that you are exploring expansion. You select the schools privately, get the votes privately, and THEN you publicly announce the new schools that are joining your conference. That's how it's done; it's how all the other conferences, except the Big 12, have handled expansion. By doing the preliminary steps privately, you also prevent circuses from happening (e.g., groups launching public protests about BYU over the LGBT issue, etc.).

What the Big 12 did was the biggest leadership face plant I've seen by a major athletics conference. Really soured me on the Big 12. I'm sure BYU feels the same after wasting a lot of time preparing for that silly dog and pony show and getting their hopes up.

Hope the Big 12 Conference can get some real leadership. Otherwise they are just the Big Clown Conference.