Big 12 commissioner defiant in face of Big Ten-SEC meeting

Brett Yormark knows the SEC and Big Ten commissioners and athletic directors are meeting this week in Nashville to discuss the future of college sports.

They’ve formed an “advisory committee,” and because they’re the two biggest conferences with the most high-power schools after the latest realignment, he knows that ultimately they’ll control the future of college athletics and specifically, college football.

It’s quickly becoming a case of the “haves and have-nots” in college football — as the Pac-12 found out — but it doesn’t sound like Yormark is worried that his conference doesn’t have a seat at this particular table.

“I don’t wake up thinking about the Big Ten and the SEC,” Yormark, told Front Office Sports. “I really focus on — how does the Big 12 become the best version of itself? If we do that, we’ll take care of business in the right way.”

Yormark did admit that the SEC and Big Ten advisory committee has received plenty of press, but he told Front Office Sports that he has plenty of irons in the fire as well.

The Big 12 did good to add Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah as the Pac-12 imploded, and they joined the 2023 additions of BYU, UCF, Cincinnati and Houston.

Yormark is working on creating more Big 12 events in big media markets, with Las Vegas being an example, and he’s even thinking about trying to add UConn to bring in another powerhouse basketball school to join the likes of Kansas, Arizona, Baylor, Houston and Oklahoma in what is arguably the best college hoops conference in the country.

Ultimately, Yormark doesn’t seem worried at all that the Big 12 will become a second-tier conference.

“I feel really good about our position as a conference,” he said.