One Big 12 Dysfunctional Family
The Story of the Big 12 and How It Doesn’t Actually Exist
This essay is Part One in a three-part series on the Big 12.
The time has come for the Big 12 Conference (Big 12) to expand again. Maybe. It thinks so. We’ll see. The diagnosis changes almost hourly, and with a publicly-touted audition spate of 20 universities, the conference is certainly not wanting for attention. But at the same time, the simple fact that their collection of candidates is public (as opposed the the top-secret status the topic is typically afforded) is a sign of incredible weakness and insecurity. With the exception of perhaps BYU, none of these candidates come close to the same caliber as the rest of the Power 5. Connecticut and New Mexico are the only flagship institutions in the bunch, Tulane is the only candidate that is also in the prestigious and exclusive Association of American Universities (AAU) (not that that has ever mattered much to the Big 12), and the University of Central Florida is the only candidate with a Top-10 campus enrollment (in fact it is #1 for 2015–16).
How did we get here? What drove the Big 12 to dwell in such a state of insecurity? Actually a lot within the last half-decade alone. But this is a conference that has been on the rocks since 1996 when it was created, and no amount of expansion is going to fix it. That’s because the Big 12 does not, and has never, existed in the same sense as other conferences. Joe Castiglione, Athletic Director (AD) of Missouri at the time and now AD of Oklahoma, equated the conference’s creation to an arranged marriage saying, “We got together, then we got to know each other.”
He’s referring to a marriage between the Southwest Conference (SWC) (University of Texas [UT], University of Arkansas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M [TAMU], Baylor, Texas Christian [TCU], Rice, Houston, and Southern Methodist [SMU]) and the Big 8 Conference (Oklahoma, Oklahoma State [OSU], Kansas, Kansas State [KSU], Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, and Iowa State). But rather than being a marriage of equals, and to borrow Wizarding World terminology, the Southwest Conference implanted a horcrux into the Big 8, committed suicide, and has been eating the Big 8 from the inside-out ever since.
Death of the SWC
To understand the Big 12’s problems now, it is essential to understand why the SWC died. As it turns out, it was actually a rather dramatic suicide with UT and TAMU holding the gun. The 1990s were a glorious time for college athletics because TV contracts were beginning to clearly label conferences as haves and have-nots. A conference of only Texas schools and the University of Arkansas, the SWC was…well…limited in the amount of televisions it could reach — especially as compared to the geographically expansive ACC, Pac-10, Big Ten, and SEC. To get more revenue from a potential television contract, thought UT and TAMU, the SWC either needs to expand tremendously or collapse with the pieces left on their own.
But these schools realized that “they would face withering political heat if they stranded their in-state brethren in a mad dash to another conference, [and] knew they couldn’t make the first move. But Arkansas could.” Frank Broyles, then AD of Arkansas, recounted: “They’d say to me, ‘you go first.’ So we went.” Arkansas didn’t need a whole lot of convincing. At the time, only they and Rice were not saddled with NCAA sanctions which had earned the conference the nickname “Sure Will Cheat,” and they were one of only two flagship institutions in the SWC whereas they would be one of eight in the SEC. Indeed the SEC was looking to expand at the time also, so an Arkansas-in-transition was a welcome guest.
Alas, after Arkansas departed, “the revenue that each SWC university averaged fell by about $1 million dollars [sic] compared to the SEC.” This allowed UT and TAMU to also look at the SEC. And the Big Ten. And the Pac-10. Where UT ran into roadblocks with the Big Ten and the Pac-10, the SEC, which was ready to welcome both, was not interested in improving their academics in the way that UT wanted to see. The suicide mission backfired and UT and TAMU found themselves aboard a sinking ship.
The lifeboat came in the form of the Big 8, which was also looking for a bit of expansion both geographically and in terms of number of members. UT and TAMU were great additions, and if Texas Tech wanted to come too, fine, it would give the conference the same size as the Big Ten. Unfortunately for the Big 8, treading into the Lone Star State meant treading into the world of Texas politics, and it would forever tilt the center of gravity into Texas and away from the rest of the Big 8.
Forging the Big 12
The most fundamental problem that plagued (and indeed still does plague) the Big 12 is how exactly it came to be. Texas schools will tell you the Big 12 was a completely new conference, born of twelve schools in the Dust Bowl/Tornado Alley swath of the United States. The former Big 8 schools, however, think the Big 12 is just a bigger Big 8; that it is their conference and that they extended a line of security to a few schools in the floundering SWC. The Wichita Eagle reports the view from the Big 8, saying:
“Big Eight commissioner Carl James was fond of telling his members that the conference growth was going to happen in the same manner as his conference. Colorado made the Big Six the Big Seven, Oklahoma State made it the Big Eight. Nothing about the conference changed except the numbers. The league constitution and its location would remain the same, James said.”
Indeed the Big 12 almost prides itself on this fundamental disagreement, writing about it on their own website: “The Big Eight schools considered the Big 12 as an expansion of their old league, adding the four SWC teams. The four SWC teams considered it a completely new conference.”
It is often whined that Power 5 schools in the same state are politically tied to each other in the same conference. As a Michigan resident and alumnus of Michigan State University, I can say with absolute certainty that that is NOT a universal statement. It is also not true in Kansas nor Oklahoma, despite those two states being named frequently in this light. This is true, however, in Texas. The interwovenness of Texas politics and the activities of the SWC (and now the Big 12) is a fact of life. When UT and TAMU were looking to moving to the SEC, “politicians threatened to punish UT and A&M with budget cuts if they left the conference.” [Read: if they abandoned the State of Texas.] Texas State Senator Chet Edwards remarked, “I never made a threat [to cut off funding if the schools left the league], but a number of legislators were serious about encouraging them to stay in the conference. I’m glad that threat will not have to be used and now I hope we can stop the infighting within the schools in the conference.” (Emphasis added.)
I bring this up now because the Big 12 would have been a place of rather similar schools — larger and like-minded public institutions. And then there’s Baylor — a comparatively tiny private school, but ahhh, also the alma mater of Ann Richards and Bob Bullock, then-Governor and Lt. Governor of Texas, respectively. In a meeting initiated by the two, “it was discussed that it looked like the Southwest Conference was going to break up, but that Texas and A&M were not going anywhere without taking Tech and Baylor with them,” then-TAMU Head Football Coach R.C. Slocum says. Thus Baylor became the 12th man of the Big 12, and a league where two schools in one state seemed like a lot all of a sudden had a state with four schools.
Almost immediately the tide began to shift away from Kansas City (the long-time headquarters for the Big 8) to Texas. After a preliminary vote where Oklahoma City lost its bid at becoming the new Big 12’s HQ city, Colorado, Oklahoma, and OSU (disappointed that Oklahoma City’s bid lost), joined the Texas schools in outvoting 7–5 (largely South-North) the others to move the Conference HQ from Kansas City to Dallas-ish. The compromise was that Kansas City kept the more-profitable-than-an-office-building conference basketball tournament, which has largely (but not completely) been respected.
And then there was deciding who would be the conference’s first commissioner. It ended up coming down to two men: Steven J. Hatchell, then-commissioner of the SWC, or Kansas AD Bob Frederick. “The base of support for both Hatchell and Frederick seems sharply divided along geographic lines. The Texas schools are thought to be solidly pro-Hatchell. Frederick is better known among the Big Eight schools.” But guess what happened. You’re right! “When Hatchell [was the choice], some of the Big Eight old guard popped off. Former Kansas basketball coach Roy Williams suggested the new league be called the ‘Big Texas.’”
The “Texas vs. the Rest” mentality has ended up being a major problem through the conference’s 20 year life. The dramatic exit of Nebraska is testimony to that. Nebraska and UT, the biggest football powers in the Big 8 and SWC, respectively, butted heads most fiercely over something called Proposition 48 which detailed who exactly was academically eligible to play in football. UT ended up winning that battle and almost single-handedly overturned longstanding Big 8 rules in the process. Later battles over the existence of the Longhorn Network — a thorn in everyone’s back — and lack of general conference family ties led Nebraska to accept their offer of membership in the Big Ten in 2011. Like any angered, abandoned, and publically-revealed-to-have-been-abusive partner, UT President Bob Berdahl (1993–7) sought revenge on both Nebraska and the Big Ten by encouraging the ousting of them from the AAU, which he happened to be the president of. This story is told especially passionately by fellow Big 8er, former KSU President John Wefald.
Inasmuch as UT edged out Arkansas and Nebraska, they also eventually made Colorado, Missouri, and TAMU uncomfortable and angry enough to leave the Big 12 for the Pac-10 and SEC. The old days never died though — even when TAMU was leaving the Big 12, the conference was nothing more than Big 8 plus SWC. Chuck Neinas, former Big 8 Commissioner and interim Big 12 Commissioner said. “They’re from the Southwest Conference, they’re in the state of Texas. That’s where they were born and bred. That’s where they should stay. […] I would like to see the same kind of atmosphere that we had in the Big Eight. It was family.”
By this point, the 12-school conference had lost three of its Big 8 and one of four SWC schools. Proportionally, the SWC composition of the Big 12 had increased from 33% to 38%. The dramatic losses gave the Big 12 an easily-visible opportunity — one that SWC lovers were all-too-eager to seize upon. In the midst of the ordeal, a whole 26 Texas legislators penned an open letter to the conference urging that Houston be admitted into the Big 12 arguing, “the State of Texas deserve[s] better.” Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys and former Arkansas football player, took the throw-back one step further and began lobbying that Arkansas be summoned back into the SWC — I’m sorry, I mean the Big 12. The oddity of the addition of West Virginia aside, it becomes historically predictable that former SWC member TCU finally left its pathetic conference nomadship and was christened with “I’d like to welcome you home” at its Big 12 membership announcement press conference by then-interim Commissioner Neinas. Apparently all it took was an awkward nightcap with, who else, UT. That percentage is now 40%.
Six Years and Nothing’s Changed
Six years later, and the state of the Big 12 hasn’t improved all that much. At only ten teams, its inability to host a conference football championship game like the other major conferences, and the incredible backfire of its slogan “One True Champion” cost it a slot in the first College Football Playoff in 2014/5. Immediately, this sparked round two of Big 12 expansion gossip with schools beginning to lobby despite the urges of the Big 12 members (well…several of them) for calm. The NCAA even granted the Big 12 an exception to the rule and allowed the hosting of a conference football championship game.
So perhaps it was just a genuine desire to accurately reflect membership totals in the name of the conference that made Commissioner Bob Bowlsby announce what amounted to an open audition for two (or even four!) new members in summer 2016. What we see in the ensuing (VERY entertaining) chaos, is nothing new when we remember that the Big 12 is just a poorly-constructed façade of the Big 8 steered by the SWC.
At the time of my writing this, the “first cut” was made to the list, dropping it from 20 to 13 candidates. Don’t worry though! Houston, SMU, AND minuscule Rice are all still on the good list. Being a former SWC member is useful! Though Houston had been rumored to be a major candidate for years, its probably imminent invitation to the conference wouldn’t mean anything if it were offered fairly, right? Gotta have that Texas charm to make it real. Well there’s a lot of it. To start off, Houston’s holding a bit of a grudge against Baylor and thinks that, had the governor of Texas at the time of the Big 8-SWC merger been a Houston grad, it would have been a founding member of the Big 12 instead of Baylor (and maybe Texas Tech). “Around here, they contend that had the governor been a Houston grad instead of a Baylor grad when the Southwest Conference broke up, the school […] would have been in the Big 12 all along.”
Luck is on their side now though, because Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick loudly endorsed the common sensical admission of Houston to the Big 12. But then he made it more “Texas” and tied SMU to Houston, saying:
“I previously commented about my support for the University of Houston’s desire to join the Big 12. For many of the same reasons, I also support the inclusion of SMU. The impact to Texas would be big. Dallas and Houston are top TV markets and the Big 12 would be foolish to leave SMU and U of H on the sidelines. The economic impact to the state and to the schools is significant. I urge the Big 12 to carefully consider the addition of these two fine schools and all they have to offer. I hope Baylor University, Texas Christian University, the University of Texas and Texas Tech University will join me in supporting the addition of these two Texas schools. And, I trust these two schools will support each other.” (emphasis added)
Of course the Chair of Houston’s Board of Regents Tilman Fertitta doesn’t help the “Texas vs. the Rest” attitude of the Big 12 when he uses Texas-exclusive language where lobbying for Houston: “We belong playing Texas and TCU and Baylor. That’s who we belong playing.” He is also completely comfortable with the cozy relationship Texas athletics and Texas politics seem to have. He openly suggests that the Legislature should pressure the presidents of the Big 12 schools to “step up” and let the University of Houston into the conference. “Put pressure on the presidents; say, ‘If you don’t do this, we’re not going to fund you for this. It’s just the way it is. That’s the way to do it.”
Would adding any of these other Texas schools actually help the Big 12? Probably not — they still have the same problems they had when they helped end the SWC. Texas is still a highly saturated professional sports area. The Los Angeles Times reported in 1990 that “three NBA teams, two NFL and two major league baseball franchises — have lowered the SWC’s revenue. Recent figures show that an average of 50% of the available seats are empty at SWC football games.” That didn’t magically get better, especially in the age of decreasing attendance industry-wide. Further, ask literally anyone who was a student within the last few decades, and they will attest that, as Sports Illustrated, well, illustrated, in 1995 that the rising cost of tuition “made it difficult for the private schools (Baylor, Rice, SMU, and TCU) to compete with schools subsidized by the state.” Power 5 private schools are still very rare, and SMU is by no means Notre Dame, nor could it be within the foreseeable future.
Thanks to the overwhelming presence of the State (and University) of Texas within the conference, the business model of the Big 12 could be painfully weakened if one, but especially if two, more Texas schools are admitted. And that is what makes this expansion round yet another genuinely existential crisis for the conference. “These schools came together not as conferences once did — to bind universities in close proximity that agreed on playing and eligibility rules — but for one real purpose. The Big 12 formed to maximize its schools’ collective television contract negotiating power, a pure business arrangement.” Once business starts trending too poorly to improve again, money won’t exist to save the conference. And if money doesn’t, there is definitely no shared culture or identity that will.
