Gauging Big 12 landscape after adding Colorado, potentially Arizona

Arizona could soon be on its way to the Big 12 Conference, joining fellow Pac-12 member Colorado in leaving after scheduling a meeting between the universities Board of Regents on Tuesday.

On3’s Andy Staples discussed the latest on this development, revealing what he would do if he was in Big 12 Conference Commissioner Brett Yorkmark’s shoes,

“If I’m Brett Yorkmark and the Big 12, I’m pushing. I want them to come, too,” Staples said. “I want Utah, I want Oregon and I want Washington. And I’ll take Arizona State and Arizona, too. I’ll take them all.”

That would put the Big 12 Conference at 18 schools — which would make them by far the biggest conference in the country.

As On3’s Jesse Simonton, who was on the podcast with Staples, points out that SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has been hesitant to add programs past Texas and Oklahoma, which would put them at 16. No conference has ever operated past 16, so it would theoretically put a lot of pressure on Yormark and the Big-12 to constantly handle nearly 20 different programs in over a dozen different sports.

“It’s nine [in one division] and nine [in another]. They could do it,” Staples said. “That’s the one league you can do it in. … But Oregon and Washington want the Big Ten, if they can get it. If the Big Ten is at all interested down the road, I think if you’re them, you stay in the Pac-12 unless it’s crickets when [George] Kliavkoff talks.”

Wildcat Authority publisher Jason Scheer, who was the first to report that Arizona’s Board of Regents was set to meet on Tuesday, also reported that the Pac-12 is gearing up to present a new media deal to league members, but there is “pessimism within the conference,” and it could be commissioner Kliavkoff’s “last stand in keeping the conference together.” 

Whether Kliavkoff’s plea is listened to remains to be seen, but there’s no love lost when money is involved — and Colorado will earn a nice check from the Big 12’s media rights deal once they join the conference this time next year. The same could be on the way for Arizona, and any other teams that could wiggle themselves out of their current Pac-12 contracts.

If any more of the Pac-12’s programs leave, there will have to be an evaluation over conference expansion. Some teams that have come up as possible additions over the past year are San Diego State — which has made its interest in joining the Pac-12 quite clear — at SMU. Some wildcards, though, include UNLV and Colorado State in the Mountain West.