12 Schools the Big 12 Should Target for Expansion
Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark is making a lot of progress during his first year on the job, Back in October, he helped negotiate a $2.28B media rights deal with FOX and ESPN.
The Big 12 Conference, and its TV partners, also finalized a deal to allow the University of Texas and Oklahoma University to leave the Big 12 Conference for the Southeastern Conference on July 1 of 2024, a year earlier than previously scheduled.
Now the focus will shift to further conference expansion, according to Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated.
BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati, and Houston will join the league this summer, meaning the league will be at 14 members. That, of course, will drop to twelve once Texas and OU depart. Since it appears we're heading toward a world of "super conferences", the Big 12 will be aggressive in its expansion search. There haven't been any reports stating how many institutions the league wants to add, but don't be surprised if it's as many as six. There are several ways for the Big 12 to get to 18 members. I have a couple of suggestions.
Raid the PAC 12: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, Washington.
This would be the most ideal situation for the league. Landing big-time athletic programs that are competitive in multiple sports, not just football and basketball. The addition of Oregon would be massive. As would Colorado - a former member of the league. These six schools in particular have been mentioned in conference expansion rumors dating back to last summer. And according to Dennis Dodd of CBS, "everything is on the table", including a possible merger with the PAC 12.
Smaller scale: Boise State, Liberty, Memphis, SMU, South Florida, UNLV.
I'm honestly surprised Boise has yet to receive an invite to jump to a Power Five conference. I know, the market is very small and probably brings very little revenue to the table, but still.
Liberty is a sleeping giant. They're a much larger school than people realize. They have a total enrollment that exceeds 110,000. A large portion of those students are off-campus, but it would become the biggest school in the Big 12 by enrollment. In addition to that, they have had a lot of success in their athletic program and have state-of-the-art facilities. It's only a matter of time before they make the jump.
Memphis doesn't really move the needle, but if the Big 12 adds five members and is looking for one more, Memphis could be considered.
SMU has to compete with TCU in the Dallas market but with Texas leaving for the SEC, it makes sense to add the most successful athletics program in the state that is not already a member of the Big 12.
Bringing in South Florida would continue to tap into the southeast market for the Big 12 and would give Central Florida a travel partner. USF has all the potential in the world to become a strong athletics program, but they need Power Five backing.
UNLV?!? What?!? Why?!? The Las Vegas market. Although they don't have a big brand or decades of athletic success, they, like USF, could turn into something big down the road. There's a lot of talent in Nevada in both football and basketball and it would be easy for them to recruit surrounding states, including California.
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