Burned by the burnt orange
In abandoning Big 12 for SEC, Texas didn’t hesitate to turn its back on ‘family’
AUSTIN —For about 12 years now, ever since he left Rice to become TCU’s athletic director in October 2009, Chris Del Conte has been a central figure in the Big 12.
He guided the Horned Frogs through their transition out of the Mountain West and into the conference after Missouri and
A&M left 10 years ago. He oversaw expansion and renovation projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars across the university’s 272-acre Fort Worth campus before moving 200 miles south to Austin in December 2017.
At Texas, he has raised funds with the fervor of a desperate salesman to upgrade the Longhorns’ outmoded facilities, landed high-profile coaches, and empowered the athletic department to launch successful fanfriendly events and attractions like Longhorn City Limits and Bevo Blvd.
Throughout those dozen years, Del Conte has forged intimate relationships with figures around the Big 12, both in the league offices and at member institutions. To hear the Texas AD tell it, they’re like family.
And right now, that “family” feels like a burnt-orange dagger has been thrust deep into its collective spine. Because Del Conte, along with university president Jay Hartzell and UT System board of regents chairman Kevin Eltife, spearheaded Texas’ move into the Southeastern Conference. With Oklahoma. And without the knowledge of commissioner Bob Bowlsby, the league office and conference’s eight other members.
Bowlsby and the Other Eight have issued statements critical of Texas over the past week and a half, ever since the Houston Chronicle reported on the conversations between UT, OU and the SEC. Bowlsby even fired off a cease-and-desist letter to ESPN, accusing the Worldwide Leader of “incentivizing other conferences to destabilize the Big 12.”
So Friday, just before the Texas board of regents unanimously voted to accept an invitation to join the SEC, Del Conte, Hartzell and Eltife all tried salving the gaping wound with gushy remarks about the Longhorns’ relationship with a conference it can’t escape from fast enough.
“We shouldn’t go forward without appreciating where we’ve been and where we are,” Del Conte said Friday during the board of regents’ special meeting.
“2021 will be our 26th year in the Big 12, and we’ve had so many great experiences and memories and will continue to engage in competition and work with many great colleagues in our league going forward through our contract that runs until 2025. I personally have made many great friendships in the Big 12. I have respect, admiration and appreciation for them. I look forward to continuing that.”
Whatever happens to the Big 12 next — everything from complete dissolution to merging with another conference has been theorized — this family has been shattered. More precisely, that illusion of fellowship created in the mid-’90s when four Southwest Conference schools broke away to join the Big 8 schools has been shattered.
Texas and Oklahoma joined forces because it was a financially prudent future-looking move and a boon for their athletic brands, Big 12 fan be damned. And if the SEC also wanted Oklahoma State or Texas Tech or Baylor, then Hartzell and Oklahoma president Joseph Harroz would’ve grown the secret alliance, because that would’ve been best for business.
Whatever trust had been built up between Texas, Oklahoma and the rest of the Big 12 over the past quarter century has vanished. For good. Especially because it’s become clear these realignment talks are not fresh, but rather several months old, a vexing realization for the Big 12 considering how its media rights renewal talks with ESPN and Fox fell apart earlier this year.
“The general result is that, at this time, with so much uncertainty in the media marketplace as well as the landscape for collegiate athletics, our partners, ESPN and Fox, are not interested in acting pre-emptively with regard to our contract,” Texas Tech president Lawrence Schovanec told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal in May. “They recognize the importance of our partnership, but there’s just too much uncertainty, and they do have four years to go.”
Meanwhile, the SEC and ESPN already have agreed on a 10-year, $3 billion media rights deal that goes into effect in 2024. And while Texas and Oklahoma have kept themselves legally covered by stating they’ll fulfill their grant of rights agreement with the Big 12, set to expire June 30, 2025, the relationship between those two programs and their current conference is now so awkward and shaky that no one really believes it will last that long.
More likely, Texas and Oklahoma will find a way out earlier, possibly by next summer. No point in maintaining the illusion, especially when there’s money to be made and brand-building to be done in the SEC.
Legal battles are looming. The Big 12 will either fight to keep both programs through 2025 or try extracting as much money as possible through buyouts. But it will be ugly, contentious, even a little embarrassing, especially for the painfully unaware Bowlsby.
As for Texas and Oklahoma, they’ve got a new family now. One that pays even better.