Hines: The Big 12 Conference's two realities on display in Las Vegas during Media Days

LAS VEGAS – The Big 12 Conference is living with two realities.  

The league’s immediate future is as secure as it has been in probably 15 years. The conference has survived multiple rounds of realignment and may have come out stronger, despite the losses of cornerstones Texas and Oklahoma. That's thanks to former commissioner Bob Bowlsby’s swift action and current commissioner Brett Yormark’s ability to capitalize on the Pac-12's vulnerability. 

The Big 12 is 16 teams strong, with a better-than-expected television deal and the type of league-wide cohesion that is critical for moving forward on and off the field in a time of so much tumult. 

Yormark’s conference was not long ago in a battle for its very existence. Now it stands on its own two feet while the Pac-12 lies six feet under. The league is solidified and stable. 

"There has never been a better time than right now to be part of the Big 12,” Yormark said Tuesday from Allegiant Stadium, just off the Las Vegas Strip, a testament to the league’s nationwide achievements and aspirations. “All eyes are now on the Big 12 for all the right reasons, and I think it's safe to say we're more relevant now than ever before. 

“We added the four corners and solidified ourselves as one of the top three conferences in America." 

Despite Yormark delivering that last line as one of triumph, it also hints at the more precarious reality the league is confronting. 

The longer-term future and viability of the league remain a concern in a world where being in third place doesn’t land you on the medal stand but on the outside looking in. 

As the SEC and Big Ten continue to outpace the rest of the country by wider and wider margins financially, they will continue to grow their already considerable leverage on how the sport is shaped. 

Being a top-three conference is a tenable and even enviable position in 2024, but is it going to be viable in 2029? 2034? 

Third place runs the risk of being first loser. 

The Big 12 finds itself essentially in the second act of a horror movie. They’re thrilled to be alive while some of their compatriots have met their end, but Freddy and Jason are still out there. And they’re not the merciful type. 

"I wake up every morning, I think about one thing, the Big 12 being the best version of itself,” Yormark said when asked about the Big Ten and SEC’s ambitions. “Everything else doesn't really matter.” 

That’s certainly nonsense, of course. Yormark is – and has to be – acutely aware of exactly what the SEC and Big Ten are up to. They are doing exactly what those in power so often – maybe exclusively – do: Use that power to get more power (and money). 

The SEC and Big Ten are trying to squeeze concessions out of the rest of the country with guarantees in the new College Football Playoff. They’re already getting more money – 58% of the revenue combined – and want protected byes for their conference champions in the Playoff. 

It’s unlikely they will shrink from their demands as they continue to cash increasingly larger checks as the cost of doing business grows in a revenue-sharing world. Their wants will only expand. Which, if they’re granted, will only exacerbate the gap between them and the rest of the sport. 

Which, at that point, do they simply just leave the entire governance structure entirely to do their own – likely hugely lucrative – thing? Or if they’re not given what they want, will they use that as a pretext to just leave anyway? 

That’s why the ACC seems to be holding together only on the strength of contract language which Florida State appears hell-bent on testing in court. It’s why the Big 12 is at the forefront of embracing a NASCAR future with bolder (i.e. more obnoxious) advertising providing fresh revenue. 

It’s why cash infusions from private equity into tax-exempt athletic departments, purportedly not profit-driven but mission-driven entities, are on the table. 

"I do believe that given where we are, the industry, having a capital resource as a partner, makes a ton of sense,” Yormark said. “If you see where private equity is kind of making a path into professional sports, at some point in time it's going to come here into intercollegiate athletics."

If not a scary reality, it’s an incredibly uncertain future. 

So you can hardly blame the Big 12 for embracing that other reality. The one of optimism and positivity that comes with surviving a close call. That comes with a legitimately interesting and competitive football conference and a hellacious men’s basketball conference. 

"I think we're in for something pretty special as a conference,” Yormark said. “I really do.” 

The Big 12 deserves its moment of congratulations and conquest. The league has been to the brink and back more than any of its counterparts. It’s been written off as irrelevant or dead countless times. 

Yet Yormark stood on a stage not far from the Las Vegas strip with a conference that stretches from Appalachia to the deserts of Arizona and the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. The Pac-12 is gone. The ACC may be on the verge of tearing itself apart. The Big 12, meanwhile, is ascending. 

That is the league’s reality. 

So too, though, is that other, more inconvenient, one. The reality that it could all come crashing down. 

Those two realities live together, one informing and shadowing the other. 

Can today's reality of triumph and stability forestall that more frightening future? Can the Big 12 survive to star in the sequel to this era of college sports? Or will they be sacrificed for the Big Ten and SEC’s continued and expanding dominance? 

Times are good in the Big 12. Now the task is to fortify them for the future against foes only growing in strength, influence and ambition. 

Travis Hines covers Iowa State University sports for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or  (515) 284-8000. Follow him on X at @TravisHines21.