Big 12 expansion plans up in the air without Kevin Warren’s Pac-12 poaching

When Kevin Warren left the Big Ten for the Chicago Bears, he simply might need taken the Big 12′s finest hopes of expansion with him.

In his three years as Big Ten commissioner, Warren was just about a wildcard in faculty athletics. During the early phases of COVID-19, he lobbied to cancel the whole 2020 soccer season. He appeared to carry a short-term mentality to a job that requires long-term considering.

Warren nonetheless made an impression earlier than changing into the Bears’ president. His lasting legacy will all the time be luring USC and UCLA away from their properties in the Pac-12 to the richer paydays of the Big Ten starting in 2024. It was a masterstroke of each audacity and stealth that rocked faculty athletics each bit as a lot as Texas and Oklahoma asserting they had been leaving the Big 12 for the SEC.

In the aftermath of the two defections, the Pac-12 was left reeling and susceptible. Speculation was rampant that the convention was hanging by a thread with the Big Ten and Warren doubtlessly focusing on Washington and Oregon.

The domino principle had the Big 12 being considered one of the beneficiaries of a Pac-12 implosion. The remaining Pac-12 faculties would instantly search for any Power 5 haven. According to the principle, the Big 12 would grow to be the excellent touchdown spot for Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.

All of a sudden the Big 12 could be a 16-team convention going ahead without Texas and Oklahoma. Just as vital, the Pac-12 could be marginalized. There could be precisely 4 energy conferences left to divide up future TV eyeballs and media {dollars}.

For that to occur, the Big 12 wanted a catalyst to get the dominos falling – and that catalyst was Kevin Warren.

Despite all the power and dedication proven by new Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark, it thus far hasn’t been sufficient to beat the hesitancy of Pac-12 faculties to maneuver en masse.

Yes, the Big 12 has negotiated a $2.28 billion media extension with Fox and ESPN that can common about $31.7 million per college. For a convention without Oklahoma and Texas, it was neat little bit of stabilizing the Big 12 by Yormark.

The Pac-12 is predicted to most likely match or perhaps barely exceed the Big 12 when it declares a brand new deal. Yes, the Pac-12 will seemingly need to sacrifice visibility and minimize a cope with Amazon to hit the monetary quantity. While streaming could also be the wave of the future and whereas the NFL could have discovered success with Amazon, it might be asking an excessive amount of of viewers to modify over to their Prime accounts for Utah-Arizona.

Yet the cash could also be adequate to maintain the establishment alive in the Pac-12.

The one that may have modified that equation was Warren. ESPN reported that Warren continued to push for additional expansion although it had alienated a few of the highest profile universities in the convention in addition to the TV stakeholders. Warren stored pushing although ESPN reported that his statements about expansion “were viewed internally as clumsy and tone-deaf.”

It’s a great wager that the new Big Ten commissioner gained’t take the identical pedal-to-the-metal strategy to expansion that Warren did. The Big Ten energy brokers will see to that.

That leaves the Big 12 looking for one other technique to persuade reluctant Pac-12 faculties that it represents a greater different.

Twitter: @ChuckCarltonDMN

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