drobina

Big 12 was on the verge of
collapse. Nebraska left for
the Big Ten, and Colorado

joined the Pac-12. Texas
A&M was considering a
move to the Southeastern
Conference and Texas and
Oklahoma, along with their
sister schools Texas Tech
and Oklahoma State, were
looking at creating a Pac-
16.
Ultimately, the 10 remaining
members committed to stay
together and Beebe
negotiated a 13-year, $1
billion television deal with
Fox Sports.
But when Texas struck a
huge deal with ESPN to
start to the Longhorn
Network, a 20-year, $300
million venture between the
university and network, it
changed the dynamic in the
league.
“The institutional networks
were part of the design of
what we were doing when
we were negotiating our
contract with Fox,” Beebe
said. “We were for the first
time deliberately setting out
to reserve the right for
every school to do a
football game and to do
significant other content
that wasn’t able to be done
previously.
“What wasn’t counted on in
allowing that was the
degree of support and the
amount of revenue that
was able to be achieved by
the Longhorn Network and
even (Texas Athletic
Director) DeLoss Dodds has
said that isn’t something he
thought was going to
happen either.”
Beebe was pushed out of
the job he had held for five
years last month and
replaced on an interim basis
by Chuck Neinas, the