Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark to Pac-12: I'm Sorry, Not Sorry
Brett Yormark's first year as Big 12 commissioner hasn't been a letdown. It has been a consistent cycle of improvements, including recently adding Colorado and three other Pac-12 schools. Needless to say, the conference is in great shape after losing Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC.
Yormark said they looked into adding more schools but are shuttering the doors as of now. He talked about the process while on the 'Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast' and admitted to being sick over poaching the Pac-12 schools. It ate at him so much that he picked up the phone and sent a message to Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff.
“I texted George, reached out to him. Obviously, he was busy,” Yormark said. “He and I spoke last week. And effectively, I said. ‘Hey, I’m sorry, it came down to this. And I’m sorry I put you in a tough position, but this was something that we had to do.' And this was something that the board and our key stakeholders encouraged. And I’m sorry that my gain is your loss."
As details start to unravel from the fallout in the Pac-12, there was a point that the conference would have remained a Power Five conference. According to LA Times reporter Brady McCollough, Kliavkoff tried to block UCLA's move to the Big Ten but failed to gain any traction.
ESPN then offered a media rights deal worth $30 million per school in October of last year. But a Pac-12 president worked with an unnamed professor on his campus, who estimated the value of each conference school at $50 million. The Worldwide Leader in Sports eventually passed on the over inflated number and walked away from the table, thus stripping the Pac-12 of any type of high-end negotiation power.
Colorado and others are scheduled to join the Big 12 next year.