Pete Thamel shares where things went wrong with potential Big 12/Pac-12 merger

Talks of a potential Big 12/Pac-12 merger were squashed Monday night when ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported the Big 12 had “no interest” in it. Tuesday on SEC This Morning, Thamel provided more details about where things went wrong.

Thamel reported the leagues had three Zoom calls about a potential partnership to discuss multiple options. But ultimately, the biggest factor was value, and Thamel said the Big 12 determined it wouldn’t be there.

“They’ve had extensive discussions,” Thamel told Peter Burns and Chris Doering. “There were three Zoom calls and there had been some moderate interest on the Big 12 side to explore a merger. And really, when you talk about ‘exploring’ these mergers, it’s really financials. This comes down to balance sheets. The Big 12 took a look at it, they discussed it a little bit, they said no thanks and it really leaves the Pac-12 in an interesting situation because they’re now going to essentially have to go to market and see what market can bring without their two main schools.

“In some sense, they still have Oregon and Washington, but let’s be honest, Oregon and Washington probably aren’t going to be there 10 years from now. Their contract’s essentially expiring and they have to sort of put Humpty Dumpty back together again and it will be interesting to see now if the ACC or maybe the Big 12 goes and tries to take a run at selective expansion, as they call it — certain schools in the Pac-12. You’re right, Peter, we’re in a dynamic time and things are moving fast. And I’m not saying every league’s going to have 20 in the next couple weeks, but it’s like spy vs. spy. Everyone’s out of their trench looking at what everybody else does. We’d be naive to think the train’s going to stop here.”

The Pac-12 laid out three options for the Big 12 to consider, with the latter enjoying one more than the other two. Pooling rights together, making some kind of scheduling model between the two conferences, or completely merging together. The Big 12 was in favor of becoming a 22-league conference since it could have “could have potentially driven value because of the sheer numbers of schools and populations areas.”

On3’s Griffin McVeigh contributed to this report.