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The Big 12 Conference Board of Directors voted unanimously to withhold one-quarter (25 percent) of future revenue distribution payments to Baylor University, pending the outcome of third-party verification review of required changes to Baylor’s athletics procedures and to institutional governance of its intercollegiate athletics programs, among other matters.

“The Board is unified in establishing a process to verify that proper institutional controls are in place and sustainable,” said University of Oklahoma president and Big 12 Conference Board of Directors chairman David Boren. “Effective immediately, the Conference is withholding 25 percent of Baylor’s share of any future revenue distribution until the proper execution of controls is independently verified. By taking these actions the Board desires to ensure that the changes that were promised are actually made and that systems are in place to avoid future problems. The proportional withholding of revenue distribution payments will be in effect until the Board has determined that Baylor is in compliance with Conference bylaws and regulations as well as all components of Title IX.”

Baylor was not included in the Board vote and will be responsible for all associated costs.

DanFreibergerForHeisman wrote:Wow! It's about time somebody did something!

1983 Cotton Bowl wrote:This whole Baylor mess has really made me wonder how widespread criminality is among major college sports programs. In this case it was rape. . . but it could be any number of other crimes as well. At how many schools are these things "swept under the rug", "handled in-house", not reported to law enforcement, etc.? Baylor got massively caught, the offenses are particularly repellent, and there is a paper-trail a mile long to hang the powers-that-be there, but is what happened at Baylor really that much different than at other schools? Would rapist football players at Alabama, Mississippi State, Ohio State, etc. get treated much differently?

Total speculation on my part and I don't have a shred of evidence against any of those programs or anyone else, but it does make me wonder. We know that a serial child molester at Penn State was allowed to carry on his criminal activities for a long time due to a cover up and "in-house" handling. How many times have we read about players at any number of schools being disciplined for "unspecified violations of team rules". . . what the hell does that even mean? These programs shield this stuff behind a privacy wall. . . but is Baylor really as much an outlier as we all like to think they are?

gostangs wrote:How very Big 12 of them to try to grab extra money out of this....

A better solution would be just to have SMU and Baylor switch places. Improve the conference academics and the conference media market and carve Waco out of the list of crappy places in the Big 12.

Treadway21 wrote:Makes you wonder if this exasperates the divisions in the Big 12 - even though the Big 12 is only temporarily withholding the money - it still must put a strain on Baylor's budget. Baylor has zero leverage, but there has to be lots of behind the scenes wheeling and dealing power plays.

Isn't this similar to how the SWC started imploding - giving Texas an excuse to screw us and make a play for the Big 8? Texas has to be the instigator.