Big 12 being diligent yet aggressive regarding westward expansion
Big 12 Media Days was in a new location this year.
Instead of the normal location in Dallas, they were in Las Vegas, helping commissioner Brett Yormark continue his vision of westward expansion for the league.
"As it relates to the west coast, this is a great example, it’s indicative of our appetite to move a little west with some of our tentpole events. Being in Vegas is critically important to us, even before last year’s realignment I said we had to be in Vegas and a little more west," Yormark said. "This is the entertainment and sports capital of the world right now, so being here is critically important to our brand and to our business. We’ll. Continue to explore opportunities for our tentpole events, our championship events more to the west coast if the opportunity presents itself and if it makes sense."
Yormark and the Big 12 are set to add four schools in just under a month, and with that, they will touch all four time zones. It will be a coast-to-coast league with schools in Florida and West Virginia, as well as in Arizona and West Virginia.
With a move westward, Yormark said the league will still value convenience and wants it to make sense for all the schools involved.
"Convenience matters, it certainly does. That goes into the consideration set as we’re exploring different options. As I said earlier, it’s got to make sense for membership. I think coming to Vegas for this event was critically important. Unfortunately, there was a scheduling conflict at AT&T. We wanted to provide for a great experience not only for the media but for our student-athletes," Yormark said.
"I can assure you I have been stopped at least a dozen times this morning by student-athletes saying, thank you for getting me to Vegas and in many respects it’s their first time here. So, that’s part of the puzzle also, that’s part of what we have to deliver, a great cultural experience for our student-athletes and we’re doing that here during media day and we’ll be very thoughtful about the future and making sure we’re not inconveniencing people. But there’s a benefit to doing different things but we have to embrace change."
Another piece of this would be possibly be adding a bowl game at Allegiant Stadium, the home of the Las Vegas Raiders, and now the site for Big 12 Media Days.
"I’m confident at the right time we will have a formal affiliation with the Las Vegas Bowl. This market is critically important, Scott Draper is working on that. But I’m comfortable and confident in what the outcome will be with our conference. We need to be here in Vegas for all the right reasons. I said it earlier, entertainment and sports capital of the world, so critically important market for us in the future," Yormark said.
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