OU leaving the Big 12 over the Longhorn Network would seem a longshot
Published: 7/21/2011 7:37 AM
Last Modified: 7/21/2011 7:37 AM
We thank The Sporting News' Matt Hayes for the following summertime interruption:
"A source told Sporting News Wednesday that both Texas A&M and Oklahoma are so concerned about rival Texas gaining a recruiting advantage with the newly-formed Longhorn Network, the two institutions could turn to the SEC if the problems can't be figured out."
All right. Two questions. (And, if we're lucky, a few answers.)
1 – Any chance the problems might be figured out?
Yes. Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione intimated as much Monday afternoon.
Wednesday night, Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe put a temporary stop to the Longhorn Network's plans to both televise high school games and air a second Texas football game, a conference game at that, this fall.
"It's not going to happen until and unless the conference can make it happen with benefit to all and detriment to none," Beebe told the Dallas Morning News.
Texas AD DeLoss Dodds, in the meantime, removed the Darth Vader helmet and replaced it with a headband of daisy petals.
"We want to play by the rules," Dodds told the Associated Press. "We want everything to be in the open with integrity.
"ESPN knows we don't want to violate any NCAA rules. They don't want us to. That would not be a way we would want a recruiting advantage. This will be a service to high school football. We don't want it tied to Texas."
Dodds isn't just reaching out to media, he's joining Texas officials and Beebe in talks with Big 12 presidents and athletic directors about the Longhorn Network. Although it sounds like he's going to have to work hard on Texas A&M AD Bill Byrne, given Byrne's public disenchantment with ESPN Bevo.
A&M is going so far as to discuss the network at Thursday's board of regents meeting. The Aggies, whose faces blanch at the mere sight of burnt orange, are more than a little chapped, and it's reasonable to suggest that if they're not serious about bolting the Big 12 for the SEC, they don't exactly mind the possibility floating around cyberspace.
2 – So would the Sooners seriously think about joining them?
This I find much harder to believe.
OU-Texas tension is generated by football mostly. It is a fan base issue, and an active volcano from September through the BCS bowl season.
With Texas and Texas A&M, the lava bubbles year-round. Things like politics and culture are involved. And if the wrong Aggies were to get the wrong impressions over Texas throwing its superior weight around, they'd stop at little to do something about it.
Including fleeing a conference that barely survived extinction just over a year ago.
I don't see Castiglione or OU president David Boren being so rash. I don't see them standing by and watching the Longhorn Network doing as it pleases, but surely there are more reasonable ways to protest.
I sort of think they explored them in those talks with Dodds and Texas officials this week.
Monday afternoon, I asked Castiglione about the Longhorn Network not because I found it odd that he hadn't launched OU's own version. Rather, because of the resentment the network seemed to inspire across the conference. A conference that he lobbied so publicly for just over a year ago.
Here's what Castiglione said in response:
"The whole reason why we're a conference is geographical proximity, the idea of fan bases being able to move from one campus to the other to follow their teams closely. The competitive aspects, the environment you create for student-athletes. That is the (issue). Over time, various conferences and/or individual schools have found ways to invest in their programs. And when they do that, they've found opportunities to monetize.
"As long as we continue to monetize those rights strategically, as we have in the past, we'll be fine. We've come together and decided that is the best strategy. As long as we're doing that and it benefits the institutions and everybody agrees on the direction we're moving, then we'll be fine. We've done that in a big way the last several months. And people are advantaged financially moreso than ever before. People are going to generate more revenue than ever before off that one new contract (the $1.1 billion deal with Fox announced last April). We have the other contract (with ESPN/ABC) three or four years from now.
"Those signs are positive, and they point to this league getting stronger moving forward."
Maybe I read him wrong, but he sounded to me like a man still championing the Big 12's cause. I would be surprised if that changed in two days' time.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
