How Close Were Oklahoma and Texas to Leaving Big 12 Early? This Close, Reports Say
Fans on both sides who wanted Oklahoma and Texas to leave the Big 12 Conference early nearly got their wish.
That’s according to multiple reports, over the last two days, citing unnamed sources, that shed light on the Sooners’ and Longhorns’ efforts to migrate to the Southeastern Conference starting in 2024.
Action Network college football insider Brett McMurphy even reported that the schools and the conference had reached an agreement to an exit strategy that would let OU and Texas out of their contract and television grant of rights deal that runs through June 2025.
McMurphy reported Friday the parties “have a deal” but said ESPN and Fox are “not satisfied,” and that’s why it hasn’t gotten done yet.
ESPN college football insider Pete Thamel reported Friday that “weeks of negotiations” ... “have stalled and a deal is not expected to come to fruition.”
Thamel said the sides “couldn’t agree how to create equitable value for what Fox would lose in 2024” — broadcast inventory that essentially consists of the equivalent off seven football games featuring the Sooners and Longhorns.
Thamel even reported “negotiations heated up over the past few days” as Big 12 leaders met in Dallas/Fort Worth this week.
Earlier in the week, CBS Sports college football insider Dennis Dodd reported that OU and Texas recently “made an offer to the Big 12 and Fox to leave the league one year early for the SEC.”
Dodd said that offer “was rejected” for reasons that were unclear, but the holdup now appears clear: networks don’t want to lose a full year of high-profile inventory with OU and Texas only to have it replaced with inventory with BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston.
A report Friday from The Athletic’s Matt Fortuna said there had been momentum “since early December” for OU and Texas to leave a year early and “talks had ramped up heavily in the past few weeks.”
Fortuna also pointed out that the new SEC media rights deal and the expanded College Football Playoff contract both begin in 2024-25, which would explain the Sooners’ and Longhorns’ desire to establish their new address next year and make the transition as smooth as possible for both leagues. The Pac-12 also expands to 16 members that year, with the upcoming additions of USC and UCLA.
The Big 12 on Tuesday announced its 2023 schedule, which came late in the process. But the timetable makes sense now if the league and its members and OU and Texas were engaged in heated negotiations for an early breakup.
New commissioner Brett Yormark has talked openly about the 14-team league and its potentially awkward two-year window, which blends OU-Texas with the four newcomers for just two years but can be done so equitably for all parties. Yormark previously spoke about the need for all four new members to play “everyone” (meaning Oklahoma and Texas) during that two-year window.
It’s unclear now, however, if the 2023 schedule reflects just the first year of that equitable, two-year scheduling model or if it’s just a one-year placeholder until an early exit strategy can be agreed upon by all parties.
