Report: Big 12 Media Partners Had Concerns Over BYU; UL, WVU Perk Up at BetLM

Report: Big 12 Media Partners Had Concerns Over BYU; UL, WVU Perk Up

The Big 12-s deci­sion to invite TCU as the league’s 10th mem­ber late last week came very sud­denly after reports sur­faced that the con­fer­ence would look to expand in earnest. The move to acquire the Horned Frogs from the Big East was rumored to be a favor­able one by many in the Big 12, but it left a ques­tion mark as to why TCU, which does not expand the conference’s geo­graph­i­cal foot­print or bring in any new TV sets, would be cho­sen over BYU. The Utah school was long con­sid­ered to be the favorite for the Big 12 if/when the con­fer­ence needed to replace Texas A&M, which will now join the SEC in 2012.

Last month, Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com reported that TCU”s stock was ris­ing in the Big 12, and BYU’s was falling. Now, we may know why.

The Salt Lake Tri­bune writes that they have con­firmed that the Big 12-s media part­ners — ABC/ESPN and FOX — were, at the very least, con­cerned over adding BYU, cit­ing the school’s no-play-on-Sunday pol­icy. An Oct. 7 report by the Tulsa World stated nego­ti­a­tions between BYU and the Big 12 were becom­ing complicated.

From the Tribune:

“The Tri­bune has learned that the tele­vi­sion part­ners had con­cerns with BYU’s no-play-on-Sunday pol­icy and how it might impact tele­vi­sion plans as they related to tele­vis­ing non-football sports on Sun­days — par­tic­u­larly the Big 12 con­fer­ence bas­ket­ball tour­na­ment cham­pi­onship game. That game has not been played on Sun­day since 2008, but the tele­vi­sion part­ners wanted to retain the Sun­day option.

“Addi­tion­ally, BYU — which left the Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence for more national tele­vi­sion expo­sure as a foot­ball inde­pen­dent — appar­ently wanted assur­ances from the Big 12 that it would appear on national tele­vi­sion a min­i­mum, unspec­i­fied, num­ber of times per sea­son. The Cougars also were said to want per­mis­sion to show their foot­ball games not picked up by Big 12 tele­vi­sion part­ners on their own tele­vi­sion net­work, BYUtv, which is avail­able in more than 60 mil­lion homes nationwide.”

So, for the imme­di­ate future, it doesn’t appear that BYU will be on the Big 12-s expan­sion radar — if the Big 12 decides to expand beyond 10 teams, of course. Interim Big 12 com­mis­sioner Chuck Neinas has stated that the Big 12 plans to pro­ceed as a 10-team league — Mis­souri included — for 2012.

If the Big 12 does expand, though, the absence of BYU means a greater focus could be placed on Louisville and West Vir­ginia out of the Big East. Just a short while ago, reports sur­faced that the Big East has extended invi­ta­tions to Boise State, Air Force, Navy and UCF; Hous­ton, SMU and Tem­ple are also in the mix. Addi­tion­ally, the Big East is look­ing to raise its exit fees to some­where in the $ 15 mil­lion range.

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