The Big 12’s Trust in an Outsider Is the Latest Sign of a New NCAA Landscape

Brett Yormark’s hiring as commissioner was met with cynicism after the transformed league took a big swing, but it’s part of a larger pattern.

On Yormark, get set …

Wait, really? The remodeled Big 12 Conference is running toward an uncertain future with a new commissioner few people in college athletics had even heard of before Monday night?

Yes, really. Brett Yormark, the 55-year-old chief operating officer from Jay-Z’s talent agency, Roc Nation, is the latest unconventional choice to lead a Power 5 conference. He replaces the ultimate college sports insider/lifer in Bob Bowlsby. He follows George Kliavkoff, who last year took over the Pac-12 after being president of entertainment and sports for MGM Resorts. And Kliavkoff followed Kevin Warren, who became the Big Ten commish after working as the COO of the Minnesota Vikings. Three men in their 50s, hired in succession from well outside the college sports establishment.

At a time of unprecedented change within the industry, the Power 5 has accelerated the shift away from business as usual with unusual leadership choices. This may prove prescient, but only time will tell.

Yormark is also a former executive of the Brooklyn Nets :: Ed Mulholland/USA TODAY Sports

These hires strongly hint at one of two things: the presidents at many of the schools with the most powerful athletic programs really don’t like the leaders who created the current state of affairs, or they’re earnestly trying to change their place within the power structure. Or both.

Regardless, the Big 12 created an even greater ripple of surprise by hiring Yormark than either the Pac-12 or Big Ten did with their moves. Multiple sources described consternation at the National Association of College Directors of Athletics meetings in Las Vegas Monday, as administrators wore out Google on their phones to try to figure out who this new hire is.

“What’s his name again?” one Big 12 athletic director asked Sports Illustrated. “Does he know anything about our business?”

“I’m not familiar with that name,” another Big 12 AD said, after a pause. “I guess we’ll put on good concerts? Just because you don’t know someone doesn’t mean they won’t be a good choice. But this isn’t a time for a lot of on-the-job training.”

Outside the league, reaction arrived in waves of cynicism.

“I would like to be optimistic but this is a disaster in the making,” says one prominent administrator.

The fact is, the Big 12 had made a conscious move away from campus candidates. Sources tell SI the league had narrowed its search to three finalists who were removed from the day-to-day operations of college athletics. The only candidate with a college administrative background who is believed to have gained significant traction is former Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti, who hasn’t held that job since 2013 and who now works for IMG.

Yormark has a lifetime of sports business in his background, working for the Brooklyn Nets and NASCAR before joining Roc Nation in 2019, but he’s never worked in college athletics and is a complete geographic outlier to the sprawling Big 12. He’s an Indiana graduate who has spent almost all his career in New York.

Kliavkoff lived and worked in the West for decades before joining the Pac-12. Warren lived in the Big Ten footprint. While knowing the lay of a conference’s land is not a requirement—Mike Slive was no southerner when he took over the Southeastern Conference—it’s hard to come in colder than Yormark is to a league with roots in Texas and the Midwest.

“Nothing makes me think Iowa State more than Brett Yormark!” Texted an industry insider. “He is the definition of NYC. Either it’s a grand slam or a huge failure.”

The willingness of major conferences to smash the leadership mold, looking away from campuses and toward pro sports or entertainment, is a reflection of the shifting landscape. The more professionalized college athletics becomes, the less interest there seems to be in hiring those who came up within the old system. A lack of college athletics experience might actually be viewed as a positive now.

This is the latest step in an evolution that began in 1984, when the NCAA’s hold on the football TV market was broken, and accelerated when those TV revenues changed the map in the 1990s and again in the 2010s. Football money became the driver of every decision. Last year common decency intervened—some of the revenue was reallocated to the athletes—and the entire enterprise tilted even more in a new direction. With name, image and likeness (NIL) changing the economics of college athletics, people with backgrounds in pro sports might be a good fit.

Kliavkoff’s first year at the Pac-12, viewed universally as a success, might have influenced the Big 12 hire. Both conferences face major disadvantages: the Pac-12 has a lousy conference TV package and has become a football afterthought; the Big 12 is regrouping from the impending departure of linchpins Texas and Oklahoma, which will massively impact the next media rights contracts. Both leagues need new solutions, new directions, new ideas.

Yormark takes over the most geographically chaotic conference. By 2023, when new members arrive, it will span three time zones (BYU in the Mountain, eight schools in the Central and three in the Eastern). Stitching together a new group from Orlando to Provo will have its challenges.

But the larger challenge will be attempting to keep up in the revenue race, as the Big Ten and SEC outdistance everyone else. The Big 12 made the most strategic response it could to the gutting departure of its two biggest revenue drivers, adding the best of the non-Power 5 in Cincinnati, UCF, Houston and BYU. The league has some numerical strength, some good football programs and some great men’s basketball—but the expectation is that the next round of TV rights negotiations will not be kind.

Maybe Brett Yormark is a visionary who can change the league’s trajectory. If not, the league is probably consigned to a lesser status and level of competitiveness for as long as it can last. Given the current state of the Big 12, taking a big swing in a new direction might be the best available option.