Big 12 renews pursuit of adding Gonzaga to conference after previous realignment talks stalled

A imaginable union between Gonzaga and the Big 12 is again at the desk in a transfer that may additional bolster the league’s popularity for very good basketball, assets ascertain to CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd. Longtime staples of the West Coast Conference, the Zags are one of the premier basketball manufacturers out of doors the game’s evolving primary conference construction.

Gonzaga and the Big 12 flirted in the past, however the ones talks cooled when the conference picked up new contributors Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah from the Pac-12 — additions that may take impact forward of the 2024-25 athletic season. However, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is main a renewed push to land the Bulldogs, assets inform Dodd. CBS Sports analyst Seth Davis first reported at the construction for The Messenger.

Yormark would really like to have Gonzaga sign up for the Big 12 — in conjunction with the 4 Pac-12 acquisitions — in time for the 2024-25 instructional 12 months.

“It’s a thing. It’s still kind of … we’ll see,” a Big 12 supply instructed CBS Sports. Yormark used to be no longer in an instant to be had for remark. 

Gonzaga becoming a member of the Big 12 now turns out to be an issue of negotiation. During the summer time Gonzaga won a $15 million annual valuation from its experts, trade assets instructed CBS Sports, must it sign up for an influence conference for basketball. That’s lower than part of what full-ride Big 12 contributors will obtain ($31.7 million) starting in 2024. 

Expanding to 17 basketball groups would create scheduling issues, particularly with reference to a conference match layout. But adding the Zags would solidify the profile of what’s extensively considered school basketball’s most sensible conference. Though Oklahoma and Texas are exiting the Big 12 for the SEC after this season, nationwide energy Houston is ready to embark on its first season within the league and can quickly be joined via any other massive basketball emblem in Arizona.

Other new or approaching Big 12 contributors similar to Cincinnati and Utah even have wealthy basketball histories, as do a number of longtime contributors, together with fresh national-title winners Baylor (2021) and Kansas (2022). Gonzaga has entertained the likelihood of departing the WCC for years however has been wary about leaving a geographically good league that it incessantly dominates. But becoming a member of the Big 12 would additional raise the nationwide profile of a program that has made 8 instantly Sweet 16 appearances below trainer Mark Few, who’s getting into his twenty fifth season as trainer of the Bulldogs.

 “I think it’s the best basketball league right now, depth-wise, and I always felt like the Pac-12 fit until UCLA and USC left,” a trainer instructed CBS Sports this summer time as phase of the Candid Coaches collection when requested a few imaginable transfer via Gonzaga to the Big 12. “I think there are too many unknowns there, and by default, you go to the next one over. The Big 12 is so deep and competitive. [The WCC] is working in certain areas … but I think it’s like dominating the JVs and you always want to play on the varsity.”  

It’s no secret Yormark has a definite, long-term basketball imaginative and prescient, person who in the long run contains separate media rights contracts for basketball and soccer. That’s by no means been executed, a minimum of within the trendy technology of the Power Five. Basketball has all the time lagged at the back of in valuation with the soccer being the principle earnings generator.

Yormark believes, with the hobby of streaming houses on the upward thrust, school basketball shall be value extra to extra suitors at some point. There are the ones within the trade who disagree. One key factor: Any motion in keeping apart media rights would have to wait a minimum of seven years till the Big 12’s new media rights deal expires in 2031.