@BeddieKU23
This is why I have been banging the drum for years for the B12 to expand into the EST at all costs.
The three university chancellors, one apparently being our own CBernie, have read this wrong. They have made the classic American CEO mistake--the short term revenue criterion. They have goofed and don't even seem to realize it.
The Big 12 schools CANNOT compete from the CST alone. Neither can the Pac 12 schools, frankly. Its form an EST division, or bust for both conferences downstream.
And this is an accelerating downward curve.
The B12 leadership thought if they made more money short term, they would get so strong financially in the long term that they could dictate the next realignment.
Wrong.
They incorrectly anticipated the erosion in the ability of the conference schools to recruit, as the asymmetric recruiting distribution increased in the apparent war between Nike and Adidas.
What has happened apparently is that the accelerating competition between Nike and adidas has apparently driven Nike to stack one or two programs in various conferences that create a high likelihood of occupying three of the Final Four slots in the Madness. Not surprisingly, Nike has apparently emphasized cornering the conferences attracting the most eye balls: ACC, B1G, SEC and Pac 12. And while it has tried to stack Texas from time to time, Barnes could not turn the corner against Self and KU. So: an apparent embargo/containment policy has ensued against KU in the B12, and the net effect of the stacking of the Big Eyeball conferences has been generally to dilute the B12 talent pool vis a vis the Big Eyeball Conferences.
The three chancellors have to wake up and smell the coffee. In their short sightedness, they used Chuck Neinas to come up with stand pat policy and a commissioner that would do nothing until they got their confidences back from the fat checks. The apparent plan with Bowlsby was to hire a guy that could facilitate a Pac 12 merger downstream. A Pac 12 merger, tried once and backed out of because the Pac 12 only wanted to skim a few B12 teams, makes some sense in political economy POV, because it unites resource states west of the Mississippi for a formidable voting block. Alas, it ignores the meager media dynamics of such a merger and the corrosive effect of those meager media dynamics on recruiting, big shoe relations, and long term revenues.
The B12 teams rely increasingly on the high population east, south and west coasts for their players, but their conference exposure is largely where they don't recruit. It has always been this way to some degree, but TV, internet, gaming and shoe dynamics are amplifying these traditional tendencies to the point that Big 12 teams just cannot attract the numbers of good players in the major sports needed to stay competitive.
An exceptional bunch of coaches in the B12 has obscured the talent deficiency for a few years now with good interconference w&L statements.
But the Big 12 talent is not on a par with ACC, B1G and Pac 12 conferences.
Put the Big 12 coaches in any of those conferences and those conferences would be kicking ass in the inter-conference period of the season.
The Big 12 has to expand east or west to leverage up its media, gaming and Big Shoe dynamics to favor it, rather than handicap it.
Resource alliances in the political economy pull it west.
Transportation alliances in the political economy could pull it east.
Ag alliances in the political economy could pull it either way.
But its got to go one way or the other.
Unless it were willing to go north and south and expand into the universities of Canada and Mexico and move their schools into basketball and football, and move its own schools massively into soccer. And let baseball and track become dominants sports along the north south access.
There are no other alternatives, except break up of the Big 12, with some schools going west and some going east.
The three chancellors have some decisions to make.
And the longer they wait the less they are going to be able to direct the outcome.
