The Blue Board

this was a stupid idea when texas fans championed it two years ago, and it's stupid now. never happen. not worth thinking about.

I don't think it is that far fetched, but there eventually would have to be a limit on whether the ACC could allow another team to do this. You are essentially forcing your actuall full time members to play home and homes with a team that they possibly would rather not play. Imagine if you are a Florida St or Virginia Tech and in the middle of trying to get to the ACCCG, all of a sudden, you have to go to Austin, TX the first week of November to play, for the most part, a meaningless game. Most teams want that type of game out of the way early in the season so that they can concentrate on getting through their conference later in the season. If it's not one of the first few games or the last game on the schedule, teams are not going to want to play it.

Also, if Texas pulled the plug and decided to go this route, I think they could get the Big12 to keep the rest of their sports and lose football. As long as OU could keep the RRR, I don't think they would care and the Big12 would still want Texas as a market for basketball, IMO.

I believe all Big 12 schools just signed a 13 year Grant of Rights, so at least 13 years.

You might be right, but that deal was announced less than two weeks ago IIRC. The new grant of rights might not even be signed by all parties yet. Also, people buy their way out of contracts all the time. Hell, we've seen it happen time and time again in the context of conference realignment. UT and ESPN have tons of creative and high priced lawyers. If they want out of the grant of rights early, they will find a way to make it happen.

I mean they set the precedent for the ACC. No way was UT going to move its non-football sports to the BE. Basketball maybe, but not baseball, swimming, track & field, etc. But the ACC is entirely different. UT's non-football sports will fit in there very nicely. And so will UT academically. The ACC actually is a major upgrade from the unwashed masses in the B12 when it comes to academics. UT will absolutely love that aspect of this move.

Depending on the conference, $50 million can be made up very quickly. The difference in ticket sales alone could make up about $3 million or so per year and then when you add in an additional $5 million+ in revenue per year, that $50 million can go away very quickly. Not to mention that fact that FSU could probably get another conference to pony up 10-15 million of it for them, if I had to guess.

I always thought Texas would join the Big 10...

why would ut go independent when we are perfectly happy in the b12?

C'mon. The short answer is $$$$. But the long answer is no you're not. UT already has explored leaving the B12 at least twice in the past three years. Over that time period, the B12 has lost two of its signature members in Nebraska and TAMU and two of its largest media markets in St. Louis and Denver. And going into year two LHN is a bust. Of course, the holy grail that was going to fix all of this was adding ND to the B12 for non-football in the short-term with the goal of getting their football down the line. Deloss Dodds supposedly was working a deal with his buddy Jack Swarbrick to make that happen. As of yesterday, the ND plan is dead. And with it most likely any chance of luring FSU or any other school from the ACC. Brace yourselves, Longhorn fans, because the next sound you are going to hear is Deloss Dodds and the B12 welcoming Louisville and BYU to the league. Enjoy!

Not saying any of it happens, but a Big12 without Texas would probably crumble and go away with 4-6 of the teams finding their way to the major conferences and the rest having to go a lesser route.....probably Big East or whatever they change the name to.

FSU doesn't even consider joining a Texas-less Big12.

Speaking hypothetically that Texas did want to go Independent of course.

PSU is not going anywhere. First, they hate ND because of the double cross ND pulled on them back when PSU joined the B10. Second, the research funding benefits of the CIC (B10 research consortium) are substantial and dwarf anything on the athletic side. And third, without going through all the numbers, when the B10 renews its TV deal in 2015, those revenues combined with BTN revenues should be $40-45 million per year. The ACC won't be anywhere near that. The SEC*, B10* and Texas will be significantly ahead of everyone in a few years, even the P12. PSU has no interest in walking away from that.

* The SEC and B10 are the only two major conferences that have yet to renegotiate or renew their TV deals. The SEC is in the process of doing theirs now and it is expected to include some sort of SEC Network. The B10 will likely start their renewal negotiations in 2013.

not going to happen. it's been said many times - w/o teams that can make an impact to the bottom line (read: nd, fsu), there will be no b12 expansion. byu is a possibility given their network and fanbase, but louisville, cincy, etc have no shot at all.