The 10 schools that make up the Big 12 are bound together by a deal committing their television rights to the conference through the 2024-25 school year.
That grant of rights ends with the expiration of the conference’s $2.6 billion television contract with Fox and ESPN. The question hanging over the Big 12 has always been: When that TV deal runs out, will the conference end, too? Will Texas and Oklahoma, the conference’s flagship programs, remain satisfied with being the Big 12’s big dogs, or will they seek potentially sweeter deals elsewhere.
Expansion wasn’t going to change that, so the Big 12 declined on Monday to add two schools from a group of 11 that included BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and Connecticut.