Promise of big TV bucks saved Big 12
Assurances that the big television money will soon be coming to the leaner Big 12 pulled the league back from the dead, officials with schools and the league said yesterday.
Assurances that the big television money will soon be coming to the leaner Big 12 pulled the league back from the dead, officials with schools and the league said yesterday.
With Colorado (Pac-10) and Nebraska (Big Ten) leaving in the next 2 years and the Pac-10 making a hard sell to Texas and four other schools to join them, the promises - not guarantees - of bigger checks in the future finally persuaded the Longhorns and the others to stay put.
The Big 12 paid out $8.7 million to $15.4 million per school in 2008-09, with Kansas State getting the smallest payout and Oklahoma the biggest.
Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, Iowa State and Missouri - who were in danger of being left homeless if the conference dissolved - agreed to give up their share in buyout penalties to be paid by Nebraska and Colorado for leaving the league, Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe said.
The idea is to have that money go to Texas, Texas A & M and Oklahoma, the schools the Big 12 needed to stay to remain viable, to make up for the difference in revenue those three might have made going elsewhere.
The amount of the penalties has not been disclosed, the Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn confirmed his school's penalty for leaving the Big 12 "could be" around $9 million.
In other college news:
* Indiana State has promoted assistant Greg Lansing to head basketball coach. The announcement came a day after Kevin McKenna resigned to become an assistant to Dana Altman at Oregon.
Sport Stops
* Sam Flood, NBC Sports' coordinating producer since 2005, was promoted to executive producer. He replaces David Neal.
* French Open champion Fran-cesca Schiavone and defending champ Caroline Wozniacki lost first-round matches at the Eastbourne (England) International.