ACC.
As for Texas, becoming the first to blink, back away from its Pac-10
invitation and reach out to Texas A&M at the bargaining table,
credit both the Aggies and the Longhorns for realizing the time wasn't
right to break up a 100-year rivalry that even includes mentions of each
school in the other's fight song.
In the end, the Big 12 is not a better football league than it was less
than a week ago. It's a better basketball league (18-game conference
schedule, meaning Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri now play Texas and
A&M home and home).
But the principals in the deal walk away feeling better about the knowns
than what seemed like some elusive answers about the unknowns.
THE WINNERS:
TEXAS A&M - Aggies' athletics are $16 million in debt and one
big dysfunctional family (How else do you explain Bill Byrne at a family
reunion in Idaho when the Ags are contemplating their most important
moment in the last 100 years?).
But say what you want about Gene Stallings and A&M system chancellor
Mike McKinney zeroing in on the SEC. They didn't waver, and it finally
got to Texas.
As UT officials began having doubts about the Pac-10 deal, the Longhorns
didn't want to be seen as the drivers in ripping apart the Big 12 and a
100-year rivalry with the Aggies.
UT officials ultimately blinked first and said they'd go back to the
table for the Beebe Plan if A&M would. The Aggies did and walked
away with $20 million guaranteed - the same as Texas and OU - because it
had a real suitor. Not bad for a destitute, non-performing football
program for most of the past decade.
ABC/ESPN - On its face, it looks like the Worldwide Leader is
getting taken to the cleaners by continuing to pay the Big 12 for the
next seven years as if it's a 12-member league with a conference
championship game (even though it's a 10-member league with no title
game).
But ABC/ESPN isn't out any more money, and it protected its interest in
several areas (UT and OU don't go to Fox; the SEC and ACC likely don't
expand; Notre Dame remains an independent; and college realignment is
averted for at least seven more years.)
DAN BEEBE - Put in a bad spot from the beginning as Big 12
commissioner because he inherited staggered TV contracts (the cable deal
with Fox expires in 2012, while its network deal with ABC/ESPN expires
in 2016), Beebe went to ABC/ESPN, asked them to honor a bad contract and
got a dysfunctional family back to the table.
That's not easy. Think of all the rancor in this league (starting with
Missouri's open flirtation with the Big Ten, which launched the
"instability" in the league a year ago). And now think of the money
pouring into a league with no championship game and only 10 members (or
only 2 members depending on your count - Texas and OU - come on Tech,
A&M and anyone from the Big 12 North).
Beebe came up with the Beebe Plan, and it saved a league that was always
the most likely candidate to get picked apart and possibly trigger
realignment. This was no easy sales job, considering all the
conversations between his member schools and other conferences. Dan
Beebe comes out a huge winner in this.
TEXAS - The Longhorns walked away from a deal with the Pac-10
they were losing confidence in; preserved their 100-year rivalry with
A&M; AND walk away with the chance to make between $23 million and
$25 million in TV revenue thanks to its own network (and maybe more).
And don't forget the easier path to a national title game (without a
conference title game).
THE DESPERATE FIVE - The decision by Missouri, Kansas, Kansas
State, Iowa State and Baylor to pool their share of the
Nebraska/Colorado penalty money ($35 million to $40 million) and give it
to OU, Texas A&M and Texas costs these five in the short-term. But
it worked. They helped save the conference, and now they are going to
earn between $14 million and $17 million each going forward.
THE LOSERS
COLORADO - The Buffaloes can spin this any way they want, but they
effectively gambled and lost. They got out ahead of the posse on Friday,
hoping to cut off Baylor from trying to wrangle its invitation to the
Pac-10, according to sources. The Buffs believed Texas, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma State and Texas Tech were unshakable to the Pac-10, thus
anticipating the Big 12 would crumble, so there would be no one left to
collect the Buffs' buyout penalties. Now, there are 10 schools gladly
waiting to line their pockets with $15 million the Buffs' can't afford
to pay. (CU couldn't afford to pay Dan Hawkins' $3 million buyout last
year. Gulp.)
THE FANS - Fans of the Big 12 lose one of the great,
tradition-laden programs in the history of college football (Nebraska),
and they lose a conference championship game at Jerryworld starting in
2012. Some fans with ties to most of the Big 12 South fans also miss out
on road trips to Scottsdale, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Eugene and
Seattle. OK, I'll stop now while I'm behind ...
TEXAS TECH - The Red Raiders probably have a legit gripe about
not being included in the payout from the Desperate Five. After all,
Tech has been in the Top Two in the last two years, while Texas A&M
has been sucking wind for most of the past decade. So the thought of
Tech making $14 million to $17 million when Texas A&M is poised to
rake in $20 million has to burn like acid reflux.
The Tech regents wanted to make the rest of the Big 12-Lite feel their
pain, so they didn't agree to sign the Huck Finn blood oath to be a
happy camper in the Big 12 on Sunday, opting to make everyone wait until
3 p.m. on Monday. Tommy Tuberville will have a winner on the field
soon, so the Red Raiders will pop some Tums and get over this.
Orangebloods.com broke the story about the Pac-10 possibly raiding half
the Big 12 on June 3. The next 12 days threatened to change the
direction of college athletics for the next 100 years. Against maybe all
odds, the Big 12 Missile Crisis ended with diverging forces standing
down.
If Texas A&M decides to go with Texas to the Pac-10, we might have
had complete upheaval and the beginning of massive college realignment,
resulting in four, 16-team mega conferences. As it stands now,
realignment appears to have been averted for at least the next seven
years (until the ABC/ESPN contract expires).
For now, these will live on as the 12 days that could have changed the
course of college athletics ... but didn't.
</td><td width="150" align="middle"><img alt="<div align="center">Bill Byrne