Big 12 Media Days: Commissioner believes “advantages at ten” conference teams
By Brian Spaen
Jul 22, 2013; Dallas, TX, USA; Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby speaks to the media during the Big 12 media days at the Omni Dallas Hotel. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
On the first day of the 2013 Big 12 Media Days, commissioner Bob Bowlsby took the stage before five of the conference teams for his annual state of the conference address. Among the major topics discussed were realignment, the upcoming Champions Bowl event against the Southeastern Conference, and how to continue bringing people into the stadiums.
Realignment was actually brought up in a good way, as in Bowlsby didn’t have to deal with every question being on that subject. Fans have been content with 10 teams in the conference for a couple years now, and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that will change.
"“We’re intentionally at ten members,” Bowlsby said during his conference. “We think there are advantages at ten. Among those advantages are the strength of playing three nonconference games instead of four and having a full conference round-robin. I think it keeps rivalries strong. I think it keeps our multimedia packages strong to have good competition every day, every Saturday.”"
The commissioner also updates us on the Champions Bowl, jumping into it when he became commissioner 18 months ago and seeing come into full fruition. The Sugar Bowl will host the winners of the Big 12 and SEC conferences beginning in 2015, and will do so unless New Orleans hosts a playoff game. Then the Champions Bowl will be shipped to one of the rotational bowl sites.
Another thing Bowlsby brings up is attendance. While college football is not suffering the same fate as the NFL, there’s still changes that will be made to keep people coming to games. This includes more live replays on highlights of other games during timeouts.
"“We will be bringing in-game highlights on a taped and live basis into our stadiums this year,” said Bowlsby. “This is largely a response to declining attendance on a national basis.“We put together all of these multimedia deals, but with that comes the interminable 2:30 and 2:45 television time-out, and during those time-outs in Big 12 stadiums this year, we will have highlights from other games.”"
Keep it locked to Clones Confidential for continuing coverage of Big 12 football media days this week.
[Quote source: Big 12 Sports transcript]