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Big XII…Yes, it’s still a conference

That collective sound you heard emanating from population-challenged poedunk towns across the Midwest over the past few weeks was that of the 11 Big XII schools (and their fans) not named Texas exhaling at news of the Longhorns’ disinterest of joining their fellow Midwestern brethren up North.

The burgeoning, Nielson-allergic towns of Ames, IA, Manhattan, KS, Stillwater, OK, Waco, TX and the like are breathing easier these days as Texas decided to not (for once) go for the big payday and remain in what essentially has become one of the poorer BCS conferences, one which has devolving into the Big II over the past decade.

To illustrate just how strange the Longhorn brass’s decision was in these wintry economic times, let’s examine some of the economics behind it.  The Big 1T1en, via its deal with ESPN and its own Big 1T1en Network, rakes in a total of $240+ annually from its lucrative television deals, and it is divided equally among its 11 members.  For all those SEC fans out there, that comes out to roughly $22 million per school.  The Big XII, littered with universities whose towns are populated commensurate with a typical Costco on a Tuesday, only receives $78 million (or about $6.5 per team) annually from it TV deals.  Even though Texas benefits somewhat from unequal revenue sharing due to its prominence of games on national TV, it still only received about $12 million last year.  Even the most backwoods West Virginia fan can see the huge difference between $22 million and $12 million.  And then consider the fact that Texas would bring 4 of the top 50 TV markets with it.  And those are the markets within the state of Texas alone.  Texas has grown into a NATIONAL brand over the past decade.  That alone is enough to inflate the average payout to the member-schools of the Big 1T1en.  Drastically.

But Texas, which is currently the most valuable sports program in college, opted to remain the big fish in the little pond, in essence choosing wins over dollar signs, as it continues to toil in the far athletically and scholastically inferior conference in which it currently resides.  The conference has been a two-team battle for each of the past 6 seasons, and even though the Iowa States, Kansas States, Oklahoma States, and Baylors of the world aren’t excited to see their Big Brothers from Austin staying put relative to the gridiron, they have got to love the Longhorns’ welfare program.  You see without Texas in it, what’s left of the Big XII would have roughly half of the revenue it currently enjoys from it TV deals to split among its member-schools.  That’s only about $3.5 million per.  That’s not BCS-conference-worthy.  That’s not enough for some of those schools to maintain a well-rounded sports program.  Take Kansas State for example.  In 2009, they made roughly $6 million in TV revenue, which was about one-sixth of its $38 million budget.  If Texas were to leave, their TV revenue goes to about $2 million, meaning they would lose over ten percent of their budgeted total for the athletics department.  To put that in perspective, look at the economy right now.  We’ve got 10% unemployment.  Same analogy applies to the KState example.  It would devastate the program and its standard of living.  And there are similar examples in the smaller schools of the conference.

So as much as the Big Eight schools disliked Texas for insistence of discontinuing the old Big Eight’s use of partial qualifiers, and as much as they dislike the school for its successes on the field, they do need to be thankful that they are co-conference members with such a school – and grateful they are staying put.