The issue with OU waiting to 2025 to move isn't whether OU could easily land in pretty much any other P5 or whether it would be compensated for doing so - the issues are primarily the GOR and lack of a rush to move. While it's true that the legality of the GORs haven's been fully vetted in court, it's unlikely that Oklahoma are going to want to invest the time, effort, and resources in order to find out the answer to that question, and, because it's not in a rush to leave, the GOR and its associated downsides outweigh the positives of leaving early. Further, OU isn't going to leave $30.4M/year (+ OUs 3rd tier tv revenue) in tv revenue conference to go create a non-access conference full of mid-majors in which it would make half of that amount a year at best when it could just jump to a conference making $37M/year in tv revenue instead.HoustonWave wrote:I just don't see the Big XII staying at 10 schools for very long, why wait til 2025? They can readily negotiate alternatives with ESPN and Fox--who themselves would probably welcome some alternatives to the talent-declining Big XII. If they wait til 2025, the SEC will have completely locked down SE Texas--I don't think UT, nor UH, are going to sit back and let that continue.
UT is in a similar position as OU, and it has the Longhorn Network to boot. The difference between UT and OU and that UT doesn't appear to really care about anything because it knows that it could try life as an FBS independent if anything didn't work out and it could hold on to the Longhorn Network $15M/year and still be compensated separately for its 1st and 2nd tier rights. Of course, UT could literally land in any Power conference it wanted if it chose to go that route, although it seems as though the ACC and SEC would be unlikely destinations. Like OU, UT isn't going to leave $30.4M/year (+UTs 3rd tier tv revenue) in tv revenue conference to go create a non-access conference that's half mid-majors just to make half that amount at best when it could just jump to a conference making $37M/year in tv revenue instead.