KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Even before his conference absorbed Arizona and three other Pac-12 refugees this year, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark was saying basketball is undervalued in the college sports media rights landscape.
Except once he did roll the Wildcats into what is now a 20-game schedule for his top-rated men’s basketball league, Yormark’s own league may have left a bargaining chip temporarily off the table: Arizona is playing Kansas only once this season, and that game will be in Lawrence on March 8.
While that may be great news for Kansas coach Bill Self, who was outspoken in his opposition of the conference’s move from 18 to 20 games this season because it could beat teams up too much, a second UA-KU game in McKale undoubtedly would have been valued television inventory, not to mention a gigantic boost to UA’s home season-ticket package.
With 16 teams this season, each Big 12 team was assigned to play five others twice, and the rest once.
“It wasn’t easy when you think about the different matchups and the depth of the conference, but we’ve got to go back to the drawing board and think about that,” Yormark said of UA facing KU only once. “That’s a marquee matchup, as we all know, and one the fans want to see.
Commissioner Brett Yormark addresses assembled media during Day 1 of the Big 12’s Basketball Media Days Tuesday in Kansas City, Mo..
“I’m not saying that’s right or that’s the way it’s going to be moving forward. But first time at 20, we’ve got to figure out what worked, what didn’t, and then address it at the end of the season.”
Yormark said media partners did not weigh in the decision on which teams played twice, and outlined some rough guidelines the league followed in setting its schedule.
“Some of it’s rivalry, some of it’s travel,” Yormark said. “There’s lots of different principles that go into it. We have a scheduling committee of ADs and we work closely with them on that.”
For UA’s first season in its new conference, the Wildcats will play both home and away games against ASU, BYU, Iowa State, Texas Tech and Baylor. They will play Utah, Colorado, TCU, UCF and Houston only at McKale Center, while they will play only road games against Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Cincinnati and West Virginia.
The Big 12 threw two potential Top 10 road games at Arizona on the final two Saturdays of the regular season — those are at Iowa State on March 1 and at Kansas on March 8 — but the conference did the Wildcats some favors.
Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd thanks the McKale Center crowd for coming out to the UA men’s basketball program’s annual Red-Blue Showcase on Oct. 4 in Tucson.
The Big 12 lumped UA’s distant road games at Cincinnati and West Virginia within three days, and slipped that two-game trip in before UA began spring semester classes in mid-January. The Big 12 also created a more convenient two-game trip for the Wildcats at Texas Tech and Oklahoma State later in January.
Yormark said all sorts of logistics were considered for the scheduling.
“When you think about football, as an example, if you cross two time zones one week, you get the bye the following week,” Yormark said. “Those principles are being carried over to men’s and women’s basketball and other sports. Obviously, student athlete well-being is critically important. Travel is something we’re very mindful of, and it’s very much a part of our scheduling process, and will continue to be for all the right reasons.”
The Big 12 is locked into media rights deals through the 2030-31 season, including a six-year extension that begins next season, but Yormark expressed optimism that the Big 12 could get more out of its basketball products.
Kansas faces TCU at Allen Fieldhouse last season in a Big 12 matchup on Jan. 6.
Part of that could happen if the conference is able to leverage men’s and women’s basketball separately from football in future media rights deals. Yormark said the Big 12 has already obtained “optionality on back-end rights” within its extension, giving the league the potential to separate or bundle its sports.
In a typical college sports media-rights bundle, 80% of the revenue is attributed to football. The Big 12’s six-year extension with ESPN and Fox is worth a reported $2.28 billion.
Meanwhile, the Big 12 has also been aggressive in finding revenue outside of media rights deals, even moving to dynamic concession pricing at its basketball tournaments.
Notably, it has begun selling an “All-Access Pass” seat license for its men’s basketball tournament, allowing fans to pay between $6,000 to $30,000 per seat for the right to purchase that seat every year through 2031 at Kansas City’s T-Mobile Center. That program reportedly has the potential of bringing in another $30 million.
In addition, the Big 12 moved its women’s basketball tournament from the nearby but much smaller Municipal Auditorium into the T-Mobile Center last season. The women’s tournament is scheduled to end this season just before the men’s tournament, on March 9, or March 10 (Monday) if BYU is involved.
The top four finishers in the women’s race will receive a double-bye into the quarterfinals, while teams finishing fifth through eighth will receive one bye into the second round.
“I think there’s potential growth to further monetize (basketball), both short term and long term,” Yormark said. “I look at our conference championship, and we have grown that from a revenue perspective exponentially over the last two years. But ultimately, the big moment will be our next TV deal.
“The growth of basketball, I think we all see it. It’s not just men’s. It’s women’s. You see those WNBA numbers, record finals ratings. You saw that here last year in our tournament, the NCAA Tournament. So I think there’s real upside and I’m looking to capture as much of that, both short term and long term, as I can.”
