Big 12
Report: Big 12 Presidents + ADs Meet About Adding UConn
The Big 12 presidents and athletic directors met on Monday regarding the potential addition of UConn, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported.
“No vote was taken on admitting the Huskies, as expected. The call was informational in nature and discussion focused. It was led by the Big 12’s outside consultant, which walked through UConn’s media and market value,” Thamel wrote on social media.
Thamel also adds that the conversations are expected to continue.
Sources: The Big 12 presidents/ADs met about UConn today. No vote was taken on admitting the Huskies, as expected. The call was informational in nature and discussion focused. It was led by the Big 12’s outside consultant, which walked through UConn's media and market value.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 26, 2024
It was reported on Friday that the Big 12 is once again in talks with the Huskies about joining the conference. Since the Big 12 has taken a complete identity change in the last few years, commissioner Brett Yormark is all about any kind of expansion.
“We have some guiding principles when we think about expansion. It’s all strategic here,” Yormark said in June 2023. “At the top is the academic alignment and the leadership and the cultural fit and the geography and the athletic performance and the upside that a potential institution has potentially joining the Big 12. We think about all of those things as a collective group. And we discussed all those guiding principles this week.”
Yormark has been very high about adding basketball-only schools to the Big 12. Before becoming commissioner in 2022, Yormark served as the Brooklyn Nets CEO for 14 years. If UConn does join the Big 12, that it would be for all sports. Every sport except football would join the conference as early as 2026 and football would join in 2031.
UConn recently made the move back to the Big East after being held back in the AAC until 2019. The men’s basketball program has seen a resurgence behind head coach Dan Hurley. In April, Hurley led UConn to back-to-back National Championships, the school’s sixth overall.
Should the Big 12 welcome UConn into the conference?
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jackson five
August 27, 2024 at 9:24 am
the big revenue getters in college sports,, uconn for all sports except football, isn’t what i’d be after,,but the area is what is important,,, but rutgers has proven to the big 10 that area isn’t a very import football interest to most people… why bail out uconn,, they will never be a big power in football, and wht if hurley leaves, then uconn is back to being a so so team,, too risky for me. i don’t think it’s worth the time , travel, or money to invite them in.
Richard I Lee
August 27, 2024 at 9:57 am
I graduated from WVU and grew up and live in Connecticut.
Even though UConn’s football program is pathetic, if UConn is admitted it should be in all sports. Its football program would eventually improve because of its participation in the league.
Connecticut never has been a college football state, and fan support has been very bad. But it would improve if the team was competing in a solid league. When the program was in the Big East fans attended the games.
But there are problems with the East Hartford venue – it’s 20 miles from the UConn campus in Storrs – so students can’t simply walk to the stadium. It has seating for only 40,000 and rarely sells out.
If the Big 12 believes UConn football would lure millions of eyeballs in Greater New York City, that would be doubtful.
But it might be a different story with basketball.
UConn certainly would add to the league’s men’s and women’s basketball status because it gets good coverage in the NYC media.
But all that success could change with a change in coaching – Auriemma is no kid and will retire sooner than later, and Hurley will go to the pros – eventually.
And its baseball team is solid.
Academically, UConn sees itself as another Michigan, but hopes to join the Big 10 were pie in the sky as far as I’m concerned. Hopes to join the ACC have been dashed in the past, but now they could be improving with rumors of some schools leaving.