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AUSTIN Texas President Jay Hartzell sat in a small committee room in the Texan capital for nearly six hours Monday as Senate members held a hearing on the future of college athletics after the Sooners and Longhorns jumped to the SEC Barbs while serving as Baylor’s director of sports Mack Rhoades observed, in particular, saying that Texas felt too little of itself in joining the SEC, but Hartzell finally got his say when a representative from Texas first spoke about the move. Hartzell announced that the Longhorns reached out to the SEC during the spring semester of 2021 with Hartzell’s first call to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey about Zoom. He also said that Texas is viewed as an ACC and Big Ten, at least internally. Many of his other responses will be the subject of legal push-and-pull in the months and years to come. Hartzell claims Texas didn’t break a Big 12 charter because the school contacted the SEC. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said earlier in the day that Oklahoma and Texas are violating the very statutes they helped set up. Ultimately, Texas will be directed to the SEC. And Hartzell gave an insight into his thinking for the first time. Put simply, Hartzell believed the SEC was in a stronger position than the Big 12 in the long run. In my view, the SEC was a more stable and stronger home for UT Austin than the Big 12 in 2025, Hartzell said. The stronger, more positive, and safer result was the SEC. That leaves the Big 12 to explore their options. On that front, the president or chancellor and the sporting director of Baylor, TCU and Texas Tech were on the hearing along with Bowlsby. For the time being, the group presented a united front with TCU Chancellor Victor Boschini, saying, I see it like trying to make the Big 12 great again and sticking to these schools with several options, including a possible expansion or merging with one other league (one with the Pac-12 is gaining momentum). Right now, the Big 12 seem to be listening and weighing their options. Rhoades told 247Sports that he hopes the league is open-minded on their way forward. I think it’s in our best interests to explore more than one trail, said Rhoades. We need to focus on the art of the possible and be creative in thinking about these things. The college football playoff expansion looked like a suspension in early July, with the expectation that the system would jump from four to twelve teams. That now seems anything but certain. Bowlsby, along with SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, was part of a four-person working group that helped draft the 12-Eam proposal. And he seems to be pausing at this idea. Senator Lois Kolkhorst put a question to Bowlsby during his testimony on Monday, mentioning that 12 teams will soon have the potential to make the playoffs, which Bowlsby argued: maybe weeks, which indicated the Texas-Oklahoma decision to make the Big 12 for the SEC to leave. I was on the subcommittee to look into it, said Bowlsby. The tectonic plates have shifted somewhat since the recommendation. This is currently not a personal opinion. That is a reflection of what I read in the specialist publications. There is a lot of talk that, given what has happened in the two weeks, people are not excited to move forward. This topic dominated most of the discussion on Monday before Hartzell was occasionally questioned ardently. Bowlsby, who spoke first, reiterated that he felt the eight remaining members are steadfastly moving forward and looking for opportunities that will benefit all of us. The six administrators at Baylor, TCU, and Texas Tech have largely set the same tone in all you can, your time and resources to get the Big 12, Rhoades said during his opening speech. Texas is better off having a power five conference. The state is better when there are five Power Five members. It doesn’t get any better with just two. There have been some pessimistic moments about the league’s future. During his time at the booth, Bowlsby estimated that losing Oklahoma and Texas would cost the league around 50% of its television revenue, which is currently around $ 28 million per Big 12 program. The Big 12 ranked third among the Power Five leagues in terms of the annual distribution to their members. A loss of $ 14 million per program would bring the Big 12’s annual payout down to around $ 24 million, which would lag behind any other Power Five league. In context, the ACC, which comes last in the Power Five leagues, was last at $ 33 million per program. If such a decline occurred without a replacement for revenue, the results could be disastrous. Rhoades said Baylor was already considering funding a new basketball arena that the school had raised money for. TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati said the school would likely have to cut scholarship options and possibly sports. Nobody saw (the news last week) coming, said Donati. When you have to step back and talk about massive cuts, these things are difficult to do overnight. At TCU there are 21 sports and we have two incomes, so we have to cut back significantly. How does it look? It might look like a cut in opportunities for both men and women. We hope we don’t get there. But when you need to downsize these are real issues to deal with. When it comes to potential ways to save the league, the Big 12 will be looking at several options, according to Bowlsby. This includes a planning alliance with another league The Athletic reports that the Big 12 will discuss such an agreement with the Pac-12 on Tuesday, merge their television rights with another conference, merge with another league, or possibly add new members. Bowlsby said Monday that he still had direct or indirect discussions with other institutions about joining the Big 12. However, the conference is having initial discussions about what will come next. The board hasn’t even made the decision to add other members, Bowlsby said. We may have other options available to us and I think it makes sense to pursue these in order before considering individual membership agreements, despite the rhetoric of the three Big 12 state schools sticking together. When asked if he was concerned about the future viability of the Big 12 without Texas and Oklahoma as revenue tentpoles, Texas Tech sporting director Kirby Hocutt responded bluntly with legitimate concern and something we talked about, Hocutt said. It was not in either party ‘s interest to do so, Bowlsby said. Rhoades on Texas in his opening speech: Many of my colleagues across the country, and I’ve spoken to a few over the past few weeks, believe that the University of Texas created this situation because they think so highly of themselves. My humble opinion, I totally disagree. I think it’s because they felt too little of themselves. The sensational success of a neighboring conference creates in them an unjustified uncertainty that has plasticized. And unfortunately so many of us suffer the consequences.Senator Lois Kolkhorst zu Hartzell: I know I’ve heard different numbers from all universities, but what’s your athletic budget?Hartzell: It’s over $ 200 million, probably 200-225 in that area.Kolkhorst: Where does that take you in the US?Hartzell: Probably first.Kolkhorst: That’s without a winning football team lately.Hartzell: Despite our soccer team. We won, just not the way we like to win.Kolkhorst: 3-7 against the Horned Frogs. Perhaps your fan base would rather lose to Alabama than to TCU.Senator Charles Perry to Hartzell: “If you’re as big and great as you think you should have done the Big 12 equal to or better than the SEC. You didn’t.”
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