Pac-12 Expansion: Why Oklahoma and Texas Will Still Wind Up in the Pac-12

If you had asked me before today, I would have said that there was no way Texas was ending up in the Pac-12. Their Longhorn Network is too precious to share with anyone, which is precisely what the Pac-12 does with their equal revenue sharing.

Last night the conference announced it planned on staying at 12 teams. We have all seen that game before, but this one sounded legitimate.

Commissioner Larry Scott did not seem confident that they would be able to work out an agreement over the LHN with Texas, but then the Longhorns came out in favor of “Big 12 stability” which hinges on revenue sharing.

"There are methods of doing that, including the way media deals are structured and we'll be working with our partners in the Big 12 and our media partners to structure something that has stability,” said Texas president William Powers.

If they are willing to do that, why not just go to the Pac-12 where there is already conference stability and more money?

Ask Oklahoma and they will apparently tell you they were “leveraging” to get reform in the Big 12.

“But frankly, we wanted the impression out there that we might go to the Pac-12 because that gave us some leverage,” the source said. “We were using that as leverage to say, ‘Hey, you want us to stay? Let's have some of these reforms.'”

The reforms they wanted included revenue sharing, a commitment of rights of more than five years from conference schools and the removal of commissioner Dan Beebe.

All of this sounds great, but does anyone really believe the Sooners would come out and say that they were leveraging another conference to get what they want? They are essentially showing the Pac-12 they are bluffing while the hand is still being played.

That said, this was from a source who was not commenting officially for Oklahoma.

If the goal for all of this is conference stability, it would be much better to just have the teams be honest and upfront with fellow members rather than force them to threaten litigation and make the league as unattractive as possible to potential members.

With Missouri reportedly receiving a SEC invitation, there is absolutely no reason why the Tigers or any other school with a good offer should stay in the conference.

Taking all of that into account in addition to Texas’ president going on record saying he is open to revenue sharing on the Longhorn Network, it looks like the Pac-12 will soon become the Pac-16. Even despite official reports that it won’t happen.