The news came at the same time Disney, the parent company of the SEC’s television partner ESPN, announced they were laying off 7,000 people and that certainly was going to include some more folks at the biggest brand in sports broadcasting.
It may be a good bet the Sooners and Longhorns agreed to this after something got knocked off that $100 million penalty to leave before 2025 as was previously announced.
Statement from @SEC Commissioner @GregSankey on Oklahoma and Texas membership transition: pic.twitter.com/qZZI6YaRJp
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) February 10, 2023
That early date never sounded right from a logic standpoint. Especially after the Big 12 added four teams and added them to the 2023 football schedule … and OU and Texas didn’t even get a vote.
At that point it was clear everybody was done with each other. Kinda like agreeing to a divorce, then deciding to put up with each other for three full years.
You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that isn’t going to work. In the world of sports, contracts are merely the starting point for negotiations to break the things anyway.
Big 12 Announces Agreement for Withdrawal of Oklahoma and Texas
? https://t.co/z0VJE51Os6 pic.twitter.com/k86Bm0Iljs
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) February 10, 2023
No final details were announced by the Big 12 in their announcement and the most interesting details in the press release were nearly at the bottom:
“The terms reached today are the byproduct of the Conference members working toward a resolution that provides stability for all involved. Details will continue to be finalized among all parties.”
For the Hogs and their fans, now they have a border rival that everybody will be on board hating.
For several years, the UA has tried to convince us there’s a rivalry with Missouri, but nobody in the state has been buying into that.
Since joining the SEC in 1992, the Hogs have had a couple of years being rivals with the same team, but nobody really likes Alabama or LSU but it’s nothing like Texas.
Now the bet is Oklahoma is going to come close that pretty soon. There literally are places across Arkansas where Hog fans and Sooner fans live next door to each other and a lot of that is up in the northwest part of the state.
The UA campus sits just over 25 miles from the Oklahoma state line. Fort Smith is on the border and it doesn’t even take long from Texarkana to find yourself straddling Oklahoma and Texas.
Let the hype begin because after this year there will be a whole new way to look at the SEC.
And Hogs athletics director Hunter Yurachek has an entirely new problem that he’s probably already been exploring trying to juggle all the new schedules.
