Expansions! Expansions!! EXPANSIONS!!!!

[Dan Lambskin]

my guess is the "Big 10" is waiting on Notre Dame, and frankly i'm sick of waiting. the Irish either need to join or be left out and have fun playing Army and Navy while they fall off into irrelevance

[Metroid]

On ESPN.com they still have a report up claiming that a move by Texas to the Pac 10 is "imminent." However on ESPN they're also reporting that Texas will stay in the Big 12 and keep it a 10 team league.

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

[steelerfan513]

The Big 12 (minus 2) will stay together.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5286672

Texas move helps Big 12 survive

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The Big 12 is alive and kicking.

The University of Texas on Monday said it was staying in the Big 12, followed moments later by pledges from Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M to remain in a league that had seemed to be falling apart last week when Nebraska (Big Ten) and Colorado (Pac-10) decided to leave over the next two years.

The Texas announcement came shortly after Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott confirmed to The Associated Press in an e-mail that Texas had declined an invitation to become the 12th member of his conference. Scott said Texas president William Powers Jr. told him "the 10 remaining schools in the Big 12 Conference intend to stay together."

Continued in link...

Not really sure how to feel. On the one hand, Missouri stays in a BCS conference, the rest of the Big 12 North isn't going to be completely screwed over, and there isn't any chance that Missouri would have to join the Mountain West or Conference USA. On the other hand, I still feel that the Big 10 would've added Missouri if the Big 10 decided to expand further than Nebraska and Missouri was still available (which obviously they no longer are), and keeping the Big 12 together meant inflating the ego of UT even more than it already is by giving them their own TV network.

I like that Missouri doesn't risk not being in a BCS conference, but I'm afraid Nebraska leaving might send the Big 12 North further into irrelevancy than before, especially now that there won't be a conference championship game unless the conference adds two more teams. No team will have a chance to give Texas or Oklahoma a quality game on national television like Nebraska did last year, and any time a Big 12 North team somehow wins the conference, everyone will chalk it up to Texas being bad that year and not give that team any respect.

If the Big 12 wants to make sure that doesn't happen (which is questionable at best), they could add TCU and some other team and send the Oklahoma teams up to the North division. That would at least mean the Big 12 North champion, if it weren't Oklahoma, would have to be better than Oklahoma to make the conference title game, thus earning it some level of respect.

But right now, the national perception is that the Big 12 North sucks and the Big 12 South is all that matters, and that's only going to get worse if nothing changes because of Nebraska's departure.

[knapplc]

From what I'm hearing, Beebe promised the other nine schools that they would earn more TV revenue than before - he's just never told anyone how that will work after losing the Denver market and all the eyeballs across the country Nebraska brings. Losing those two pieces doesn't equate to making more money. And if he had a plan in place to make more money, why wait until now to announce it, after two major markets have just left the conference? Consider me highly skeptical that the numbers quoted are even close to reality.

One thing that isn't surprising at all is the fact that Texas has permission to create its own TV network, independent of the Big 12. Texas is nearly guaranteed an increase in revenue, and numbers I'm hearing say they'll make about $5million more than the #2 Big 12 team. With a revenue gap like that, it won't be long at all before Texas leaves the rest of the conference in their dust. How is that going to bolster competition, and/or make for a healthy conference?

What we're seeing, the manipulations by Texas for their own good and nobody else's, are major reasons why Nebraska and Colorado left. You can't run a successful conference this way.

What are A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State (T. Boone Pickens - where are you?) and the rest of the conference thinking? Aren't these major power players? Or are they just sheep following Little Texas Peep?

I'm surprised at the behavior of the other nine schools more than anything. Very, very surprised.

[Metroid]

How does the Pac 10 move forward? Court Utah? They have to get a 12th team for a title game.

[Sandrock]

It looks like Utah will be the 12th member; a decent fit academically and athletically.

[Metroid]

It looks like Utah will be the 12th member; a decent fit academically and athletically.

Have you seen any solid reports out there on this? Or is it just a presumption?

[knapplc]

I have seen no reports, but Utah makes the most sense.

The MWC has to be kicking themselves over the Big 12 decision. They stood to gain the most from this by adding KU/KSU and possibly Missouri and Iowa State. Those would be major upgrades.

What's great is that Kansas basketball will continue to thrive. Their program could have been one of the biggest casualties of all of this.

[Metroid]

I have seen no reports, but Utah makes the most sense.

Oh absolutely, my money is on Utah as well. If it is just a two team add, I wonder how the Pac will be carved up? Do the Cali teams stay together with the Arizona schools to make up the Pac 10 South? With Colorado and Utah joining the Northwest schools to make up the Pac 10 North? Or do the Cali schools get divided up with Cal and Stanford joining the Northwest schools to make the North, and SC and UCLA with the AZ schools and Utah and Colorado making up the South?

[dream_017]

Right now I just find it funny:
Big 10 - 12 teams
Big 12 - 10 teams


I still want to see the 4 - 16 team mega conferences