The Pac-12 Conference closed the window of opportunity, and won’t add schools to the conference this time. But, that leaves the door open for other conferences looking to add schools.
The league’s presidents and chancellors voted on the decision late Tuesday night. Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott says “after careful review we have determined that it is in the best interests of our member institutions, student-athletes and fans to remain a 12-team conference.”
It will be interesting to see which conferences move to a 6-team format, and which stay at 12.
The Pac-12 was considering adding Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. The schools were hesitant, though, after expanding from the Pac-10 with new members Utah and Colorado just last year.
The Pac-12 league already negotiated a 12-year television contract with Fox and ESPN worth about $3 billion. In order to add Texas it would need to renegotiate that deal, negotiate another deal with the Longhorn Network and work with all of the other schools in order to make a new TV schedule that would appease everyone both scheduling-wise and monetarily.
The Pac-12 chose the former and stayed as a 12 team conference.
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