Big 12's Latest Experiment: Mexico & Access?!

Brett Yormark has talked about innovation ever since he took over as Big 12 commissioner. So what does he have up his sleeve now?

At the recent spring fiesta, he talked to Brandon Marcello at 247, Dennis Dodd at CBS, among others, about a couple of things that’ll make your ears perk up.

Obviously, Yormark comes from the world of professional athletics. So when he starts talking about things that have been successful for the NFL, NBA, etc, it shouldn’t really be surprising. Yormark brought up how the conference is exploring ways to expand their reach geographically and on the media landscape.

The conference is expected to make an announcement in the next couple of weeks about playing select football games at 53,500 seat Estadio BBVA - the stadium in Monterrey, Mexico - and basketball games at the 22,300-seat Arena CDMX in Mexico City. For basketball, they’re looking at Kansas vs Houston being held there… and I would imagine a big reason is because Kansas basketball fans will travel just about anywhere to watch their Jayhawks.

Now… this makes sense for the NBA and for the NFL to take their game international. Home field isn’t a huge thing - you can package professional athletics anywhere, and it will draw because it’s the highest level of the sport. The Big 12 isn’t even the highest level of college football. Maybe basketball, but not football. So how well this does will be interesting. What will the crowds look like? How excited will local fans be about a TCU vs Oklahoma State game? Or Texas Tech vs Houston? Those matchups don’t always sell out on home campuses, so that will be intriguing.

The other things that stood out was changes to game coverage. The Big 12 is planning to upgrade its television presentations with behind-the-scenes access during games, including in-game interviews with coaches and pre- and post-game access inside locker rooms. I’m not a huge fan of this, because, in all honesty, I don’t care to hear what coaches or players are saying in the middle of a game. Emotions run high, and this sets up for guys to make mistakes, especially when they’re not used to having a mic on them at all times. There are very few sacred places that the media doesn’t have access to anymore, and the locker room and in-game just happens to be one of them that’s left. But… I get it. I get the direction everything is going nowadays.

The behind-the-scenes access is expected to begin as soon as this football season. It’ll help out with social media engagement. You’ll see more clips on twitter, instagram, etc. And I’m sure it helped in negotiations with FOX and ESPN that they can have a broadcast that’s different from the stuff that they’ll get with the SEC and Big Ten.

Yormark has already shown he’s willing to experiment, whether it’s by hiring Shaquille O’Neal as the DJ at the Big 12 basketball tournament, or launching youth clinics with Big 12 coaches at historic Rucker Park in New York. This is just more of the same.

Truth be told, as a conference that’s not on the level of the SEC or the Big Ten, stuff like this is necessary. Anything he can do to generate interest in his conference is going to be welcome, because they have to draw eyeballs. I don’t blame him for doing this at all, and it’s yet another thing that I’m curious to see the results.

From the Friday, May 5th full show: https://youtu.be/k9gdzfRB0VE

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