Let’s Not Assume We’ll Have to Wait for 2025 to See Texas, OU

Report says both sides still talking because, well, everybody wants to go ahead and do it

Author:
Andy Hodges
Updated:
Feb 7, 2023 1:45 AM EST
Original:
Feb 5, 2023

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Just as we suspected, Friday's announcement was just negotiating in public by the Big 12.

There's a better chance than most think that Texas and Oklahoma still end up on the Razorbacks' SEC schedule in 2024 despite recent reports.

For a league that doesn't want to keep Texas and Oklahoma in the fold, they are more interested in keeping the television money in place.

Throw in a couple of television networks that don't really care for each other we probably will have a few more months of this going back and forth in public.

Ross Dellenger at Sports Illustrated kinda pulled back the curtain about what's really going on between the Big 12 and the Southeastern Conference, which is mostly about Fox vs. ESPN.

Despite a report Friday of negotiations stalling, many believe the situation remains fluid, while acknowledging that recent “snags” in discussions—most of them centered on television rights—have slowed momentum.

All of that was my initial thought when I saw the announcement, yet most of the media just accepted it and went along their merry way. You don't even have to be particularly smart to figure that one out.

ESPN and Fox have been arguing over stuff for years and stealing employees from each other right and left.

Everybody knows what's at stake here. When the Longhorns and Sooners come to a bigger and better league, not a whole lot of folks are really going to care about watching anything that happens in the Big 12.

We're talking big numbers here. Sure, there will be fans of the teams in the league that tune in, but that will be about it.

The SEC will have appointment viewing every week.

And they are one step away from having every conference football broadcast on one of the family's channel, which many often forget includes ABC for the millions that don't have cable or satellite and don't do streaming. Not everybody has moved into the digital age yet.

Fox dumped all of it's regional sports channels a few years back to appease stockholders (nearly all were losing money hand over fist) and now NBC grabbed the Big 10 for Saturday nights to go along with Notre Dame.

Basically all they have is the Big 12 and a bunch of 11 a.m. games in the midwestern part of the country.

That reality is coming up in the windshield rapidly and they are trying to get some sort of compensation for losing the two schools that made the whole deal with the Big 12 mildly interesting in the first place.

“It was made very clear to me that they are coming on board in the fall of 2024,” Dellenger reported in his story, quoting a high-level administrator at an SEC school said earlier this week.

Folks you talk to in Birmingham maintain the official position the two schools will join the SEC in the fall of 2025, but for about six months now they are giggling when they say it or trying to avoid that.

The Big 12 added four new members last year that are coming on board this football season in BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston. The Sooners and Longhorns didn't get to vote on it, either.

After their announcement they were headed to the SEC, they don't even get invited to the junior varsity parties any more.

“Everybody, conceptually, is pretty close to a deal,” one Big 12 source told Dellinger in his story.. “The hangup is Fox wants some inventory. If they get that figured out, they’re on the one-yard line.”

Nobody is in a particularly big hurry except fans wanting to know. The SEC hasn't decided on scheduling plans, although it's becoming clear the goal is no divisions and three permanent opponents every year in a nine-game league schedule.

Official announcements of a of the 2024 football schedul is when we should pay close attention.

Until then, it's all really just public negotiation between two big media companies over a lot of money.