to be a large part of the media rights package he will negotiate. Here's my logic:

- During Big 12 media days he commented two separate times about making the Big 12 more attractive to younger audiences. I've been trying to figure out what that means. Like how can you make a conference attractive to teens or young adults? Seems like a weird thing to say. I can see saying 'we want the conference in the most homes possible' or we 'want a national brand' or whatever, but to specifically say we want to be attractive to younger audiences is odd.

- On a visit to Iowa State this week he said something similar about wanting to appeal to younger audiences.

- Then on a visit to Texas Tech he actually clarified precisely what he meant: "Certainly, when you think about the multimedia rights deal — and I'm very much focused on it — the ESPNs and the Foxes of the world are very important partners to us, giving us the broadest reach possible, especially when you think about being national and relevant.

Obviously, a digital partner makes sense because the young consumer today, you need to reach differently. But being with an ESPN and a Fox and a broad-based distributor is going to be very much part of our future and hopefully in five years from now, post our next TV negotiation, we will be with the biggest and best distributors in the business. We hopefully at that point in time will also have experienced some further expansion, which I think is critically important for us."

Reading between the lines, it appears that ESPN, Fox, etc. will be very much involved, but it wouldn't shock me at all if a Netflix, Prime, Apple or even Disney+ were heavily involved too. If you look into his relationships, he knows a ton of people at the streaming companies. Could get interesting. I think this is what he means when he talks about focusing on young people. He's just using slightly coded language to say it.

BTW, based on this comment, the Big 12 WILL expand, it's just a question of 16 or 20:

A-J: Is there an ideal number of schools you see for the Big 12? Sixteen? On principle, do you think 20 or something like that number is doable?

Yormark: I haven't really looked at that the numbers. As I said during media day, it can't be dilutive. It needs to be additive, and it comes down to making sure that we're identifying the right strategic partners from a school perspective, and those that bring value to our conference. We'll be at 12 in a couple of years when you add the four [Brigham Young, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston] and Texas and Oklahoma leave. If it's 16 or 20 I can't tell you, but we just have to make sure that whatever number it is, it's all about the value equation.