HaddowJ
 Couple of Points About BYU


First, the wrestling program at BYU was a casualty of Title IX. There are a lot of great HS wrestlers in Utah but they are forced to go to other schools. Second, BYUTV was not created with the association of BYU and ESPN. It has been there all along. The vast majority of its programming has nothing to do with sports so it is not a Longhorn Network. What BYUTV does have is a state of art studio and equipment. They have their own production truck. They would be doing Tier 3 rights. At the current time they help out the WCC in basketball by televising all the games not offered (all the women’s games) on the ESPN platform.

In football they average around 60K per game in basketball near 17K per game. I think that would currently surpass most of the teams in the Big XII. As far as media goes they have the largest built in fan base that goes well beyond Utah. It is a national school and its graduates are all over the nation. They would bring more eyeballs than any other school under consideration.

You are correct about the distance but then West Virginia is even further. In truth WVU belongs in the ACC but they would not have them. But if the Big 12 would add Colorado State and BYU you bring two travel partners and open up the Denver media market as well. CSU is a school on the rise and is expanding their athletic facilities in a major way. I notice some commenters are suggesting schools that have already moved to a new conference or are in established power conferences. Why would Clemson or Florida State move from the ACC when the Big 12 is less stable? Louisville and Pittsburgh have already made their choice.

So the real debate is whether to go after schools like Memphis, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Colorado State, Boise State and BYU. If you look at all the options the best and most proactive move the Big 12 could do would be to expand to 14 teams. (they have already got the rights to Big 14). Take two from the east and two from the west. Now you offer your media partners football games in three time zones. They will like that scheduling option.

by HaddowJ on Feb 9, 2016 | 9:00 AM ↩reply