Column: Welcome to Big 12-Lite
Published July 7, 2010
As classes ended and campuses emptied, talks heated up to leave an indelible impression on the college athletics landscape. We were headed toward four "super-conferences" consisting of 16 teams each.
Well, it was rumored to happen. That's what my sources told me, anyway.
But it didn't, perhaps to the chagrin of the Big Ten. Missouri has committed steadfastly to the new and improved Big 12-Lite, sans Nebraska and Colorado. What does this mean for MU going forward?
Critics will point toward the Big 12's distribution of revenue, which remains unbalanced, and other policies as reasons why Missouri lost ground in this summer's conference reshuffling.
However, I look at the new Big 12 as a step forward, albeit small, for the university and surrounding community. According to Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe's proposal, Missouri can significantly increase its earnings from the conference in 2008, when it received $10.4 million. $17 million or more annually is an amount the vast majority of schools in the country would take in a heartbeat. And MU still has a home in a BCS conference (not to mention a home in general) that dwarfs one of the other rumored situations (party in the Mountain West?).
I don't like the inequalities in the Big 12 and neither does any school in the soon-to-be-defunct North Division. Ultimately, the conference will face the same possibility of divorce down the road, because the Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC will come calling again. But in the short run, these policies ironically saved the Big 12, as Beebe was able to lure Texas & Co. back to the Midwest.
In the Big 12, each school's success on the field indirectly correlates to the amount of money it receives from the conference, thus creating the revenue discrepancies. Although this may not be fair (Texas has more pull than Iowa State), there's no arguing that more success on the gridiron translates into more success off it.
Missouri actually received the fourth-most revenue from the Big 12 in 2008-09. This might surprise some people, but MU was coming off an exceptional football season the previous year and basketball was on its way towards an Elite Eight appearance. If the Tigers can hang with Texas and Oklahoma in football and Kansas in basketball year after year, fewer fans, if any, will complain about the revenue sharing.
Although this type of sustained success would be unprecedented if both of MU's "revenue" sports reached elite status at the same time, there's no better opportunity to do it than in the new Big 12. With only 10 teams, the league can schedule a round-robin in football and double round-robin in basketball. There would be an undisputed champion, with no easy path to get there.
We already have an idea of how Mike Anderson's Tigers can compete in the new Big 12 because everyone plays each other at least once. As for Gary Pinkel's Tigers, I'm still not sure. I have the utmost faith in Pinkel to lead us to third place in the standings (which is more than what MU could say when he got here). Taking us to the next level will be more of a challenge, starting with a victory over Oklahoma this year during Homecoming on Oct. 23.
Pinkel will certainly have more exposure in Texas. Now if only we stopped playing so many palooka teams out of conference, Gary.