WVU Welcomes New Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark to Morgantown

West Virginia University hosted new Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark on campus all day Thursday. WVU Director of Athletics Shane Lyons gave Yormark a tour of Morgantown, including the football and basketball facilities. Yormark was very impressed with West Virginia’s resources.

“Your facilities are better than any one I’ve seen. This here, off the charts,” Yorkmark said.

"The resources here are off the charts, world-class facilities."

Come back soon, Commish! 👋#HailWV x @Big12Conference pic.twitter.com/xdQdkWnrsn

— WVU Sports (@WVUSports) August 26, 2022

Yormark is wrapping up his tour of visiting all of the current Big 12 schools. West Virginia becomes the eighth school that the new commissioner visited. Yormark said he will wait to visit Oklahoma and Texas. Yormark plans on visiting the four new Big 12 schools BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF in September.

The fifth Big 12 Commissioner will return to Morgantown on Oct. 13 when the football team takes on Baylor.

Yormark started his tenure as the conference’s commissioner on Aug. 1, replacing Bob Bowlsby. Yormark has little college sports experience, but previously served as the CEO of the Brooklyn Nets franchise. Yormark played a huge role in moving the Nets from New Jersey to Brooklyn in 2012. The 55-year-old served that position for 14 years until he took his current role at Roc Nation in 2019.

Yormark is entering an important era in the Big 12 as the conference is looking towards a future without Oklahoma and Texas. After the two announced their future departure, the conference went out and added BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF, who will join in July 2023. Once another domino fell with UCLA and USC to the Big Ten, Yormark was very clear about how he wants to deal with the next conference realignment.

“There’s no doubt that the Big 12 is open for business,” Yormark said during Big 12 media days. “We will leave no stone unturned to drive value to the conference. Just as I pledged to the board, we will be bold and humble, aggressive and thoughtful, and innovative and creative. All in an effort to position the conference in a way that not only grows the Big 12 brand and business, but makes us a bit more contemporary. Although there will be challenges ahead, Bob [Bowlsby] has left me an incredible foundation build with.”