HARTFORD, Conn. — Brett Yormark, the Big 12 commissioner, is fond of saying “we’re open for business.” That was his slogan in 2023 when he ushered four teams into the conference, pulling the Jenga blocks that suddenly toppled the Pac 12.
Last July 9, at the conference media day, the go-to phrase was said again: “I guess you could say we’re still open for business,” Yormark said in Vegas. “I won’t stop until we’re the No.1 conference in America.”
It can be said that UConn, too, is open for business. In fact, UConn and the Big 12 might open earlier and close later than your neighborhood Cumberland Farms. Conversations are always taking place.
So the report this week by “Locked On UConn” podcast’s Mark Zanetto that generated the first billows of internet smoke was not to be discounted. There has been a buzz on campus this summer about UConn and the Big 12 being back in play as multiple, well-positioned sources have been telling me something’s brewing, others declining to discuss it.
On Friday, the flame behind that smoke was visible. The Athletic and Yahoo reported Yormark’s latest run at UConn will begin with a presentation to league presidents next week.
About this time last year, UConn folks went to bed one night believing they would be in the Big 12 the next day, but the Pac 12 imploded over TV money and the Big 12 got Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado in the fallout. The conference grew to 16 schools, from the Appalachians to the Rockies. UConn was left at the altar for the umpteenth time, and it would be natural for its leaders to be reluctant to raise hopes again.
The stage is now set for remaining power conferences to become super-duper megaconferences with what, 18, 20, 24 teams? Yormark has made no secret of his vision of making college basketball a bigger deal, more lucrative for TV than it is now. Adding the UConn men, the back-to-back champs with potential to draw ratings from New York to Boston, to a conference that includes 2022 champ Kansas, ’21 champ Baylor, Houston and Arizona would position the Big 12 on the forefront of that. (It could also make the Hurley Brothers conference rivals, incidentally.)
At this moment when ratings are soaring for women’s basketball, it would add UConn women to a more formidable conference, including Baylor, Utah and Arizona.
There are many moving parts to this, however. The conference presidents must be convinced of the value of this vision, enough to take UConn football, with its well-chronicled drawbacks. According to reports, Yormark’s latest proposal would not include football right away, but only after a period of maybe five years, 2031, or the league’s next TV deal, and requiring UConn to upgrade its investment in football.
If the conference’s presidents see the appeal of adding UConn, they may insist on waiting to see what happens with Florida State, Clemson and others in the ACC, lest there be a repeat of the Pac 12 exodus. In fact, any flirtation with UConn could be meant, first and foremost, as leverage to get those ACC teams to move.
For UConn, this is not about risking basketball to save football. Remember, when Dan Hurley entertained the Lakers offer, one of his concerns was whether UConn would have the resources to compete long term in this rapidly evolving collegiate world. In the near term, UConn men’s and women’s basketball will be just fine where they are, but if there is an invitation to the Big 12, or a rebuilding ACC, it will be hard to resist issuing a quick yes from Storrs, as fond as we all are of the Big East and its conference tournament in New York.
But there is also this to consider: Just how long would Big 12 schools expect UConn to wait before reaping the full financial benefits? If UConn, which is trying to narrow its budget deficits, committed to spending the additional money it would take to compete in a coast-to-coast conference, pour more money into football, and wait eight or nine years for the revenue to stream to kick in, as SMU agreed to do in joining the ACC, that could defeat the purpose of such a move.
None of these obstacles are insurmountable, if things align. I wouldn’t use the word “imminent,” but it’s inevitable, I believe, that UConn will find a home in a major conference — sooner or later. One can only be certain at the moment that both UConn and the Big 12 are open for business, and open to doing business with each other.