The Big 12 conference could add four new teams by the end of next week, Sports Illustrated reported on Friday.
The University of Central Florida, BYU, Houston and Cincinnatti are reportedly expected to apply to join the league next week and then potentially be approved as soon as Sept. 10, in a meeting of Big 12 presidents.
The new teams are expected to join the conference by 2023, or at the latest, 2024. The news comes six weeks after Texas and Oklahoma announced they are leaving the Big 12 for the SEC, but there could be a couple of years of overlap with the new teams, leading to a temporary 14-team league.
UCF, Houston and Cincinnati are currently all part of the American Athletic Conference. The schools are required to give 27-month notice should they want to exit, and would each pay a $10 million exit fee. If they were to leave sooner, they could pay an increased penalty. (BYU is an independent school in football but would have to give the West Coast Conference notice for its other sports).
According to SI, the four new teams would not get their full conference distribution shares right away, but their first-year shares will double or triple their currennt $6-7 million annual shares from the AAC. Cincinnati and BYU each sponsor men’s and women’s teams in swimming & diving, while Houston sponsors a women’s-only team. UCF doesn’t have a swimming & diving program.
The Big 12’s decision to add teams comes shortly after the Pac-12 Conference announced that it is not seeking to expand from its current 12-school membership.
Bowlsby will lead the conference to great things especially in swimming.
For swimming looks like net gain of one for men (4 total) and two for women for big 12 conference. Remaining swimming teams will have a shot at title on both women’s and men’s side with Texas gone.
I still suspect WV will be looking to get out of big 12, which will be way less lucrative to travel for less football revenue with Texas&Oklahoma gone.
So AAC (swimming) would be:
Men: SMU
Women: SMU, Tulane, Restarted ECU
Maybe women’s teams could be affiliates of Conference USA. Would make for a really solid mid major conference.
Not sure about SMU Men. If Big 12 hasn’t added affiliates for swimming before, not sure why they would now. Maybe the MAC/MVC meet?
I think adding affiliate members for swimming would be the best move. Give those folks a conference home and make your own conference meet more competitive. Win-win.
Using the SwimSwam Swimulator:
FINAL SCORES
SMU 743.5
Cincinnati 577
TCU 517
Brigham Young 496.5
West Virginia 470
I can’t imagine any of these 4 schools, assuming the reports are true that UC and BYU will be bringing their men’s swimming and diving teams to the Big 12, would willingly invite a program that on paper is this much better than them and by all signs moving quickly to further distance themselves from what would be a 5 team conference meet. I think it would be great for all 5 programs to compete at the end of the year and I would assume that UC and BYU both make huge leaps in recruiting… Read more »
Love this!