It’s official.
In a “unanimous” decision, the Big 12 Board of Directors announced on Monday that the conference would not be expanding and adding any new schools to the league.
“We decided after a very thorough discussion to remain at 10 members,” Oklahoma president and board chair David Boren said. “We came to the decision that this is not the right time for expansion.”
Among the other highlights from the league’s press conference in Dallas:
- There was no discussion of any individual schools getting into the conference
- There was no vote on any schools or any polls of support for any university
- The process to expand or not is no longer an agenda item being considered by the Big 12. Both Boren and Bowlsby said “never say never” however.
- There will be no Big 12 Network at the current moment as the result of “market place forces” but it is not being ruled out completely in the future
- Extending the conference’s grant of rights did not come up in the board’s discussions
- The process of holding a conference title game moved forward and further details will be handled by the 10 athletic directors
- There was no talk about the ESPN/Fox television contracts being renegotiated at this time
“I made one recommendation. We should bring this process to closure,” commissioner Bob Bowlsby added. “We shouldn’t kick the can down the road.”
The news no doubt comes as a blow to schools like Houston, BYU and Cincinnati among others who were hoping the Big 12 would expand by two or four schools and they would be able to join the Power Five as a result.