Big 12 Moves to Add Big East-Bound TCU at LinesMaker.com

AUSTIN, Texas —After more than a year of watch­ing their league get
picked apart, lead­ers of Big 12 Con­fer­ence finally made a proac­tive move
Thurs­day by vot­ing to add TCU as early as next season.

It was the first aggres­sive act by a league des­per­ate to secure its
mem­ber­ship amid dra­matic shifts in con­fer­ence affil­i­a­tion. And if the Horned
Frogs join the Big 12, it would be another sharp blow to the Big East, which was
expect­ing to wel­come TCU next season.

TCU Chan­cel­lor Vic­tor Bos­chini Jr. sug­gested TCU is all but ready to join
the Big 12.

“These dis­cus­sions with the Big 12 have huge impli­ca­tions for TCU,”
Bos­chini said. “It will allow us to return to old rival­ries, some­thing our fans
and oth­ers have been advo­cat­ing for years. As always, we must con­sider what’s
best for TCU and our student-athletes in this ever-changing land­scape of
col­le­giate ath­let­ics. We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing these dis­cus­sions with the
Big 12.”

TCU, which is leav­ing the Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence, has a ris­ing foot­ball
pro­gram that won the Rose Bowl last sea­son and will play in a sparkling new
sta­dium next year. TCU also was a mem­ber of the old South­west Con­fer­ence that
once included cur­rent Big 12 mem­bers Texas, Texas Tech and Baylor.

“We’re proud that TCU has been invited to join the Big 12,” said Texas
ath­letic direc­tor DeLoss Dodds, who touted their aca­d­e­mic and ath­let­ics suc­cess
as an “excel­lent fit” for the Big 12. “Their close prox­im­ity to all
con­fer­ence insti­tu­tions makes for a com­fort­able travel situation.”

TCU’s move to the Big East, announced nearly a year ago, was sup­posed to be
about sta­bil­ity and being in a con­fer­ence with auto­matic access into the BCS.

But Syra­cuse and Pitts­burgh recently stunned the Big East by announc­ing
plans to leave for the Atlantic Coast Con­fer­ence. With­out them, and with­out more
changes, there will be only six other foot­ball teams in the Big East before TCU
gets there next season.

Big East offi­cials declined imme­di­ate com­ment Thurs­day but its mem­ber
schools were aware of the dan­ger a TCU move would mean for the league when it
comes to football.

Con­necti­cut Pres­i­dent Susan Herbst said called col­lege realign­ment a “fluid
sit­u­a­tion.”

“It is impor­tant that none of us here at UConn become too anx­ious over this
sit­u­a­tion,” Herbst said. “We will con­tinue to mon­i­tor the national land­scape
and be in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with offi­cials from other schools and lead­ers from
around the country.”

While Dodds and other Big 12 school offi­cials praised the effort to land
TCU, there are still big ques­tions sur­round­ing the con­fer­ence. The Big 12 will
lose Texas A&M to the South­east­ern Con­fer­ence next sea­son and Mis­souri is also
explor­ing a move to the SEC.

The Big 12 has been on defen­sive foot­ing since the spring of 2010, when
Mis­souri openly hoped for an invi­ta­tion to the Big Ten. The Big Ten instead
snatched away Nebraska and Col­orado left the Big 12 for the Pac-12 over the
sum­mer.

Mis­souri did not par­tic­i­pate in Thursday’s unan­i­mous vote among Big 12
pres­i­dents and chan­cel­lors to open nego­ti­a­tions with TCU. A tele­phone mes­sage
seek­ing com­ment from Mis­souri Chan­cel­lor Brady Deaton was not returned.

Although TCU would not expand the league’s tele­vi­sion foot­print, the Horned
Frogs would add a Big 12 mem­ber in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which is already
a rich tar­get for Okla­homa, Bay­lor and oth­ers. It also would bring in a foot­ball
pro­gram that boasted a 36–3 record from 2008–1020 and went to BCS bowls the last
two years.

The move also would be a finan­cial wind­fall for TCU.

Big 12 chan­cel­lors and pres­i­dents have agreed to equally share rev­enue from
the conference’s most lucra­tive tele­vi­sion deals if mem­ber schools agree to give
those top-tier rights to the league for at least six years. The agree­ment is
sub­ject to approval by uni­ver­sity gov­ern­ing boards.

The revenue-sharing plan would give each school about $ 20 mil­lion in June
and that fig­ure is expected to grow by 2013 when the league’s new 13-year
con­tract with Fox Sports kicks in. The Big 12′s con­tract with ABC/ESPN expires
in 2016 and likely will bring in addi­tional money when renegotiated.

TCU’s foot­ball sta­dium is under­go­ing a $ 143 mil­lion mod­ern­iz­ing ren­o­va­tion
sched­uled to be com­pleted by the 2012 opener. TCU, which got left out of the Big
12 when the league was formed in 1996, would join Bay­lor as the Big 12′s only
pri­vate schools.

Sports Writer Stephen Hawkins in Fort Worth con­tributed to this report.