The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

The Big 12 is getting ready to grow

The Big 12 is out in Phoenix for its spring meetings, and this event serves as a prelude for more important meetings with university presidents later this month in Dallas. At those meetings, and not these, it seems we’re going to see the strongest move yet toward adding to the membership.

The translation of the above Tweet is that adding a title game includes adding two teams to the league, splitting into divisions, playing eight regular-season games and then sending division winners to a conference championship game. There hasn’t been a stronger hint that the Big 12 is prepared to expand, and there’s no other way to digest what the league’s boss revealed Monday.

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Monday that data compiled by consultants — up to 40,000 simulations from Navigate Research — indicated the best model for placing a team in the College Football Playoff is a 12-team conference playing eight league games plus a championship game.

“That was the best outcome,” Bowlsby told reporters at the Arizona Biltmore — but there’s no telling what the actual outcome of the Big 12’s ongoing deliberations will be.

Bowlsby will brief the league’s athletic directors and football coaches during their annual meetings this week at the resort. He’ll do the same in late May with school presidents and chancellors in Irving, Texas. Sometime later in the summer, the commissioner anticipates some sort of decision.

“Once we get the diagnostics done and the data analysis done, we need to get down the path and make some decisions,” he said. “There’s no sense in dragging it out once we know all the pieces to the puzzle.”

Now, to me, being 4 or 5 percent more likely to make the playoff is pretty far from arresting. There’s a 95 or 96 percent chance it wouldn’t matter too much, right? And let’s not forget, the Big 12 got a team in the playoff this past season and almost got two (but got none) in for the inaugural run. We’re working with two data points here.

But the presentation of the research and the simulations serve to work against that logic, and it makes you wonder if minds aren’t already made up, or if decision-makers aren’t known to be leaning in that direction. Bowlsby admits the data will “probably persuade some people one way or the other.” Based off of that, I don’t see what the other way is.

The league’s football coaches aren’t enthused about the idea of adding a 13th game, and the league’s athletic directors are said to be split with strong voices speaking for each side. The presidents, though, vote, and that’s when you look beyond things like risking a CFP spot or playing an extra game.

What we’ve long considered about expanding is that the teams that would arrive — Cincinnati seems ready, and from there, I don’t know … — couldn’t possibly make up for the amount of money that teams would lose by splitting revenue with two more teams. We’ve since learned that apprehension is somewhat misplaced — payouts to schools grow proportionally with the size of the league — but now it appears we’ve been looking at this wrong.

This isn’t about a title game or a spot in the playoffs. This is, of course, about money. It’s about getting what others will get so that the league can stay together and the teams can make money with one another.

“If we do nothing, we’ll fall behind the SEC and the Big Ten in terms of [revenue],” Bowlsby said. “We may be every bit as competitive as we are today, but we’ll fall behind financially.”

Bowlsby previously told CBS Sports that, if the league stands pat, it will be “$20 million [per school]” behind the SEC and Big Ten in 12 years.