In a press conference scheduled for 5:30 PM Central Time on Monday, the Big 12 Conference is expected to announce that it has decided against expansion from its current 10 universities at the present time.
In a decision made by the university presidents, the conference decided to end its three-month expansion exploration that revolved around 20 schools that applied to join the smallest of the NCAA’s “Power 5” conferences. Of the 20, 11 were interviewed.
While the conference will not completely close off expansion until a new deal is met with its television partners, their focus will be on getting more money from the existing deals.
The major sticking point of the deal involved a “pro rata” clause in the conference’s deals with ESPN and Fox. That clause would have allowed the conference to seek an extra $25 million per member institution (not just new members). Instead, the conference is expected to negotiate with those networks to increase revenue derived and eliminate the pro rata clause. That would give some certainty to the television networks, as it’s unlikely that any new members would be able to drive that level of new money for member institutions.
Among the programs that would’ve had the biggest impact in swimming would’ve included UConn, BYU, Cincinnati, East Carolina, SMU, and New Mexico.
The Big 12 currently has just 3 men’s swimming programs (Texas, West Virginia, and TCU) and 5 women’s programs (Texas, West Virginia, TCU, Iowa State, and Kansas). At least 5 of the programs considered have both men’s and women’s teams, including the favorites for selection BYU; and a further 6 had women’s-only programs.
The Texas Longhorns are the conference’s dominant team, and the only that is consistently relevant at the NCAA Championships in swimming. The Texas men won the 2016 NCAA title and the women were 15th,
