Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss the events at Big 12 Media Days including comments on possible expansion from incoming commissioner Brett Yormark.
Video Transcript
DAN WETZEL: Pat, you were there in Arlington.
PAT FORDE: I was there.
DAN WETZEL: What’d you make of the– what’d you make of the bold declarations and soft rock declarations of the Big 12?
PAT FORDE: I gave big respect to Brett Yormark, new commissioner, for absolutely dispensing with the platitudes and the fakery. Like, at no point did he talk about our priorities are the student-athlete experience, our priorities are educating, our priorities are mental health, our priorities are this and that. No, he just skipped all that went straight to the bottom line.
He said, our number one priority is our media rights renegotiation. And everything we do going into that is to build momentum for those negotiations. So congrats to Brett Yormark for telling it like it is, for coming in from outside the college space and not talking like a college faker, you know?
He’s talked like a business guy who’s from the pros. That’s exactly who he was and who he’s going to be. Interesting guy.
He really honestly reminded me of Rick Pitino, another New Yorker, in terms of his ability to just kind of schmooze and be charismatic. And you’re interested in listening to him. You can almost– you can feel the wheeling and dealing going on. But it’s kind of like, OK, I kind of like this guy’s wheeling and dealing.
You know, I mean, it’s like, it’s an obvious– he’s an obvious salesman. But he’s probably gonna be pretty good at it. So that was my main takeaway from him.
And then a couple of the other coaches fairly strongly alluded to thinking that at least the Big 12 is going to get bigger. We’ll see if that happens. I don’t know whether they have any insight because I don’t know whether anybody really does when these decisions get made until the last minute. But, you know, I think being open for business means being open to looking hard at expansion.
DAN WETZEL: Well, I agree. First off, if you sit there and say we’re getting a lot of calls, you’re trying to rattle the cage of the other side–
PAT FORDE: Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: –in the Pac 12. Who’s calling them? Wait, what? They weren’t– they’re not– it wasn’t like, hey, Coastal Carolina called. Maybe they’re the only one who did.
But, you know, you put it out– oh, I’m getting some really good teams that were in the top 25 in the…