More Conference Realignment News

The Big 10 now has 12 teams, the Big XII has ten teams, the Pac 10 has 11, and wants more.

Conference re-alignment rumors are swirling.

Yesterday it was a done deal, Texas would accept an invitation to the Pac 10 and bring Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Texas A&M with them.

Then this morning, Texas A&M seemed poised to join the SEC, leaving the Pac 10's dream of 16 teams in doubt.

Now, this afternoon, word out of Texas is that there is an 11th hour deal to keep the remaining Big XII teams together in a ten team conference.

Based on a television deal in the works that could pay them upwards of $25 million per year, Texas is leaning toward staying in a 10-team Big XII for the foreseeable future.

Big XII commissioner Dan Beebe has been negotiating a new contract with broadcasters.

Teams like Texas and Oklahoma would receive large revenue boosts...up to $20 million dollars per season.

Because the Big XII does not have equal revenue sharing...lower teir teams would take in between $14 to $17 million annually.

Here's why all of this is happening.

The Big 10 and the SEC bring in over $200 million annually from television rights fees.

Right now...the Big XII brings in around $78 and the Pac 10 $58 million, well short of their rival conferences.

With conference realignment, the Pac 10's hope was to negotiate a deal similar to what the Big XII and SEC get.

Now, that being said, all of the sudden the Mountain West could be put in the spotlight, or more specifically, the University of Utah.

According to sources, the Pac 10 will look to Utah to be their next invite to join the conference.

If that happens and Utah jumps from the Mountain West ship, the conference will once again be down to nine members including the newly added Boise State.

So, with the Mountain West at only nine teams, if in fact Utah does leave, what's next?

One possibility is to add Fresno State or Nevada.

A few other teams under consideration are SMU and Houston from Conference USA. they would both be Texas teams that could begin a rivalry with current Mountain West member, TCU.

There are all sorts of scenarios that could play themselves out today, but all of them hinge on an official announcement from Texas that they do plan to stay in the Big XII.