LAS VEGAS — Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark insists everyone misinterpreted his oft-repeated phrase two years ago, when he declared at these same Big 12 media days that his conference was “open for business.”
Everyone listening interpreted that comment as the league’s openness to conference expansion. The Pac-12 had just seen USC and UCLA defect, and it was no secret that the Big 12 was hoping to pick up some pieces. A little over a year later, the Pac-12 disintegrated when the Big 12 added four of its schools.
“When I said we were open for business, I wasn’t talking about expansion. What the hell would I know about expansion?” Yormark said. The Athletic Tuesday inside Allegiant Stadium. “I wanted to say that we’re going to explore and test as many things as we can to create value.”
It was impossible not to think about the Pac-12 at this year’s Big 12 gathering. Four new schools — a quarter of the league’s 16 new teams — are from the Pac-12. The site of the Big 12’s media days is Las Vegas, as he was last year, where Colorado athletic director Rick George rushed to avoid the media just before Colorado switched leagues (with the help of a $2.5 million signing bonus from the Big 12 that Yormark would neither confirm nor deny Tuesday: “Ultimately, one got us four.”)
Although Oregon and Washington joined the Big Ten, the not-so-secret yearlong recruiting of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah drew attention and spotlight to its commissioner, as well as criticism from fans. A year later, Yormark simply sees it as the right business decision at the right time. He signed a TV deal before the Pac-12, and it made the difference. Eat or be eaten.
“Whether people think (the Pac-12 collapse) was my fault or not, to me, it’s just noise,” Yormark said. “I came here with one job, and that was to create stability for the Big 12 and position us to thrive in the future, and that’s exactly what I did. They had other goals in mind, the Pac-12, good or bad. We knew exactly where we wanted to go, we were on the same page as a group, and we executed and they didn’t. That’s the bottom line.”
“It had nothing to do with me or anything, it’s just that we executed our plan and they didn’t.”
College sports have been a cutthroat business for coaches and players for years. Only now have administrators begun to treat it as such. Those who didn’t catch on quickly enough have been left behind, including the century-old league that has long carried the banner of West Coast college football.
There’s no time for sentimentality when the Big Ten and SEC have increased their revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars ($30 million to $40 million per school), or when the House v. NCAA settlement opened the door for schools to finally pay players directly.
Suddenly, some of Yormark’s outlandish ideas, which drew backlash two years ago, are becoming the subject of broader discussion. On-field ads. Sponsor patches for jerseys. Social media partnerships. Private equity. Renaming the conference after a sponsor. This is the world Yormark moved into when he worked for NASCAR, the NBA and Roc Nation. Instead of changing his style to fit college sports, college sports changed to be more like him.
“At first, we wondered where this guy came from,” Yormark said. “I’m not saying I had more foresight than anyone else, but two years later, everyone’s talking about it.”
Yormark doesn’t have carte blanche. He reports to the Big 12 presidents, who have rejected many ideas. But the schools are happy to talk about these things.
“Brett knows he’s not going to win every battle,” Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor said. “He knows his job is to come up with ideas, and if we’re not willing to implement them, they’re going to be rejected. But he welcomes the discussion.”
Taylor is among the group that believes the Big 12 should seek private equity or an infusion of private capital, which would provide tens of millions of dollars more per school to help Big 12 schools stay financially on par with the Big Ten and SEC in the short term. Others in the league aren’t so sure. The question is when the bill will come due in the long term, or whether schools will have to extend their entitlement grants to receive the infusion. Private equity is not charity and is ruthless in its own way. Yormark said the league is expected to make its decision on that in the coming months.
The decision to rebrand the conference with a sponsor (the Allstate 12 being the leading contender) seems less imminent. The league has support, but executives don’t want to cheapen their conference’s brand in exchange for a few extra million. Is every element of college sports for sale? Should it be? And why keep the “12” when the league now has 16?
“We’ll see what happens in the future, but if we were to bring in a naming rights partner, we would have to do our due diligence on the 12,” Yormark said. “We would have to say we’re not going to change that for a while. We’ve done that before and our board said let’s stick with the 12 and build equity behind it, and that’s what we’ve done. If we’re going to change any part of the name, we’re probably going to have to go back to the lab and make sure that fundamental change is the right one.”
College sports have been completely reshaped in recent years. Conferences make no sense geographically or numerically. Fans express frustration and exasperation, even as they continue to fill stadiums. It’s no one’s fault, but the loss of the Pac-12 remains a sea change, with lingering feelings that may never go away.
“I think at the end of the day, when the Los Angeles schools left, even though we tried to put together the best opportunity, there was a lot of headwinds,” said Utah athletic director Mark Harlan, who chaired the Pac-12’s AD committee. “That’s probably the day (the Pac-12 started to fall apart).”
Of course, there’s always the possibility of another conference realignment as early as this summer. Clemson and Florida State have sued the ACC over rights issues. Yormark hasn’t been shy about basketball’s potential, saying again this week that the Big 12 is considering selling football and basketball as separate TV deals in 2030. The possibility of adding Gonzaga hasn’t come to fruition. UConn, the last remaining non-Notre Dame football independent, has won back-to-back national titles in men’s basketball, but feelings within the league toward the Huskies remain mixed.
Yormark hasn’t publicly addressed the topic of realignment since his comment two years ago, saying he was focused solely on the 16. But he’s open to more changes. So while discussing sponsorship and revenue opportunities for the league, he returned to the well.
“I guess you could say we’re still open for business,” he said.
Take that as you wish.
(Photo: Candice Ward/USA Today)