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OU president (again) says Big 12 should 'strive for' 12 teams
Oklahoma president David Boren isn't wavering from his desire for the Big 12 to have 12 teams.
Boren repeated his stance on expansion on Wednesday.
“I think it’s something we should strive for while we have the time, stability, all of that to look and be choosy,” Boren said via The Oklahoman. “(We) can be very selective about who we want to add. It would have to add value to the conference. I think we should.”
He's preached patience before too. In 2011 Boren said he wanted the league to get back to 12 teams eventually but that he didn't want the decision to be rushed. Nebraska and Colorado had left before the 2011 football season while Missouri and Texas A&M left before the 2012 season. They were replaced by TCU and West Virginia.
He also called the Longhorn Network "a problem," though according to the Oklahoman, he didn't call it by name. It was clear he was referring to Texas' channel though.
“The elephant in the room remains the network south of us that has struggled and has in a way as long as it’s there,” Boren said. “And we have done quite well with our network and if anything ever changed, it has value to it which we see. But someday, maybe we’ll get past that other problem as well. It’s a problem.”
The Longhorn Network is reportedly garnering $0.29 per subscriber in the state of Texas and $0.02 per cable/satellite subscriber outside of the state. Those revenues are much lower than the SEC Network, also operated by ESPN and the Big Ten Network. The Big 12 does not have a conference television channel.
Big 12 officials have said the conference is willing to stand pat at 10 teams and not expand for the sake of expansion.
Expansion would also have to come with added benefits, namely more money for schools. Television contracts and other revenues would have to correspondingly increase to make it worth it for the 10 current Big 12 schools. It'd be incredibly hard to convince the conference's members to take a revenue cut. According to Boren, the conference's television contract (the largest source of revenue) would increase proportionally if the conference expanded.
If you're a college sports fan, you know we've been down the expansion road innumerable times in the past few years, especially regarding the Big 12. And regardless of all the chatter, Boren's comments are likely to make some fans of schools like BYU, Cincinnati, Memphis and Central Florida giddy of the prospect their team could be a candidate for the Big 12.
But are the comments any indication of a substantive move towards actually adding two teams? If Boren had changed his position, we'd be more inclined to say yes. Right now it seems best to file away until there's chatter emanating from the Big 12 league offices.
For more Oklahoma news, visit SoonerScoop.com.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
