It’s always about the money. Which, to be fair, is pretty substantial in this case.
The negotiations for Oklahoma and Texas to leave the Big 12 a year early and join the SEC in 2024 have stalled and a deal is not expected to come to fruition, sources told ESPN on Friday morning.
After weeks of negotiations, Texas and Oklahoma are still slated to join the SEC in 2025. Sources said the parties couldn’t come to terms amid a complex negotiation involving two schools, two networks (ESPN and Fox) and the Big 12.
Sources said the sides couldn’t agree on how to create equitable value for what Fox would lose in 2024 — the equivalent of seven football games featuring Oklahoma and Texas that command premium advertising.
The negotiations heated up over the past few days, with the Big 12 meetings late this week doubling as an unofficial deadline to get a deal done.
The timeline in play — the 2024 season — leaves some ambiguity and small potential for a Hail Mary revival, but the strong expectation remains that Oklahoma and Texas will play in the 14-team Big 12 in 2023 and 2024.
“There’s no formal timeline or brink from which you can’t come back,” an industry source said. “But this is where things are right now — a deal is unlikely.”
To be fair, UT and OU were insisting they would remain in the Big XII through 2025, despite the obvious reasons why they’d want to get out earlier than that. I certainly thought that they would find a way to make that happen. The fall of 2024 is still a ways off so anything could happen, but it’s not looking too likely. For the Coog fans out there, that means you’ll get two shots at them on the football field before they buzz off. Better make the most of it while you can.
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