Brett Yormark 'confident' the Big 12 will have formal affiliation with Las Vegas Bowl

The Big 12 Conference kicked off its annual football Media Days event on Tuesday inside Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas with a new look. As Texas and Oklahoma depart from the league in SEC and Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah join the new expanded 16-team conference.

With its new additions, the Big 12 has more of a presence in the West Coast than ever before after acquiring several teams from the Pac-12 along with BYU last offseason. A presence that the league and commissioner Brett Yormark would like to build up and keep strong moving forward in the future.

In his opening remarks and press conference to start Big 12 Media Days, Yormark made several references to Las Vegas. The location of media days where the conference will look to set up shop in the future as a location of strength of the league. Which led to Yormark being asked about the potential for the Big 12 being an affiliate and conference tie-in for the Las Vegas Bowl.

“I’m confident at the right time we will have a formal affiliation with the Las Vegas Bowl,” Yormark said. “This market is critically important, Scott Draper‘s working on that, but I’m very comfortable and confident in what that outcome will bring for our conference.”

Starting in 2020, the Las Vegas Bowl has featured a Pac-12 team versus either an SEC or a Big Ten team with the two conferences alternating every year. But now that just two teams remain in the Pac-12 (Oregon State and Washington State) there’s a level of uncertainty about who will play in the game. Uncertainty that it sounds like Yormark is willing to erase with the Big 12 potentially inserting itself into the picture.

“We need to be here in Vegas for all the right reasons, I said it earlier, the entertainment and sports capital of the world. So critically important market for us in the future,” Yormark added.

The Pac-12 has appeared in the Las Vegas Bowl more than any other conference in college football, a conference that has now will be undergoing a hard reset following the latest round of nationwide conference realignment.

The Big 12 securing themselves a tie-in for the Las Vegas Bowl definitely makes sense, with seven of the last 10 Las Vegas Bowls featuring teams that are now in the Big 12 Conference between Utah, BYU, Arizona State, and Houston. And it will be fascinating to see if Yormark and his staff can get it done and secure a spot in Sin City.