It's not bull. First off, you can’t use expansion back in 1990 (i.e. Arkansas) in the argument, because back then, the conferences didn't have their own TV contracts. There was a completely different set of circumstances for expansion back then. The other thing is, the SEC and Big 10 don't have the issues with some of their “dead weight” as the other leagues. For example, Illinois has mostly been a bottom feeder over the years. However, they bring in a big state market. Conversely, a team like Arkansas doesn’t have a big market, but historically they have had a good program (meaning they are a better draw). The problem with some of the teams I named is that they have pretty much been average historically (Texas Tech, NC State) or bad (Iowa St, Wake Forest), and none of them contribute to the media market.
You also have to take into account the clauses in the Big 12’s TV contract that restrict how much they can get from expansion. That’s another reason you can’t just tack on a couple of extra teams and make on the difference in money. Then, there is the GOR. It’s simply not realistic for a couple of schools to be able to break the GOR. About the only realistic way to do that would be for a bunch of schools to leave en masse.
If you want to be perfectly honest about it, none of this is realistic. You aren’t going to see teams leaving either conference for the other. It simply won’t happen. However, if we are just playing with the idea, the only way to do it is to take the best schools from each league (“best” sometimes meaning market) and reconstruct a new league that doesn’t have the encumbrances of the former leagues.
My point with Arkansas and Illinois was... yeah, you added them at different times, but so did the Big 12. You're saying, oh, right, drop the dead weight. If that were the ONLY reasonable model for expansion, the Big 10 and SEC would have done it too. And yeah, Illinois is a big state. But they have 2 meh teams from the state. They'd be fine with one or the other. Mississippi and Arkansas aren't big states and one has historically sucked, so having 2 teams from that state, by your logic, makes NO sense. Arkansas was historically good, so I guess it's nice to be able to say you have their historical championships and their non-football sports, but come on. Based on that logic, we might as well add Army, who has 15 times as many football championships AND is from a bigger, more populous state! Or Princeton.... who has 26 times as many and is a much more well known school.... and again, more populous state.
For two, you completely dismiss this as all unrealistic, but I wasn't saying NOW. NOW I stated, rather clearly, that UT should sit it out... with the LHN as a buffer if things are getting worse for the Big 12... until either A) the TV contracts and GOR are over in 2024-2025 or B) enough teams in the conference get sick of the conference situation enough that there are enough institutions that don't want to keep the GOR binding. I truthfully don't know how many that would be, but a lot of conferences' big decisions require about 3/4 vote, so I'd imagine that if around 7 or 8 teams in the conference were done with it all, they could undo the GOR and move on (which may not be likely, but who knows). Texas moving to another conference, at that point, seems like what is most likely to happen... possibly with OU, but who knows... it would depend on if the relationship between the schools gets strained during the in-between period. THAT is what I think is realistic NOW.
If you read what I was talking about, I was referring to the point back when the Big 12 was still figuring out their TV deals and the GOR, and the ACC was looking pretty flimsy, with the Big 10 looking strongly at UVA, UNC, and/or GA Tech.... when FSU and Clemson were pretty unhappy with their basketball conference... before the deal had been made with Notre Dame. At that point? Yeah, lots of teams where either jumping from one conference to another (I mean... Maryland left the freakin ACC! That's just weird...) or strongly considering it, and the ACC looked REALLY vulnerable. Like I said, Miami seemed like the weak link too. FSU and Clemson wanted the ACC to change or they might have left. Miami, given their issues off the field and their lower profile on the field, was worried that they'd be left out. So yeah, at that point, the Big 12 should have done whatever they could, either alone or in conjunction with the SEC and Big 10 (since there are enough attractive schools in the ACC to go around if those three conferences were going to stop at 16 at the highest). The powers that be (maybe with the support of DeLoss Dodds) didn't do that then, and I still think that was the death knell of the conference... just slow motion (and one of the few things that I'm really critical of Dodds about if he actually was involved in that decision, and the decision not to work something out with the Pac 12).
See? If you actually respond to what I said and not what you wanted to tell me I was wrong about, it makes more sense.
For now, though, I think Texas is in a not-ideal-but-they'll-be-fine situation, in a Big 12 with no ideal expansion options... but that is actually a pretty good conference on-the-field, if it weren't for the small footprint. Teams from the conference will do fine in the playoff model for now. The LHN won't be popular with the rest of the conference because it doesn't help them, and it prevents a conference network from really making sense, but given the fact that we sat on our hands when there WERE reasonable expansion options (when the ACC was vulnerable, not now), ditching the LHN and starting a conference network would be basically a demotion for Texas as far as money and staying competitive... and the conf network would likely only be a temporary patch for the conference, that would help a little but not do enough to keep it as financially competitive as we'd like. So, we can either "lose" to help the conference "not win", but not "lose" as quickly. Or we can stay where we are, doing pretty well until the time comes when the conference schools will have to decide whether they're staying or going and have a plan ready for when that comes up.
But yeah, I never said that right now FSU and Clemson would join. And if you really think that, if it HAD happened, that adding Miami, FSU, GA Tech, Clemson, Notre Dame and... Pitt, VA Tech, or Louisville... to the current Big 12 would just not have made them competitive because of Iowa State and Texas Tech... like I said, Illinois/Northwestern... Mississippi State/Mississippi... all conferences have teams that you would be referring to as "dead weight". That doesn't mean that they're likely to shed them because somehow that's the only thing that makes sense.
