If there wasn't enough hate to go around in the SEC, Texas and Oklahoma are joining the party.
In the span of one week, the SEC has gone from a conference appearing to be happy with its 14 member teams to becoming the first 16-team superconference. In spite of the century-plus of antipathy between Texas A&M and the University of Texas, the Aggies are on board with SEC expansion.
After meeting in executive session Wednesday afternoon, the Texas A&M Board of Regents voted 8-1 to direct A&M President M. Katherine Banks to vote in favor of expansion at the SEC's scheduled meeting Thursday. The board released the following statement:
"The decision in 2011 to join the Southeastern Conference has strengthened the position of Texas A&M University as a national leader in college athletics.
As college athletics go through the historic changes we are experiencing today, Texas A&M competes at the highest level with many of the top universities in the country — on the field, on the court, and in the classroom.
As members of The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, we are proud of the Texas A&M athletic department and its tremendous success over the past decade. We are proud to be the largest university in Texas and in the SEC. We are proud to have rock-solid financials, the best fan base in America and 550,000 former students who compete and succeed across the globe.
We have the utmost confidence in Texas A&M President M. Katherine Banks and Athletic Director Ross Bjork to navigate discussions with our SEC conference partners.
Although the Board had concerns about the communication process relating to this matter, today the Board received the information it needed to properly consider the long-term ramifications of a possible expansion. President Banks and Athletic Director Bjork briefed board members after they participated in meetings yesterday and today with the SEC Commissioner’s Office.
The board concluded that this expansion would enhance the long-term value of the SEC to student athletes and all of the institutions they represent — including Texas A&M.
Therefore The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents Board directs Texas A&M President M. Katherine Banks to vote in favor of extending formal invitations to the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas to join the conference in 2025 when the SEC presidents consider the matter."
It is now expected that Oklahoma and Texas will receive a unanimous, 14-0 vote in favor of their application for admission to the SEC. Precisely when the two teams will join the SEC from the Big 12 remains in question, however; while Texas and OU would like to join the conference in 2022, the leadership of the Big 12 appears intent on holding the two programs to their Grant of Rights deals that end in 2025 -- unless they pay a buyout that would be no less than $76 million apiece.
Big 12 turns its ire to ESPN
While the Big 12 and Commissioner Bob Bowlsby have made it clear that they believe the SEC has meddled in its affairs for months in an effort to get Texas and OU to join the conference, the Big 12's first legal nastygram wasn't aimed at the SEC -- it was directed at its longtime media partner, ESPN.
The conference sent a letter to the network demanding that it "immediately cease and desist all actions that may harm the conference and its members and that it not communicate with the Big 12 Conference's existing members or any other conference regarding the Big 12 Conference's members". Bowlsby said Wednesday that he had incontrovertible proof that ESPN had approached "three to five" Big 12 teams in an effort to get them to leave for the American Athletic Conference in an effort to make the Big 12's membership fall to the six team threshold, at which point the conference would dissolve.
Bowlsby said he had no doubt ESPN's actions met the threshold of "tortious interference", a phrase made popular when A&M left the Big 12 in 2011.
"I am absolutely certain ESPN employees have discussed and provided incentives for at least one conference to raid 3-5 members from the Big 12. In doing so, they are prepared to reward them with future television proceeds. If the conference goes away as an entity, Oklahoma and Texas could be relieved from their exit obligations," Bowlsby told CBS Sports. "We're just not going to sit still and let somebody who is supposed to be our partner collaborate and disrupt our business. I know with certainty they are doing it relative to one conference. I suspect they have done the same thing in moving Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC."
If the conference were to dissolve, ESPN would be off the hook for the remainder of the contract it has with the Big 12 through 2025. If the conference were to dissolve before the 2022 season, it would save ESPN approximately $576 million.
For its part, ESPN said the Big 12's claims were "without merit".
