The Big 12 lacks something the Pac-12 currently has

It has been one of the more ferocious debates of the past two weeks in college sports: Which conference has more leverage and value in a direct comparison — the Big 12 or the Pac-12?

Big 12 fans and Pac-12 journalist Jon Wilner have gone at it on Twitter in recent days. Big 12 fans are entirely convinced their league has the upper hand. Wilner isn’t necessarily saying the Pac-12 has the upper hand, but he has steadfastly maintained that the comparison is a lot closer than one might think after the Pac-12 lost the Los Angeles market with the departures of USC and UCLA.

We’re still a Pac-12 site (for now; that changes in 2024), but we can offer some friendly advice to new Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark: If you really do want leverage over and against the Pac-12, there’s one thing you need to ask of your membership: Be willing to play late-night games.

This will be a hard sell for Cincinnati and UCF when they join the conference, but if the Big 12 really wants to be the strongest non-Big Ten, non-SEC conference, this is the play to make in a battle with the Pac-12. (The ACC is a separate matter.)

Wilner underscored how much of an advantage it is for the Pac-12 to own the late-night slot on Saturdays and, for that matter, other days (Thursdays and Fridays).

“The beauty of the Pac-12 is you can program that late (Saturday) window for 13 consecutive weeks,’’ said John Kosner, a sports media consultant, president of Kosner Media and former executive vice president/digital media at ESPN.

“It takes a conference to do that, because it’s hard for individual schools to play more than a handful of those games each season.

“Let’s say you get practically a 1.0 rating and 1.5 million homes on average per (night) game. That’s considerable audience delivery for 3.5 hours every Saturday. That’s very hard to replace.

“It’s hard to take something away from somebody. The fact that the Pac-12 has been on ESPN for a long time — it’s part of the…