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The Big 12 seems certain to expand after the members voted unanimously to explore the next options in the process. Whether that expansion is to 12 or 14 teams remains. Expansion could also mean some members are football only- making it easier for BYU and their no Sunday games policy- or full members in all sports. The Big 12 is unpredictable, so who knows where this all ends up.
Candidates include: Boise State, BYU, Colorado State, Connecticut, Cincinnati, Houston, Memphis, UCF, USF, UNLV, and Tulane.
Connecticut and Cincinnati are the most preferred Big 12 expansion candidates, according to David Ubben of Sports on Earth:
Multiple Big 12 sources indicated that Cincinnati and Connecticut top the Big 12's "fluid," so-called "wish list," but Oklahoma president David Boren noted that the Big 12 is still open to expanding by two or four teams. News could come quick, too. Bowlsby told ESPN that the league could conceivably vote on specific expansion candidates as soon as September.
Clay Travis of Fox Sports notes this is about getting additional revenue by making new members take less money:
They're not going to give the new members a full share of the TV revenue.
Instead, and it's downright diabolical, the Big 12 can allow all of the schools that want to get into the Big 5 conference club to line up and tell them how little money they need to receive in order to join the Big 12. That is, if a school is, for instance, only willing to take $5 million a year for the next ten years, it could allow $200 million it would be entitled to receive to return to the existing ten Big 12 conference schools to split among themselves.
Yep, you're about to witness the most greedy move in the history of college athletics.
After Bill Snyder said two former Big 12 teams might want back in the conference, Jason Kirk of SB Nation thinks Colorado could want back in the Big 12:
Compared to the Big Two conferences, the Pac-12’s in a rough spot. Its schools are bringing in about the same money as the Big 12’s are, despite a conference TV network. Pac-12 realignment wargame scenarios have gone from courting Texas to courting Houston.
Going .500-ish in the Big 12 for about the same money, while having more access tohistorical recruiting grounds in Texas and old rivalries? Colorado leaving the Pac-12 after just five sad years wouldn't be that crazy.