Big 12 in 2016

[Lobot]

Follow Up: The Big 12 is actually doing the right thing by not starting a network right now. The entry cost to a cable channel is high at a time when the market model is going to totally turn upside down and go to a streaming internet model. The Big 12 would be smart IMO to wait until the dust settles into some sort of pattern and find out who the best partner is whether it be some future incarnation of ESPN or FS1 in addition to Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Twitter, Facebook or some other digital corp. My thinking is that wire line providers like Comcast, TWC and Verizon and AT&T will eventually solely be ISPs. Cable TV and the wires on the poles and maybe in ground cabling for TV will vanish off the landscape. You'll notice that two of the big cable corps just agreed to sell the majority of their wire line businesses to second tier media companies like Frontier and Charter. Everything's eventually going to be over the air streaming via mobile 5G. It's being tested by multiple providers both in and out of the US right now. This is why Verizon sold most of even it's nationwide fiber lines to Frontier and never finished the build out of the network in several cities. They don't need that tech anymore because they own the property and have the tech for 5G build out. You're talking gigabit internet speeds off cell towers here.

Tech is my other hobby/profession and that's my futurism post for the week. Probably more than you wanted to know.

[CincyBearcat95]

Gotcha - just wanted to make sure I was on the right page. Thanks. And I completely agree on the network. Most of the cable companies already consider themselves ISPs and are growing that while using the cable networks as cash cows.

[bearcatbret]

Rating the 18 candidates.... http://collegespun.com/aac/houston/b...ates#slideshow

[Lobot]

OOOOF.. Flugaur: BTM:"Without the public statement, without the political cover for B12 Presidents, the BYU candidacy is dead in the water"

[Lobot]

Flugaur doing a tweet fest. If you choose to believe him UCF is back in the game and unless BYU makes a public honor code change they're toast.

[Lobot]

Interesting Flugaur just indicated that Big 12 expansion was going to be hard to cover for ESPN and he got called out by Dan Wolken at USAT.

[red_n_black_attack]

What is USAT?

[red_n_black_attack]

Interesting Flugaur just indicated that Big 12 expansion was going to be hard to cover for ESPN and he got called out by Dan Wolken at USAT.

"You bet it is!" Love it.

[bearcatbret]

Interesting that ESPN colluded to put the Big East football conference out of business and now it could be football putting ESPN out.

[swilsonsp4]

Very few of the pundits have really addressed the dynamics of competition between ESPN and FOX in this. The writers have thrown out all kinds of speculation as to the potential expansion teams, but not much on TX being an ESPN school and OU with more ties to FOX.

One thing that has to be taken into consideration with Flugaur is that his contact is inside the OU camp. We get that angle, but not from anyone claiming to cite Longhorns sources. ESPN certainly shades their views that direction and want not only to protect their interest in the LHN (if they can ever make it work), but also their ties to the more eastern P5 leagues. Plus , they're hemorrhaging money and don't want TX to buckle under to expand at all, if possible, or, at best limit it to two schools. FOX doesn't seem so inclined. One of Flugaur's comments was that FOX is amenable to UC/UConn/UCF ... if ... OU and the other non-TX bloc can convince TX not to block a 4-team growth plan.

[longtimefan]

I'm really disappointed with the whole thing. After hearing there would be a presser on July 19, I really believed that the work had been done and the new schools would be announced at that time, I certainly did not expect them to open up the process to the circus it has become. After all the work by outside consultants to go about this the way they have just doesn't make sense. If ESPN is really trying to manipulate this conference behind the scenes then they are adding to the cynicism that is spreading more and more into college athletics and are only hurting themselves in the long run. Despite all that has gone on UC has remained largely quiet, but all the bashing of candidates has gone on far too long. The Big 12 needs to act fast to retain some credibility in all this. If this all comes down to Texas refusing to go along with the rest of the league that is not a surprise. I think long term Texas needs to go independent, the Big 10 and SEC would never allow them to wield the same power they have in the Big 12. And if OK State thinks they will be able to tag along with OU, they are probably mistaken, I can't see the other major conferences being forced to accept them.

[longtimefan]

Why does the Big 12 need to expand???

Teams and states by population

State	Population	P5 Teams
Texas	27,469,000	5
Oklahoma	3,911,000	2
Iowa	3,124,000	2
Kansas	2,912,000	2
West Virginia	1,844,000	1
Florida	20,271,000	3
Ohio	11,614,000	1

Outside of Texas, the rest of the Big 12 states have a combined population of 11,791,000, slightly more than Ohio. But those small states are home to 7 P5 schools while Ohio has only 1. Adding Houston really does nothing to get the league out of Texas and into the rest of the world. Adding UC and UCF would drastically expand the reach of the Big 12, and while Connecticut is a rather small state it is in close proximity to the most populous region in the country.

The Big 12 needs to expand to larger states and markets, outside of Texas, if it hopes to survive. If I'm the Big 12, it's UC, UCF, UCONN, and ????

[Lobot]

What is USAT?

USA Today newspapers

[bearcatbret]

Interesting how he speaks of the power 65 schools as if they are the best of colleges and universities. It does sound like a future NFL style system that only includes those teams already in the power 5 association. He fails to observe that there are maybe 15 teams in those power 5 conferences that have no right to be included among the elite. With all of the money that they rake in, they still cannot put together decent teams. http://newsok.com/article/5513732

[coach]

Boy LTF, you must have had a long dry time catching up on info. to think they would announce expansion and schools on 7/19. I do not know of anyone who expected that. However, i take Uc's silence as a good sign. The B12 is not going to gain a lot of credibility whatever they do at this point as they failed on numerous occasions in the past several years to act expeditiously and take the 3rd party guessing out of the equation. We'll see. I remain optimistic.