Mike Gundy Crushes Longhorn Network, Says Big 12 Doesn’t Need More Teams

Mike Gundy went skiing for spring break and came back with some scorching hot takes on the Big 12’s future.

“If we don’t eliminate the Longhorn Network and create our own network, they’re going to continue to have issues with this league,” Gundy told CBS Sports. “You don’t have a Big 12 Network; you have a network within the league that people consider a failure.”

Fire emojis.

He’s not wrong though. And this next thing he said was the most interesting.

“Everything is based on marketing,” Gundy said. “Right now the Big 12 is not getting the marketing we need because of the Longhorn Network. Now, nobody wants to hear that but …”

Joel Klatt approved!

Gundy went on to say he doesn’t approve a Big 12 title game and doesn’t want nobody to step on his lawn come into his league.

“Who you going to get? You need strong football history, tradition, some type of television market. They want schools that have reputation academically. That market is not out there right now.”

More fire emojis.

These are of course self-serving notions. Gundy wants a Big 12 Network because of course he does. Each SEC team makes $32 million a year (much of it from the SEC Network) plus whatever they can earn from whoever owns their multimedia rights .

The SEC Network owns third tier rights (one football game and hoops) but the multimedia company (usually somebody like Learfield) gets everything else. For Alabama, that’s a lot of money.

Oklahoma State, on the other hand, bundles its third tier rights with the rest of its multimedia to Learfield and Fox Sports and gets that money in addition to its Big 12 money (which last year was $23 (ish) million).

If I’m reading this 2014 budget correctly, OSU got $5 million for its radio/TV rights or $28-29 million total. Top is NCAA/Big 12 revenue. Bottom is radio/TV rights.

Again, SEC teams make more than this from their conference (again, much from the SEC Network) before they even sign a multimedia rights contract with Learfield for other stuff. They do have to give up a football game and basketball rights to the conference network, but who cares?

It’s estimated that the SEC Network makes programs around $7 million a year. Cut that by 25 percent for the Big 12 and OSU is still coming out ahead if you presume other multimedia rights with Learfield are worth more than, say, $0.

And Texas just gets $15 million a year from ESPN because they’re Texas. I’d be angry too if I was Mike Gundy. And not just because of money.