Brett Yormark’s Future Will Be Defined by Big 12 Expansion, TV Deals and Playoff Plans

What’s going on in the Big 12 and beyond? I expand and explain every Sunday in Postscripts at Heartland College Sports, your home for independent Big 12 coverage.

This week, we’re talking about the future — Brett Yormark’s future.

 

With Brett Yormark Extended, What’s Next?

The Big 12 opted for stability in locking in commissioner Brett Yormark to a three-year contract extension earlier this week. Interestingly, that extension takes him through 2030, which lines up almost perfectly with the end of the new TV deal that starts this fall.

Whether you like him or not, the Big 12’s chief deal maker is here to stay. That’s probably a good thing for the conference. But it does lead to the obvious question — what’s next? Chances are we’ll get our first glimpse of that later this month during the league’s annual meeting and then a further dose during football media days in July.

I’ve given the next five years some thought. Here are the five things that I believe are going to be front and center for him until 2030.

The College Football Playoff

This will probably get solved soon, but the target keeps moving. The College Football Playoff is at 12 teams. It’s likely to be at 14 teams next year and it COULD end up at 16 teams at some point.

Yormark and his fellow commissioner in the ACC, Jim Phillips are in a bit of a pickle. They want as much access for their league as possible. But, last year, the pair — along with the rest of the decision makers — signed a memorandum of understanding giving Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey an outsized role in decision-making.

 

To that end, Petitti and Sankey want more of their teams in the playoff as automatic qualifiers, perhaps as many as four. The current proposal has the ACC and Big 12 getting two each.

I don’t believe Yormark and Phillips have much leverage here, frankly. But how they deploy what little leverage they do have to bolster their conferences, especially when it comes to access and revenue, will be critical.

One thought. If you accept less access, should your bonus for winning a playoff game be bigger than those with more access?

Big 12 Conference Revenues

This is the math Yormark lives by. The Big 12 is open for business and I expect him to make a significant push in that direction now that he has an extension.

He’s pulled plenty of levers. But the two biggest levers he’s proposed — private equity and conference naming rights — haven’t gone much of anywhere. I think the appetite among the Big 12 athletic directors and university presidents is limited when it comes to both, but especially when it comes to private equity. I think he’s found it to be a hard sell.

 

But the revenue gap is already growing between the Big 12 and the SEC/Big Ten and it’s only going to get bigger. Yormark must find a way to make it up. This means either getting even more creative or working the room to get private equity and naming rights moving.

Remember — he’s just a commissioner. He must get the AD’s and presidents on board.

NIL and Player Revenue Sharing

The Big 12 doesn’t have much to do with this. But, as the House vs. NCAA settlement continues to evolve and change, is there room for the league to get involved in some way?

Yormark, as a power conference commissioner, is involved in the final negotiations of the settlement. But the NIL money will be outside of the player revenue-sharing bucket. That’s pay-for-play or scholarship money.

None of the conferences are involved in making these NIL deals. But could Yormark and his team get creative and “facilitate” introductions and deals? I’m not sure that isn’t already happening. But is this an area where he can further help the league’s members without getting financially involved?

Because he’s involved in these negotiations and the Big 12 is part of the team setting up the NIL clearinghouse, he’s uniquely equipped to help the league’s members prepare to navigate this.

 

A New Big 12 Television Deal?

The new TV deal will net the Big 12’s members $31.6 million per year for the next six years. It’s good money, but it’s pales in comparison to the Big Ten and the SEC. But that’s locked in. So are the league’s third-tier media rights. ESPN+ owns those as part of the deal. That’s bad news for a linear Big 12 channel. That ship has sailed at this point. Frankly, the ship sailed 15 years ago, thanks to Texas and Oklahoma.

But the question is what can Yormark do now?

The new deal expands the league’s scope to ESPN and Fox, especially when it comes to basketball. Fox should get up to 50 games next year. Many of those would have ended up on ESPN+. The CBS sub-license will put 26 games on linear that would have been on ESPN+. Turner Sports will get 12 Big 12 football games as part of an ESPN sub-license. Those likely would have been on ESPN+.

See the trend? Those are all good things. Yormark can’t and shouldn’t break the deal. But he should ensure that he works with ESPN to pull every lever to showcase as many games as possible on linear. If ESPN is willing to sub-license it, he should buy in.

It’s a long-term play. Yormark wants to try and sell Big 12 basketball as its own package in the next TV deal. To do that, he must build relationships, and he need several partners to make it work financially. These next five years give him the chance to grade the road, so to speak.

Big 12 Expansion?

There’s that dirty word. The good news is now that the ACC is settled (for now), the only expansion we’re going to see is the Pac-12.

I don’t expect to see major realignment until around 2030. That’s because the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 TV deals all come up around the same time and that might lead to complete membership chaos.

For now, Yormark can chill. His dream of building up more basketball membership, for now, looks dead. Too bad — Gonzaga and UConn would have made great members. There is no team on the board valuable enough to bring in, unless he wants to make a play for Notre Dame — and I don’t believe Notre Dame wants any part of the Big 12 or a full conference affiliation for football.

For now, there are no more “big fish.” There’s time to plot and to strategize. When it does happen, it will happen fast.

Yormark better be ready. At that point, the league’s future will clearly be at stake.