Oklahoma football appears to be locked to the Big 12 for two more seasons.
According to multiple reports, discussions between Oklahoma and Texas representatives and the Big 12 over issues regarding leaving the Big 12 a year earlier than 2025 have broken down and don’t appear to be resolved any time soon.
Pete Thamel of ESPN, among others, are reporting that talks among the interested parties over a deal that would allow the Sooners and Longhorns to leave for the Southeastern Conference after the 2024 academic year have “stalled and at this point is unlikely to come to fruition.”
Brent McMurphy of Action Network had reported in December that Oklahoma and Texas had what he termed “momentum” for an earlier departure in 2024. The Big 12’s new media rights agreement with ESPN begins in 2024, the same year that the College Football Playoff will be expanded to 12 teams.
Sources: The effort for Oklahoma and Texas to leave the Big 12 a year early and join the SEC in 2024 has stalled and at this point is unlikely to come to fruition.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) February 3, 2023
It appears that the Big 12’s contract with Fox is the big sticky wicket in the discussions. According to Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports, who cites media rights details from the Sports Business Journal, ESPN owns 63 percent of the value from the new $2.3 billion Big 12 media deal that begins in 2025.
As part of the agreement with ESPN, that network “gets top picks with the four best games every season, six of the top eight, eight of the top 12 and 12 of the top 20,” Dodds writes. Fox owns the remaining 37 percent of the deal and receives 26 games every season.
Although details of the discussions between all the interested parties about an early exit by OU and Texas have not been fully disclosed, Dodds reports that Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark and the Big 12 executive board have been open to an early exit if a win-win agreement could be reached, but that Fox is not willing to concede the revenue it would lose if it could not feature games with Oklahoma and Texas for the next two years.
Fox wants to be made “whole,” Dodds says.
Earlier this week, the Big 12 revealed its 2023 conference schedule, which next season will include four new teams: Houston, Cincinnati, UCF and BYU. After the schedule was released, it was easy to read into it — especially for fans of OU and Texas — that the conference schedulers had not done any favors for the two lame-duck members.
Big 12 presidents are scheduled to meet Friday, but it’s not certain whether this issue will be discussed at any length if at all.
For now at least, it appears that Oklahoma and Texas are locked in for the next two years. But it’s never really over till it’s over, and I don’t really believe that this setback is going to be the final result.