Big 12 Media Days Scrapped and Will Be Held Virtually

Big 12 Football Media Days canceled and made into a virtual event

STILLWATER -- According to a report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the annual Big 12 Football Media Days, scheduled for July 20-21 at AT&T Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, is canceled and is going to be held virtually. More money for the Zoom and Team apps of the world. The Forth Worth Star-Telegram confirmed the decision by the Big 12 to go virtual for their media days with a Big 12 spokesperson. 

The decision was made by conference athletic directors and coaches, who  decided Wednesday to hold it virtually amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Details have not been released.

Big 12 football days had more than 500 credentialed media last year in addition to players, coaches and spirit squads from each school.

— Chuck Carlton (@ChuckCarltonDMN) May 6, 2020

It is probably a good thing logistically as most Big 12 schools have declared their summer school classes online. You have yet to know for sure when football student-athletes will all be back together on campus and when you could have them available to travel to any event, much less a media days.

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby has been very careful about his answers to questions his comments moving forward with regard to the COVID-19 and coronavirus situation, however in his first media teleconference after the cancellation of the Big 12 Basketball Tournaments and all spring sports championships. I asked him about the football media days having heard just hours before Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the SEC say their conference would have football media days this summer. Bowlsby talked about a new sponsor for the league's Big 12 Football Media Days and how that was an important event for the conference. 

"We have a new sponsor coming on for that event in Academy Sports and Outdoors, so obviously we want to hold it," Bowlsby said back on March 26. "It's in the middle of July and we don't know what the circumstances will be then. It's still on the calendar but it's another event that we will have to think about and make the best decision we can with the circumstances."

Those circumstances now mean more loss of sponsorship dollars from Academy with the event being scrubbed and made into a virtual press conference.

Back in the old days with the Big Eight there was a Big Eight Skywriters Tour where media traveled mainly by bus but with a plane ride or two across the Big Eight to visit the schools during football two-a-day practices. Like two-a-days, the Skywriters Tour went the way of extinction. The first year of the Big 12 Conference the media met with coaches and players in St. Louis at what was then the TWA Dome. 

The Big 12 Media Days have been in the DFW Metroplex for the most part lately having been held a couple of years at The Star in Frisco (Dallas Cowboys practice facility) before moving back out to AT&T Cowboys Stadium. Personally, I have been on the Skywriters Tour from 1984 through 1992 and I have attended all of the Big 12 Media Days events from 1996-2019.