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

Sigh.

OK, this came Wednesday, and it followed Monday’s revelation that the Big 12 was 4 to 5 percent more likely to reach the CFP with a championship game. We discussed that here, and we agreed it was a flimsy number, and further, it ought to be hard to trust because it’s based on running simulations with significant variables like, you know, how you asses the ways 13 subjective individuals will act on the selection committee.

But we also thought the 4 to 5 percent was for simply adding a playoff, and we then figured that adding a playoff was a precursor for adding two (or more teams), losing one conference game and splitting into divisions. What we didn’t seek to articulate was how the CFP odds increase by adding teams, losing one conference game, splitting into divisions and playing a title game. I was told those were maybe separate items with separate percentages.

Yesterday, Navigate Research, which is both the outside firm the Big 12 contracted and a delightful double entendre, spoke to coaches and athletic directors. That chat revealed that adding to the league and adding a title game was expected to increase the CFP odds by 10 to 15  percent, which is a bit more alarming.

But then that 62 percent thing stirred the drink in another direction. So, this is nuts, but it’s here for at least the rest of the month (zero change Navigate ever shows its work, and nor should it, because these are trade secrets in an oddly lucrative trade). The Big 12 presidents, who ultimately hold the voting power, meet in Dallas at the end of the month, but you should not expect a decision there. Soon? Ideally, but not there. So says Shane Lyons from the site of the league’s spring meetings.

The first thing to know is that Lyons believes the Big 12 has to act — and by that, he means definitively decide to do something or nothing — soon. “Either we expand or we don’t, but we can’t just keep going on with study after study. We’re going to have to say, ‘OK, we’re going to do this or we’re not.’ ”

Bless him.

Lyons is no stranger to this topic. He was a witness to expansion twice when he worked for the ACC and once when he was at Alabama. He knows the dynamics, and, more importantly, he understands how those dynamics are related to both the welfare of a school and a conference. WVU President Gordon Gee is on the league’s expansion committee, and he’s said he’s a proponent of expansion, but he also wants it done properly, and he’s been pretty clear that he’ll leave a lot of this to Lyons, who he hired for such reasons.

How is Lyons leaning? He can’t say, and not because he’s bound to an oath of secrecy.

Right now, Lyons doesn’t believe “we’ve been given enough information to say, at this point, yes on the three things. Yes, we should add. Yes, we should add a championship game. Yes, we should add a network. All that information has to be completely vetted.”

So much for the idea the Mountaineers are, were or will be for expansion, or against it, for that matter. WVU could be swayed by the research and the debate, and Lyons and Gee could talk people into staying on one side or crossing over to another.

But at the present, there are still things the school needs and wants to know. Who are the schools the Big 12 would invite and how will they be secured? How risky is a championship game and where is it played? How valuable is the round-robin schedule and how much does the Big 12 lose if it abandons that? How does the title game affect fan interest for that game and how does that game impact the appeal of bowl games?

On and on it goes.

“I want to do what’s best for the conference, and that may not always be what’s best for West Virginia,” Lyons said.

What he means is WVU needs the Big 12 to prosper, so this isn’t a decision about this year, next year or the year after that. This isn’t even really about the conference schedule, a title game or the CFP. This is about the long term and about longevity.

Again, this isn’t solely about a playoff spot. If it was, the Big 12 would be so much smarter to stump for an eight-team bracket. If it was, the Big 12 would be wise not to dilute its membership with what we can politely and accurately call lukewarm additions and instead follow through after deregulating championship games and play one with a 10-team conference and the round robin schedule.

But he Big 12 admits it is falling behind financially, and it seems that expanding, adding the title game, increasing CFP odds and making up the gap in money is best and maybe only accomplished with a Big 12 network — and that’s a topic that hasn’t been highlighted or explained enough behind closed doors or in public.

The Big 12 is aware of the SEC’s financial success with its television package and its network. The Big Ten has a lucrative network and television package and reportedly just signed a six-year, $250 million deal for half its football and basketball games with Fox, which is one of the Big 12’s partners.

Bowlsby projects the SEC and the Big Ten could be paying out $20 million more per school by the end of the Big 12’s television contract in 2025. There’s no way his league can add the right schools to make up that difference in football and basketball revenue, and there remains doubts the league would be more competitive or respectable with additions, too.

But adding teams adds to the inventory available for a Big 12 network, and a network, if structured and produced properly, can write checks to make up the difference between Big 12 schools and schools in other leagues. It’s a complicated and convoluted process that involves reconciling multimedia rights deals at every Big 12 school, but if it works it would go a long way toward keeping the conference intact and keep it from losing schools to other leagues.

Thus far, the league hasn’t produced a lot of information or education on the topic, and it’s something the decision-makers need to know about before they can move forward.