Here’s the Chron story on that letter a bunch of area legislators sent to Big XII Commissioner Dan Beebe and the presidents of Texas universities in that conference in support of adding UH.
Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe is on record saying the league has no plans to add any teams from within its five-state footprint (Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa). [State Rep. Garnet] Coleman, whose District 147 includes the UH campus, said the Houston delegation isn’t about to give up that easily.
“I don’t quit,” Coleman said. “I don’t start something I’m not going to finish. If I didn’t think this was a worthy endeavor, I wouldn’t have started it. This is the beginning of this effort, not the end.”
[…]
The letter went out one day after a House committee of higher education canceled a Wednesday hearing about intercollegiate athletics in general and conference realignment in particular. Coleman expects the subject to come up during the next legislative session.
“We haven’t weighed in the way Houston can weigh in,” Coleman said. “That’s the first thing we have to do is weigh in in the best interests of the state, the best interests of our region, the best interests of our students. If I had it my way, it would be the Big 14, and you’d bring in Rice and SMU.”
As I said before, if it comes to that, I know what such a conference should be called.
I understand these leigslators have to support Houston etc, but hopefully they don’t waste serious time and.or money with this idea. There are bigger things to worry about in Austin. UT and others will NEVER add cougar high, SMU, TCU or Rice for the simple fact that they don’t add TV sets and would result in lower payouts for existing Big XII schools.