Big 12 Will Stay at 10 Members After Expansion Talks

The Big 12 Conference will remain at 10 members after failing to reach a consensus on any expansion candidates, as first reported by Chip Brown of HornsDigest.com and Jake Trotter of ESPN.com on Monday.

Trotter provided some of the details:

"

From an initial pool of 19 candidates that initiated interest, the Big 12 interviewed Air Force, BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Colorado State, UConn, Houston, Rice, South Florida, SMU and Tulane last month in Dallas.

But Monday, after the Big 12 presidents and chancellors deliberated for more than five hours at the Grand Hyatt, no expansion candidate generated a supermajority, or the eight votes, necessary to garner an invitation.

"

Oklahoma president David Boren confirmed the decision was unanimous, per Anwar Richardson of Rivals.com. However, Boren also said, "never say never" when it comes to expansion, adding it is "just off the table at this time," per Yahoo Sports' Dr. Saturday blog.

Meanwhile, according to Pete Thamel of SI.com, the focus on the conference will now be to generate more favorable payouts from its television partners:

"

The thought among league officials and athletic directors is that they are better off taking more money and staying in their current form than expanding. The addition of a conference championship game to the Big 12's television contract essentially opens a window for the league's TV partners, ESPN and Fox, to construct a new contract that would include more money for the current schools. Neither ESPN nor Fox was pleased that the Big 12 was going to use the pro rata clause in its current deal to get an additional $25 million per school.

"

On Wednesday, Houston released a video of its pitch to the Big 12 on its official athletics website. 

Two events likely led to that conclusion, according to Thamel. The first came when 25 LGBT groups formally protested the addition of BYU to the conference, thought to be the favored school of the Big 12 presidents, according to Stewart Mandel of Fox Sports.

Those groups wrote a letter to Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, noting: "BYU...actively and openly discriminates against its LGBT students and staff. It provides no protections for LGBT students. ... Given BYU’s homophobic, biphobic and transphobic policies and practices, BYU should not be rewarded with Big 12 membership."

Once the conference came to the conclusion that BYU's addition would be "politically untenable," per Thamel, Oklahoma president, and longtime proponent of expansion, David Boren "cooled" on the notion of adding another school.

Few conferences have been more greatly affected by conference realignment in the past 10 years than the Big 12. In 2010, Colorado and Nebraska left for the Pac-12 and Big Ten, respectively, while Missouri and Texas A&M departed to join the SEC in 2012.

TCU and West Virginia were admitted to the conference in 2012, however, joining Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State in the conference's current 10-team format.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.