There’s rumblings out of Houston and Alabama that Texas and Oklahoma want to join the SEC. That move would certainly blowup the Big 12 more than it already is.

I don't know if adding either Texas or Okla makes much sense for the SEC or Okla. First of all, going to 16 teams is a nightmare for football. The old WAC found that out. It waters down the rivalries even further, unless you go to ten conference games. But that also means fewer OOC games, which is where its better teams usually get a leg up when it comes to the playoff. Second, Texas football sure as hell ain't what it used to be. They haven't won a B12 championship since 2009 and have been in only one of last four B12CGs. They really wouldn't bring anything to the SEC. As for Okla, they pretty much have a lock on the B12. Why should they want to have to compete with Bama every year, especially with the playoff expansion. As long as they keep up their quality, they'll be almost guaranteed a spot in the playoff.

Good points being made that I never thought about.

In the first round of realignment, the MO of the big conference was TV markets. Hence why you get Maryland (DC/Baltimore) and Rutgers (NY/NJ) to the Big Ten. All of these conferences were wanting more eyeballs in certain geographic areas on their conference television networks.

Now, streaming services dominate the landscape so cable television subscriptions don't matter as much. What they're looking for is TOTAL numbers. The sky is limit with number of streaming devices watching your conference. So in this sense Texas and Oklahoma makes a ton of sense for any conference, not just the SEC. You could generate just insane amounts of money.

Don't be surprised if any of these other conferences make offers to see what they can get.

I think we're headed that way Andrew. If those two kick the tires and jump ship to another conference, you can kiss the Big 12 goodbye and the rest of the conferences will pick up the pieces. West Virginia probably heads back East to the ACC. The Big Ten really wants Kansas for basketball purposes.

I've heard Texas and OU are making calls all over, not just the SEC. So it's not guaranteed they would go there. I wouldn't be surprised if these conferences got into a bidding war to see who could go where. The PAC 12 needs to make some serious moves here to try and get their conference back on the right footing after the Larry Scott debacle. I just don't think they have the coin to pony up anything the SEC or Big Ten would offer.

This morning though, the SEC Network showed a 4-team Pod System for their conference season which I am 100% for.

It may have just been message board banter, but wasn't something in the works years ago about Texas, Oklahoma, and maybe Oklahoma State and Texas Tech moving to the Pac 10/12 (don't remember what it was at the time).

Pac wanted Texas to surrender too much and that killed the deal?

If this does go down, schools like Cincinnati and Memphis who have pushed for Big 12 membership in the past may finally get their ticket punched-but will it still be a conference worth moving to?

Would the Big 10 look to add another team along with Kansas for basketball?

I think this is a power move by Texas and Oklahoma before they get left out. Unfortunately for the big 12 i am not sure it is possible for them to expand and not steal some teams from other power conferences. Their are not enough teams not in power conferences that would make your league more compelling to expand. And the teams you could steal back from other conferences i don't think move the needle either.

I see ohlamoma and texas moving together but could be SEC, Big 10 or pac 12. I also think when this happens you imeditaley put pressure on Notre dame and BYU to join a conference.

If The SEC gets oklahoma and texas my guess is BYU goes to PAC-12 and PAC-12 also probably takes, oklahoma state, texas tech and baylor.

So now you go to notre dame. They dont seem to want to having anything to do with big 10 so i think they got to ACC. I do see the big 10 trying for notre dame and i could see a package deal that would being boston college and notre dame together. If they cant get notre dame i am not sure they really have interest in anyone from big 12. do you really want kansas? maybe you have interest in iowa state? They may go the route of adding pittsburgh and boston college. they seem to have no interest in a WVU or a cincinnatti.

So then this puts the ACC needing to find teams, I dont see them going for ny of the remaining big 12 teams so maybe they are looking at adding a UCF or south florida or west virginia maybe cincinnatti.

either way i think you still end up with a 5th major conference with a mix and match of what is left. i think this conference ends up with maybe west virginia as its anchor if they dont find a home. if not it will be a league anchored with texas schools that dont get in a big conference.

my guess this last 16 team league would have say Boise State, air force, san diego state, SMU, Houston, Rice, memphis, southern miss, louisiana tech, cincinnatti, army, navy, kansas, knsas state, iowa state, maybe a temple or a florida school.

when you look there are about 80 teams that are going to survive.

The Texas/OU Pac 12 was part of the first round of realignment. Texas flirted with the PAC 12 and planned on leaving Texas A&M behind. The Aggies weren't too happy with that, and then the Longhorn Network was the icing on the cake so when the SEC came calling, they jumped on it.

If the SEC (or someone else) goes to 16, you have to think the others follow suit. I think the Big 12 implodes and we're left with the ACC, Big Ten, Pac 12 and SEC. The ACC could nab someone like a WVU and Cincinnati. WVU is sick of all the travel for their away games as it is. Not necessarily for football or basketball, but it's that midweek non-revenue generating sports travel that sucks for them. If Texas and OU aren't in the conference, I highly doubt they'd wanna stay in a league with Kansas State just because.

Keep your eye on UCF too. It's not like the ACC needs another Florida school, but the last time I checked they had a Top Five enrollment figure in the country. If this round of realignment relies on total eyeballs for streaming purposes, UCF blows that out of the water.

If the Big Ten is taking Kansas for basketball, they'd take them for football too. They just WANT them for basketball. As far as the second team...I'd say Iowa State before anyone else.

What makes you say that? Unless there is some sort of state legislature keeping them together, there is no rule saying you have to take your state buddy along. Oklahoma would rather join up with Texas than Oklahoma State.

The biggest catalyst for this seems to be that ESPN and Fox have refused to begin negotiations over renewing their B12 contracts, which expire in 2025. No renewal from them would probably mean that CBS (which lost the SEC to ESPN starting in 2024) and Ballys would be the only networks left to pick up the contract, probably with a smaller payout for the B12. The B12 teams already get about $6 million less per team than the SEC teams.

ESPN will pay the SEC $300 million a year, five times what CBS currently pays. That means the SEC will earn about $1 billion a year (compared to $409 million for the B12). The league already pays about $44 million a year to each team, so the extra $250 million could get the 14 teams an additional $17 million a year, to about $61 million. But if you go to 16 teams, that means each team would lose about 1/7 of that amount, or $8.5 million (if my math is correct). That brings the total down to about $53 million.

It's been reported that Texas would scrap the Longhorn Network -- which is contracted with ESPN through 2031 -- if it joins the SEC.

Any B12 team would likely have to pay a $12 million exit fee, which is what A&M and Mizzou each paid to join the SEC. Given the possible additional money that would likely come from the SEC, that's probably not a big deal for a team wanting to leave the B12 for the SEC.

In order to add teams to the SEC, 3/4 of the current schools -- 11 of the 14 -- would have to approve. A&M would likely vote no.

Hardly think the vote would be 14-0 considering Texas A&M was left out of initial talks for that very reason. Apparently these discussions have been going on for more than a year and TAMU was never involved. Gee, I wonder why?

If pac 12 takes Texas tech and Baylor, big 10 takes Oklahoma state and Kansas. American takes TCU and Kansas State. MAC takes West Virginia and Iowa State.

Conference realignment is never over. West Virginia *should* be in the same conference as Pitt, just like Ohio *should* be in the same conference as Marshall. Does the rest of the ACC want WVU?

I’ve heard an ACC-centric guy (Bud Elliott, 24/7Sports via Podcast) theorize that the ACC wouldn’t be interested in WVU (isn’t that big a brand, isn’t going to draw sufficient media-partner interest to sufficiently increase conference revenues). Likewise with UCF. His thinking was that the ACC would come hard for Notre Dame (and hold at 15-teams in a Pod-based scheduling system) but not go for anyone else (Barring something VERY weird: like Penn State wanting to leave the Big10 weird)

Assuming that the other power conferences don’t say “we’ve GOTTA get to 16 teams, no matter what it does to our per-team conference payout”, there is a small (~10%) chance that we could see Marshall and WVU in the same conference. An equal chance (well, maybe 5%) that we could see WVU in the MAC (maybe paired with…Iowa St or Kansas St??) specifically NOT to be in the same conference as Marshall.

Of the remaining possibilities (~85% IN THE SCENARIO where PAC12 and Big10 aren’t shooting for 16 teams come he’ll or high water)…maybe 20% some sort of rump Big8, 35% some sort of “Big12” containing the remaining teams plus the top 4ish from the AAC, any maybe a 30% chance that WVU returns to its “Eastern Independent” roots.

Thoughts? What do people think? Anyone want to disagree and provide their own crude probabilities?