Texas Longhorn Network: ESPN Claw Is Set to Split Big 12 Apart

ESPN is a worldwide network, and they say as much in their mantra. The overreaching hand of the biggest sports news organization is set to destroy the Big 12 conference. 

News broke on Wednesday that the Big 12 was going to put their foot down in respects to the Texas Longhorn Network. 

Please understand that this is a very small foot and they are only going to place it where they are allowed to by the behemoth ESPN. 

In a coincidence that makes me both giggle and shake my head, ESPN reports the Big 12 will halt all plans to broadcast high school games on the Longhorn Network, set to launch August 26. 

As the date looms closer to the debut, the Big 12 is starting to rock with the sounds of discontent. The most obvious issue that is only now coming to light is the broadcast of high school games. 

Games that would appear on the TLN would give a recruiting advantage to Texas—not that they need one. It is increasingly clear that the Big 12 is turning into Texas, and then everyone else. 

It is a sentiment that may ultimately lead to the downfall of the conference. We can touch upon that in a little bit though. 

At the heart of today's new item is Bylaw 13.10.3. It prevents a recruit from participating in a broadcast, "for which a member of the institution's athletics staff has been instrumental in arranging for the appearance of the prospective student-athlete or coach or related program material."

Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds contends, "We do not want to use it as a recruiting advantage. We don't want it tied to Texas. ESPN knows we don't want to violate any NCAA rules and they don't want to."  

They will have a hard time trying to avert this gray area that looks increasingly separated into black and white. In a world that has seen the great sweater vest of Jim Tressel tarnished, we can expect high school broadcasts to eventually be used for selfish purposes.

All of this further drives a wedge between Texas and other elite schools in the conference. It is a war between the haves and the don't haves as much.

There are rumblings that Texas A&M and Oklahoma would jump ship to the SEC. It would leave Texas a clear juggernaut in a dying conference. 

With this network deal with ESPN, there would be no reason Texas wouldn't jump into an independent school situation. 

The four-letter has widened its grip into college football. It counters a deal the Big 12 has with FOX for the next 13 years.

If FOX gets the conference, ESPN gets the big daddy from the bunch. It is a cat and mouse game that ESPN is miles ahead in.

It is also a game that leaves programs left with one decision. Do we really want to stay in the BIG 12?

A conference that was started in 1994, melded to become a super conglomerate, is much different nearly 20 years later.

Texas is taking a great deal of the cache, and they are about to launch an obvious breach of recruitment etiquette in the Texas Longhorns Network.

The Big 12 can't hold out for too long. Soon, high school games will be broadcast, and the other programs will cry foul. That is what ESPN wants anyway.

A torn conference leaves FOX out in the cold, and they would still have the southern gem in Texas, along with access to all their national games.

Take a good long look at the Big 12 conference. Because after August 26, it will never be the same. This is how the worldwide leader of sports took their empire to the south.