Big 12 aims to be 'No. 1 conference in America,' does Brett Yormark have sights set on blowing up the ACC?
Two years ago, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark remarked that the conference was “open for business.”
Then the league poached Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah, aiding in the death of the Pac-12.
Two years later, Yormark doubled down on his “open for business” comments in his introductory comments at Big 12 Media Days in Las Vegas on Monday.
“As we enter this new chapter, I can assure you Big 12 schools will compete at the highest levels and they will continue to invest,” he said.
“From a conference perspective, we are exploring all options. Two years later, I guess you could stay, we’re still open for business. Naming rights is one. Private equity is another.”
He didn’t address further expansion, but he didn’t have to. His sights are clear — he wants the Big 12 to be the best conference in the country, and for any hope of that pie-in-the-sky-plan to come to fruition, the Big 12 has to loot the ACC.
While the Big 12 was initially rocked by the departures of bluebloods Oklahoma and Texas, Yormark, through aggression and foresight, has stabilized the conference. It’s probably the best basketball league in the country now, and he claims they’ve leapfrogged the ACC in the power conference pecking order in all sports.
“We solidified ourselves as one of the top three conferences in America,” Yorkmark said.
“There has never been a better time than right now to be part of the Big 12. We are truly a national conference in 10 states, four time zones and all eyes are now on the Big 12 for all the right reasons. I think it’s safe to say we are more relevant now than ever before.”
Is he right? Is the Big 12 now a better football league than the ACC?
No. But it can be.
Why the Big 12 won’t seriously compete in the College Football Playoff without further expansion
Brett Yormark isn’t afraid to be bold — whether that’s a positive or not is debatable — but from private equity investments to social media partnerships, to renaming the Big 12 with a new sponsor, Yormark is open to any and all ideas to create value for the league.
But there’s a stark difference between out-of-the-box thinking to being untethered to reality.
In his most bombastic claim to date, Yormark heralded his 16-team football league as “the deepest group in America” and “I will not stop until we are the No. 1 conference in America.”
He added that the league would be “well represented in the CFP.”
In what world right now?
In a conference that now spans from West Virginia to Arizona, there’s a Grand Canyon-esque chasm between the Big 12 and the SEC/Big Ten right now.
It’s not just media rights deals, revenue or brand exposure. It’s that most all the best players sign up to play in those conferences. In a wide-open league that should be fun as hell in 2024, the Big 12 *might* be a deeper league than the ACC this fall.
It certainly isn’t “better,” though, because — for now — the ACC still has three teams capable of winning the national championship.
Yormark can’t make the same claim about any of his 16 teams in the Big 12.
As currently constituted, the Big 12 doesn’t have a single program capable of winning the national championship in the 12-team playoff format. Not one program — be it Utah, Kansas State or Oklahoma State — is constituted to go through a 17-game season and engineer multiple upsets against the likes of Georgia, Ohio State, Texas, Oregon and Alabama.
The expanded playoff now guarantees the league access to the title, but when comparing the past to the present, TCU actually had a better shot at winning the national championship two years ago in a game it lost 65-7 to GA.
You could make the argument that in the majority of future seasons, the Big 12 will struggle annually to even crack the Final 4 again. This is why so many have outlined the potential value of being the 5-seed in the 12-team format where the highest-ranked conference winners get the first four seeds.
The Big 12 is seen as a layup.
College football is a talent acquisition game, and for as much as Brett Yormark has done to preserve and stabilize the league, the Big 12 is still hemorrhaging here compared to the rest of the sport.
In the 2024 recruiting cycle, Texas Tech was the lone Big 12 member to sign a Top 25 class. There were 13 SEC schools represented in the Top 25. As a conference, the Big 12 inked three Top 100 prospects.
Three.
In 2025, the Big 12 again has just one team — TCU — in the Top 25. Remove Texas and Oklahoma from the previous several seasons, and that’s typically the standard.
The Big 12 simply can’t compete with that against the SEC and Big Ten, which is why college football’s Littlefinger will continue to be aggressive in reshaping his conference to truly being competitive in vying for championships.
“This is not the time to press pause,” he said.
Yormark called himself a “disruptor” who “stirs the pot,” and the only hope he has for the conference to win a title again is to poach the likes of Florida State, Clemson and Miami from the ACC. Can he find the funds? He can pull-off another coup.
He torpedoed the Pac-12, but can he blow up the ACC to turn the Big 12 into a legitimate Big Boy league?
We’ll see.