Yormark’s tour hits town
Packed schedule awaits Big 12 commissioner on his first visit to campus
The University of Houston plans to roll out the red carpet for Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark.
Yormark will visit campus Monday as part of his “listening tour” of league members. Yormark, who has been on the job since Aug. 1, made a stop at Cincinnati last week and BYU on Saturday. UH is stop No. 11 on the tour.
“I think it’s been a little bit of one-upmanship on his site visits, so we’re working on trying to get some things going to make sure we impress the commissioner,” UH vice president for athletics Chris Pezman said.
Upon arrival Monday morning at the AthleticsAlumni Center, Yormark will be greeted by a delegation of UH officials and the Spirit of Houston band. That will begin a whirlwind several hours that includes meetings with UH president Renu Khator, board of regents chairman Tilman Fertitta and Pezman and a tour of campus and athletic venues, including TDECU Stadium, Fertitta Center and the Guy V. Lewis Development
Facility.
“We’ve got a very full four or five hours with him that are completely booked with really important meetings,” Pezman said. “Looking forward to seeing him here. He hasn’t seen our place yet. I can’t wait to show it off and brag about what we are doing and getting done.”
The Big 12 will add four new schools — UH, Cincinnati, UCF and BYU — on July 1, 2023.
Since accepting an invitation to join the Big 12 last September, UH officials have attended the league’s meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz., and suburban Dallas.
“What’s cool about Brett, he’s pretty aggressive as we’ve all seen,” Pezman said of Yormark, a former Roc Nation chief operating officer and Brooklyn Nets executive. “We’re a pretty aggressive institution. We’re a place that can be entrepreneurial and we can do some things outside of the box. We’ve already had some conversations with Brett about some things we’d like to consider, whether we’re the test case or the canary in the coal mine for some of that stuff.”
In his first six weeks on the job, Yormark has tackled some important issues, among them early negotiations with ESPN and Fox on a potential extension of current agreements, possible expansion and the future of the University of Texas and Oklahoma. The two schools are set to join the Southeastern Conference in 2025, although some insiders believe that timeline could move up. At his introductory news conference at the Big 12 media days in July, Yormark declared: “The Big 12 is open for business.”
Yormark told reporters in Provo, Utah, this weekend that if the Big 12 opts to expand, the western part of the U.S. is the target, a move that would extend the league’s footprint to all four time zones.
Following decisions this summer by Southern Cal and UCLA to leave the Pac-12 and join the Big Ten, the Big 12 was mentioned as a possible destination for the “four corner schools” — Utah, Colorado,
Arizona and Arizona State. Such a move would provide travel partners for BYU and allow the Big 12 to expand into the West Coast market.
“Obviously, going out west is where I would like to go, entering that fourth time zone,” Yormark said.
While expansion is on the table, Yormark said it has to be “the right fit.”
“We’ve got a great collection of member institutions that are like-minded,” Yormark said according to the Deseret News. “I think we have, from top to bottom, some of the premier brands in the country. So whatever we do has to be additive. It has got to be the right fit. We will see what happens.”
After Monday’s visit, Yormark will wrap up his tour at UCF later this week.
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