What started as a 12-team conference known as the Big 12 featuring the likes of Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M could soon be a 16-team league known as the DraftKings 12 featuring UCF, West Virginia, BYU and Arizona State.
We're in our post-logic era of college athletics, and the Big 12 is plunging in head first.
Commissioner Brett Yormark announced the Big 12 was "open for business" upon taking the job, but no one could have imagined just how open back in 2022.
Multiple outlets reported Thursday that the Big 12 is considering selling naming rights to the conference in what would be one of the most "lucrative" and "unique" sponsorship deals in college athletics history.
Yormark presented the idea to the 16 Big 12 presidents at league meetings last month. If such a deal comes to pass, the sponsor name would replace the "Big" in Big 12, so the conference would officially become known as the Gatorade 12, the Burger King 12, or the Starbucks 12. (Why not drop the 12 for the numerically up-to-date 16? Some mysteries aren't meant for the human mind to understand.)
Update: Brett McMurphy reports the leading option is the Allstate 12 or the Big Allstate Conference. Such a deal would be worth between $1.875 and $3.125 million per year per school, less the conference office's cut.
The conference estimates that, if approved, the agreement would generate millions of dollars per school per year, which is welcome in a time where schools will be allowed to share up to $22 million per year with their athletes beginning in 2025. A decision is expected in the "upcoming months," per ESPN's Pete Thamel.
The Big 12 is also considering selling an equity stake of 20 percent to a private equity firm for up to $1 billion, Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports reported Thursday.
Dodd reports that CVC Capital Partners, based out of Luxembourg, is the possible "partner," and that in addition to an infusion of nine-to-10 figures, the Big 12 -- err, the Coinbase 16 -- would get access to "CVC's investment services and clients," thereby generating more opportunities to make money.
Private equity has been circling the college sports industry for a while now, with unclear upside. Dodd writes that CVC and the Big 12 believe their current media rights deal, worth a total of $2.3 billion signed in the fall of 2022 and lasting through the 2030 football season, is undervalued by half. If and when the next round of Big 12 media rights goes for $5 billion, CVC would take a large chunk of those profits.
The upside is that private equity firms leverage their knowledge of financial markets to invest in under-valued assets, then they make their return upon selling when the business does well. The fear is that private equity firms are also known for drastically cutting costs in order to realize their profits, and that in college athletics it would only be a matter of time until they ask themselves, Hey, why does Baylor have a tennis team anyway?
Yormark harbors no such concerns. Or, if he does, they're outside the scope of his mission as Big 12 commissioner. The New York businessman with no prior experience in college athletics is running this Heartland-based conference with a first, second, and third priority to make as much money as possible, no matter what.
“I’ve said from Day 1, we are open for business,” Yormark said last month. “I guess you could say that we are open for business more than ever.”
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.