On Sunday evening the Oklahoma Sooners school president Jay Harroz met with the Big 12 Conference’s executive committee. According to the statement released by the conference, they believe the conversation was productive and hopefully will lead to more in the coming days.
ESPN’s Heather Dinich believes this is a wasted effort by the Big 12 in hopes of keeping the two anchor schools.
Big 12 sources told ESPN’s Heather Dinich they are still expecting Oklahoma and Texas to formally notify the league on Monday that they don’t intend to extend their existing media rights deals with the conference, which expire in June 2025. – Dave Wilson, ESPN
While that move is still years away, it is likely that Oklahoma and/or Texas don’t wait until the end of their current deal to leave the conference. Would the SEC extend an invitation to both blue blood programs knowing they will stay through the 2024-25 college football season?
As Dave Wilson writes, it could be a legal strategy for both schools until an exit plan has been agreed upon.
It’s a possible legal strategy, one source surmised, that would supersede the reality of the fractured relationships it’s bound to cause within the league.
One Big 12 source told ESPN their conference officials are anticipating that the SEC presidents and chancellors will eventually vote on whether to formally extend an invitation to Oklahoma and Texas. There is no current timetable as to when a vote might happen, according to an SEC source. The question is if the SEC would extend an invitation knowing the legal strategy of Texas and Oklahoma is to stay through the duration of the TV contract — if that’s what those schools choose to do.
While the Big 12 continues its effort to keep both schools in-house, that relationship could be too far gone to turn it around. That remains to be seen but this story is still being written.
Stay tuned.