My recommendation is for the Big 12 to add 2 schools and plan on 10 teams for the conference. Lets Discuss:
1. I absolutely think that 10 schools is the minimum required for Football scheduling purposes. We want all of our schools to have 9 automatically scheduled conference football games. An 8 team league would make it very difficult for most if not all of our schools to schedule a decent 5 game non-conference schedule most of the time. 3 games of Non-conference allows Iowa State to schedule their Northern Iowa/ Iowa combo for example. It also allows Kansas to downgrade their nonconference in a way to attempt to get 3 wins and not embarrass us. It allows for schedule stability but also giving schools some latitude to upgrade or downgrade their schedule.
2. Selling TV rights. I believe it will be much easier to sell a Big 12 TV deal for $200 million (10 teams multiplied by $20 million) as compared to $280 million (14 teams times $20 million) for example. If CBS or NBC or Fox takes us, does it really look better to have this
10 team Schedule (TV gets this for $200 million)
Noon Kansas State vs. Houston
3:30 Oklahoma State vs. Iowa State
7:00 Cincinnati vs. TCU
or
14 team schedule (TV gets this for $280 million)
Noon Kansas State vs Houston
3:30 Oklahoma State vs. BYU
7:00 Cincinnati vs. Iowa State.
I can't really say that the 14 team schedule really looks any better. Like any Conference, TV will try to find ways to put the top half of the conference on National broadcasts and the rest gets put on smaller cable channels or streaming (which is going to grow more and more).
3. No Divisions is an advantage for many reasons: Scheduling and Divisions can become conference fights. Kansas State doesn't need to be separated from historical rivals like OSU, ISU or Kansas. We should keep playing those games every year.
If the Big 12 can only get 2 national broadcast games or 1 national broadcast game, I would recommend the 10 team schedule even more.
1. I absolutely think that 10 schools is the minimum required for Football scheduling purposes. We want all of our schools to have 9 automatically scheduled conference football games. An 8 team league would make it very difficult for most if not all of our schools to schedule a decent 5 game non-conference schedule most of the time. 3 games of Non-conference allows Iowa State to schedule their Northern Iowa/ Iowa combo for example. It also allows Kansas to downgrade their nonconference in a way to attempt to get 3 wins and not embarrass us. It allows for schedule stability but also giving schools some latitude to upgrade or downgrade their schedule.
2. Selling TV rights. I believe it will be much easier to sell a Big 12 TV deal for $200 million (10 teams multiplied by $20 million) as compared to $280 million (14 teams times $20 million) for example. If CBS or NBC or Fox takes us, does it really look better to have this
10 team Schedule (TV gets this for $200 million)
Noon Kansas State vs. Houston
3:30 Oklahoma State vs. Iowa State
7:00 Cincinnati vs. TCU
or
14 team schedule (TV gets this for $280 million)
Noon Kansas State vs Houston
3:30 Oklahoma State vs. BYU
7:00 Cincinnati vs. Iowa State.
I can't really say that the 14 team schedule really looks any better. Like any Conference, TV will try to find ways to put the top half of the conference on National broadcasts and the rest gets put on smaller cable channels or streaming (which is going to grow more and more).
3. No Divisions is an advantage for many reasons: Scheduling and Divisions can become conference fights. Kansas State doesn't need to be separated from historical rivals like OSU, ISU or Kansas. We should keep playing those games every year.
If the Big 12 can only get 2 national broadcast games or 1 national broadcast game, I would recommend the 10 team schedule even more.
