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SI: Oral History of the Big XII

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SI: Oral History of the Big XII

Postby leopold » Mon Dec 11, 2017 11:45 pm

https://www.si.com/college-football/201 ... swc-merger

Yes, it's old hash.

But there are some interesting quotes in this thing.

(UT President Bill) Cunningham: There were four or five forces that forced change. They had everything to do with Rice and TCU and Houston not being able to draw acceptable crowds. The death penalty to SMU played a huge role. SMU was potentially the school that we could have developed a long-term rivalry with.

Berdahl was the final hand, and he told the group that he'd have to take the decision to Texas's board of regents. Wefald remembers Berdahl's final comment: "If I had my way, we'd join the Pac-10."

Chuck Neinas, Big Eight commissioner from 1971–80, executive director of the CFA from 1980–97: ESPN did not want all the members. They wanted eight from the Big Eight and they'd take four from the Southwest Conference. Obviously, the two they wanted most were Texas and Texas A&M. I received a call from Loren Matthews, who was a key executive with ESPN with whom I had developed a good relationship. And Loren told me, he said, "Here's my problem. We want the Big Eight, but we don't want all of the Southwest Conference." I said, "Well, just let me make some phone calls, and I'm sure they'll get back to you." So I called DeLoss Dodds at Texas, Donnie Duncan at Oklahoma and Bill Byrne at Nebraska, and the rest is history.
So it was ESPN that put the number at twelve. Not the schools themselves.

Cunningham: The (chancellor) of TCU, Bill Tucker, he's a class act, and he said, "Bill, I understand. However, we are going to compete at a level that will make you all want to have us at some time in the future." I said all the right things that you would say in a polite conversation, but I have to say I didn't believe it that they would perform at that level.

Bockrath: There [are] four things that stick out after all these years. One was the issue of revenue production and how that revenue would be shared. I think that was probably the most important issue. The second was where the conference headquarters were going to be. The third was who the commissioner was going to be, and the fourth one, oddly enough, was how were we going to blend records from two different conferences?

(Former KSU AD and chairman of the Association of Big 8 Universities) Wefald: I voted for everything Texas wanted. Whatever they wanted was fine with me.

It took more than a year for the conference to resolve these arguments, and the debate was portrayed in the press as acrimonious, with battle lines drawn at times between the old Big Eight and old SWC, other times between the haves and the have-nots and too often between Texas and Nebraska. In the end, the conference landed an eight-year football television contract with ABC, worth $95 million for regular-season games and $27.7 million for the annual championship game, and a five-year, $42.5 million deal with Fox Sports. The schools agreed to divide the television payouts for bowls and championship games equally; for regular-season television revenue, each school would receive $750,000 annually, plus $142,000 for every ABC appearance and $72,500 for every Fox Sports appearance. In addition, home teams would keep 100% of their gate receipts.

The league also determined that it would be headquartered in Dallas—a victory for Texas—and that Steve Hatchell, the former SWC commissioner, would hold the same title in the new league.

One issue, though, was especially divisive: the question of how many partial qualifiers, if any, would be allowed to compete. Nebraska for years had admitted these "Prop 48" athletes, who did not meet the NCAA's eligibility requirements; instead of attending junior college, they'd lose a year of eligibility but benefit from the school's academic support to get their scores up to par. In fact, on Nebraska's 1995 national championship team, four starters were Prop 48 players. However, the SWC had not allowed partial qualifiers, nor did Texas think the new league should. Eventually, the Big 12 ruled that it would allow two male and two female Prop 48 athletes per school per year, angering Nebraska.

Long Story Short: UT got EVERYTHING they wanted.
Aaaaandddd here's what happened to Nebraska football


Walden: I won't say who [told me], but one of the major reasons why Nebraska left to go to the Big Ten [in 2010] was they were tired of Texas. That's just an opinion. Maybe 100 people will deny that, but that's what I surmise.
Duh
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