"The Big 12 is approximately $9 million per school behind the SEC in annual revenue. Added expansion would close that gap "by half," according to a source."
Read the article again and explain why it is in the Big 12-2=10's interest to stand pat and not expand? And please no more crap about everyone out there being not worthy.
Ok, here's the explanation. The article says:
Big 12 administrators will be presented with information this week at the league's spring meetings that expansion could earn the conference at least an additional $1 billion over the length of its remaining TV rights contract, CBS Sports has learned.
If the league expands by four teams, provisions in its contracts with ESPN and Fox provide money for that benchmark. If the expansion is by two teams, the increase would be $500 million.
Those rightsholders are contractually bound to provide "pro rata" for any new Big 12 members. That is, any new members would be paid an equal share of the current Big 12 members -- approximately $23 million per year.
While on its face that doesn't necessarily help the 10 current members of the Big 12, opening the existing contract would allow for a negotiation beyond that $1 billion figure.
Ok, there it is. For the current 10 schools to see any increase in their payouts, the contract needs to increase
beyond the $1 billion figure.
Later, the article says:
When the league signed the 2012 deal, there was conversation regarding language for reopening the contract in the event of expansion. The parties agreed the Big 12 would get equal shares for any new teams that were added.
That means a team from the American Athletic Conference -- most often mentioned as possibilities in Big 12 expansion -- would automatically go from the $3-10 million range to $23 million.
So there it is again. The payouts are going to still be around $23 million, which is what they are now. You can do some simple math to get a good estimate. Each new team is going to get around $23 million per year. Multiply that by 4 teams, and you get $92 million for one year. Multiply that by 10 years, and you get $920 million. That pretty well accounts for the $1 billion increase, and that's just from simple ballpark calculations (not using the actual figures).
That's why it doesn't really make sense to expand. The actual money listed in the article (the $1 billion) is really just break-even money, for the current members of the conference. The contract has to increase above that for the current schools to actually get more money that what they get now.