Big 12 Expansion Doesn't Provide TV Boost, As Much As Keeps Pace
Realistically, it’s hard to see how adding Colorado, (and hypothetically) Arizona, Arizona State and Utah does much more for the conference in terms of increasing per-team value for media rights. Moreso, this just pushes the overall payout higher via more inventory and the potential addition of a bigger draw in Utah. The distance between the Big 12 and Big Ten/SEC remains quite large.
What will also be interesting for the Big 12 is what happens to those figures without the larger TV draws like Texas (No. 8) and Oklahoma (No. 23). They’re not the only factors propping up those rankings, but obviously since both draw a lot of viewers, that counts for opponents as well. You could see a scenario where the average Big 12 audience is more in line with the ACC’s starting in 2024.
That’s not a knock on the Big 12, though. Any expansion move from a non-Big Ten or SEC league was never going to close the media revenue gap (Big Ten and SEC members are basically making double what the Big 12 and ACC are, respectively, each year). Every conference remains part of a college football television product that’s the No. 2 program on TV each year according to ad impressions data from iSpot.
