The Big 12 is losing its two flagship programs, Texas and Oklahoma, to the SEC by the summer of 2025, at the latest.

That remains a stinging blow to the league and commissioner Bob Bowlsby, but it is moving forward. The league has invited BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida as new members, although their arrival dates remain to be determined.

Bowlsby has estimated UT and OU accounted for close to half of the league’s media rights value, but expressed optimism that the reconfigured Big 12 will remain an attractive conference when it goes to the negotiating table for its next TV deal. The league’s current deal with ESPN and Fox runs through 2025.

“To forecast what it might be worth is really a fool’s errand because it’s only worth what anybody will pay you for it at the time they are going to consider it,” Bowlsby said from the Big 12 men’s basketball media day on Wednesday.

“We think we’re going to continue to play at a very high level. I think our content is high quality. We’re going to be in three different time zones in a fairly significant manner. I’m very bullish about the value of our conference going forward.”

College realignment remained a dominant storyline during media day. Kansas State men’s basketball coach Bruce Weber stepped to the podium first and it didn’t take long for realignment to come up.

“Everybody felt we were at a pretty good place, winning, money-wise. Obviously things change,” Weber said. “We had to figure it out. Now we’re back to 12. We had to get media markets, we had to get population base for TV for the future. I think we accomplished that.

“You look at the success of BYU in football right now, Cincinnati, Houston, Central Florida. On paper it looks like it’s pretty good. I don’t know if we’re going to be stronger, but basketball, football, I think we got great additions. I think the future is ripe for the Big 12.”

The realignment questions continued throughout the day.

Texas coach Chris Beard discussed his passion for the Big 12, saying he loves the league. But he’s also excited about the future of coaching in the SEC.

Beard then offered this: “I’m still not personally convinced this is the last domino. I don’t know anything, I just feel like something else is about to happen.”

Beard compared his feelings to when he saw the movie “Ted” in 2012. Walking out of the theater, Beard just felt like there would be a sequel. Sure enough, “Ted 2” hit theaters a couple years later.

“I knew there’d be another one,” Beard said, smiling.

That will be something to watch in the coming years, especially when the Big Ten and Pac-12 enter negotiating talks. At that time maybe those leagues will have changed their stance on expansion.

At the end of the day, realignment will always remain a talking point in college athletics.

For the Big 12, Bowlsby admitted he doesn’t know firm dates as to when UT and OU may depart or the others may join. As of now, he’s taking UT and OU at their word of staying through the grant of rights deal signed through 2025.

“I certainly would make the assumption that they would try and leave earlier than that,” Bowlsby said. “We have agreements in terms of our rights, notice provisions in our bylaws, and we expect to exercise our prerogatives around those documents.”

BYU, meanwhile, is expected to join in July 2023 with Cincy, Houston and UCF joining in the summer of 2024. However, the three AAC schools could explore options to join the league in the summer of 2023.

“They have some things they need to do to extricate themselves from the American Athletic Conference. They’re in the process of doing those,” Bowlsby said. “We’re hopeful that it could be as early as ‘23, certainly not later than ‘24. I think we’ll find ourselves having to play in divisions at that point.

“For a while, we’ll be 14 members. So Texas and Oklahoma have made the statement publicly, and our documents would indicate that they will be with us through June 30 of 2025. Until we see anything to the contrary, that’s what we’re going to assume.”

Basketball league

The Big 12 will remain the best basketball league in the post-UT/ OU era, according to calculations by KenPom. After all, BYU, Cincy and Houston all have strong basketball tradition and UCF reached the NCAA Tournament a couple years ago.

More important, though, are the programs that are staying in the league. Kansas is a blueblood program, Baylor is the defending national champion and Oklahoma State just produced the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft.

“I think you don’t ever replace truly an Oklahoma and a Texas, but in the sport of basketball, I don’t think there’s any question that we don’t fall off much and we may gain,” Bowlsby said.

Reigning champs

Baylor coach Scott Drew reached the pinnacle of the sport by winning a national championship last season. That’s a great achievement for Drew and Baylor, of course, but Drew has higher aspirations for the Big 12 this season.

“One thing I’d love for our conference to accomplish is to have three teams in the Final Four at one time,” Drew said. “Our league has never done that. It takes some luck to have that accomplished, but this is another year where that’s a possibility.”

The Big 12 has three teams ranked in the top 10 of the preseason AP poll — Kansas (3), Texas (5) and Baylor (8). The league has a couple others in the receiving votes category with Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.

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