Baylor Needs to Move Forward Without Their Big 12 Counterparts

The big sports news in our great Metroplex the last couple of weeks has been the possible extinction of the Big 12.

This all started a few months ago with a short lived rumor about Texas possibly joining the Big 10. Recently, a much larger bomb was dropped when we learned Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado had received invitations to join the Pacific–10 Conference (PAC 10).

This invitation is part of a nationwide movement by “the best of the best” to create super conferences that are highly competitive and maximizes profits (i.e. television contracts and merchandising).

An interesting part of this whole story is Baylor University not being invited by the PAC 10, despite being in the Big 12 Conference with these schools. As a result, Baylor has been politicking in Austin. Last week, A Baylor Alumni and prestigious Texas Lobbyist, Buddy Jones, sent a letter to several Texas State Legislatures urging them to make sure the other universities board of regents included Baylor in any deal.

In a state known for good old boy politics that combines horse trading and back scratching to make deals happen, Baylor’s politicking has been successful in the past. In the mid 1990’s The Big 12 was formed between the old Southwest Conference and the Big 8 to create a more competitive conference that would generate more revenue. Despite Baylor’s small size, they were able to utilize their political capital and gain a spot in this new elite conference. In the process, they left their small private school counterparts TCU, Rice and SMU to fend for themselves in smaller conferences.

If Baylor’s political maneuvering gains them a spot in the new PAC 16, as they are now calling it, will it benefit them in the long run? Will they be able to compete and will their fans actually see their team win championships?

Let’s start with the competitiveness factor. Since joining the Big 12 in 1996, Baylor has been mediocre at best.

In football, they have a dismal 13-43 record with no bowl appearances. Baylor Men’s Basketball has done a little better, but not by much. Since joining the Big 12, Baylor has only been to the NCAA tournament once and went as far as the Elite 8 in 2010. A spot in the Elite 8 is impressive, but their fellow conference foes (Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State) are in the tournament almost every year.

Despite their lackluster performance, they have managed to prosper in some sports. The Lady Bears won the 2005 NCAA Basketball Championship. The Men’s Baseball team has been to ten NCAA Regional Tournaments and is only one of three teams in the Big 12 to reach the Big 12 tournament every year since the conference’s inception. Unfortunately, these sports are considered non-revenue generating.

If Baylor is struggling now in the Big 12, it is hard to imagine them competing against the likes of USC, UCLA, Texas, Oregon and others.

Would joining this new conference really be fair to their fans? Baylor fans deserve to see their team win a conference championship. They also deserve to see their team play in a bowl game, something that has not happened since joining the Big 12. A possible bowl game in the PAC 16 looks highly unlikely unless there is dynamic shift in recruiting.

It’s hard to see the PAC 10 accepting Baylor into their new conference even with political pressure. The main reason for this is economics. The super conference will generate a windfall in television revenue because it will combine some of the largest television markets in the country: Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc. One of the reasons the Big 12 has had trouble being aggressive in this process is because most of their schools are in small television markets and can’t produce a lucrative deal. Waco-Temple-Bryan television market is number ninety four in the country. This is not exactly enticing to the PAC 10’s bottom line.

Do not get me wrong, Baylor University is one of the finest academic institutions in our county; however, this doesn’t mean they also have an elite athletic program. The recommendation for Baylor should be to focus on joining a different conference such as the Mountain West, Conference USA or the Western Athletic Conference. This does not mean these conferences are any less competitive as they have produced some great teams in recent years.

Baylor only needs to follow the example of one of their former Southwest Conference rivals, TCU. The school they outmaneuvered to join the Big 12, has thrived since the break up of the old Southwest Conference. TCU has been to eleven football bowl games since they were left out of the Big 12, including an appearance in a BCS Bowl (Fiesta Bowl) in 2010. They did this in a supposed less competitive conference (The Mountain West). Other schools in these other conferences have had success too: Boise State, Utah and Cincinnati.

In conclusion, instead of politicking in Austin, Baylor University needs to move forward in another conference such as the ones mentioned above. I’m sure they would have their pick of any of these conferences. They would be more competitive and could still generate more revenue. If they follow the lead of TCU, we might see them in a BCS Bowl sometime in the future.