If I were Yormark, I'd be tempted to give the 6 Pac schools (4 corners + Oregon and Washington) an offer that's something like below to incentivize them to commit earlier rather than later.
- Commit to joining the Big 12 in the next 30 days and:
- Be assured admission into the Big 12
- Receive full share of the Big 12's new GOR from the very beginning.
- Commit to joining the Big 12 in the next 60 days and:
- Be assured admission into the Big 12
- Receive partial share of the Big 12's new GOR for first 3 years and full share after that.
- Commit to joining the Big 12 after the next 60 days, but before 1/1/23 and:
- Be assured admission into the Big 12 only if fewer than 18 teams have already committed.
- Receive partial share of the Big 12's new GOR for first 6 years and full share after that.
*Maybe even let them know that after 60 days from now, we plan to put fourth an offer to San Diego State, so there may not be room for all 6 schools.
The only flaw to this that I see is the order in which negotiations and deals are likely to happen. The order I see it happening:
- PAC's exclusive window with FOX and ESPN closes Aug 5th (ESPN's offer is on the table, FOX declined to bid)
- Big 10 Media deal gets done (probably by end of Aug/early Sept)
- PAC hits the open market and gets bids from other media companies
- Big XII/ACC get projections from their media partners on what different configurations of PAC additions would mean for their media deals and share it with relevant schools.
This is sequential, because the outcome of the Big 10 deal will influence who bids and how much they'll pay for the PAC. Those bids for the PAC will influence who bids and how much is bid for the the Big XII+PAC additions. Negotiations ensue for different configurations.
Maybe Fox opted not to bid during their exclusive window with the PAC because they're willing to pay more for the Big XII + select PAC schools. Maybe some combination of CBS and/or Amazon/Apple/Netflix goes hard after the PAC just to keep/get a piece of college football. Maybe ESPN thinks nobody else will want the PAC at what they already bid or has designs on getting some of the PAC schools into the ACC.
Institutional changes like this are rarely made without first knowing the baseline - not making any changes. From there, all the options are examined and worked through.
Oregon, Washington and Stanford want to slow-walk everything in hopes the Big 10 offer comes through. The Big XII isn't going to turn them down if they add value just because they took their time. The same goes for the rest of the schools. There's no fire
at this moment and plenty of time to make a rational, carefully considered decision.