Whether Missouri will still be a part of the Big 12 in the coming weeks is uncertain, but it appears Texas is willing to compromise to continue to try and provide stability -- at least for the next six years -- to a conference that still stands rotting posts.
Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com reports that Texas, after receiving a deadline by interim Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas and speaking with ESPN, has agreed to end all high school content on the Longhorn Network for the next six years, including news-style highlights which have been approved by the NCAA.
The airing of high school content on the LHN has become a controversial focal point of Big 12 instability, and the network itself has proven to be a roadblock for Texas joining the Pac-12. With the nine remaining members of the conference agreeing to grant their first and second-tier rights to the conference in principle for the next six years, there were still questions remaining about how the LHN would be impacted.
Even as a third-tier distributor, other schools such as Oklahoma and Missouri reportedly wanted limitations on LHN content.
Turns out, granting TV rights to the conference for six years was a compromise of sorts. The Longhorns don’t appear willing to cut all HS content for 13 years -- the length of the Big 12’s second-tier contract with FOX and reportedly the original proposal for granting first and second-tier TV rights to the conference -- so six years was agreed upon.
Thirteen years isn’t out of play yet, sources tell Brown, but membership needs to be solidified first.
But it may not matter if the LHN bans youth programming for six years or 13 years; anything other than an indefinite ban of HS content on the LHN will likely only delay more trouble down the road. Justifiably so or not, the airing of youth programming on the LHN is giving other Big 12 members a reason to point the finger at Texas for Big 12 instability.
