The Big 12 Conference nearly dissolved 10 years ago and still managed to go the next decade with relative stability. But that stability all hinged on the cooperation of two schools — the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma — and over the past week, we’ve seen just how fragile the Big 12 really is.
Texas and Oklahoma announced that they wouldn’t renew their grant of rights with the Big 12, meaning they would leave the conference for the SEC in 2025. And while 2025 is a long ways away, the true hope for Texas, OU and their lawyers is to see the Big 12 collapse sooner. That would open the door for an earlier move to the SEC without exit fees and TV rights being tied up in existing Big 12 contracts.
That’s where ESPN apparently came in to the picture on Wednesday.