ORLANDO, Fla. — The Big 12’s Brett Yormark may not be the most powerful conference commissioner in college football, but he is, by far, the most valuable, the most impactful and the most important.
I can’t tell you how many times in this column I’ve railed against the bloated contracts, endless extensions and obscene salaries being given to one-hit wonder coaches and administrators in college athletics, but when it was announced earlier this week that the Big 12 had given Yormark a three-year contract extension, my first thought was, “If anybody in college sports deserves a lengthy extension and a huge raise, it’s this guy.”
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As commissioner of the Big 12, Yormark has done something no one thought possible just a couple of years ago: he saved a conference that was on life support not because he has the overwhelming clout of SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, but because of timing, vision and execution when the stakes were highest.
When Yormark took the reins in 2022, the Big 12 was in disarray. Texas and Oklahoma had announced their exit for the SEC, and the league’s future looked bleak. At the same time, the Pac-12 was teetering on its own precarious edge. The two conferences were locked in a silent war for survival. One was going to make it. The other wasn’t.
Yormark hit the ground running.
He acted.
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Swiftly, boldly, and creatively.
His first major win was a 6-year, $2.28 billion new media rights deal with ESPN and Fox that, while not earth-shattering in dollar amount, was crucial in securing the league’s future. In locking that deal down before the Pac-12 could even get its feet underneath it, Yormark gave the Big 12 what the Pac-12 never found: stability. That TV contract provided financial security for the league’s existing members and made the Big 12 an attractive landing spot for schools suddenly eyeing the exit doors of an imploding Pac-12.
And when those doors blew open, Yormark was there waiting.
He pounced when Colorado bolted the Pac-12. Then came Arizona. Then Arizona State. Then Utah. All of a sudden, a league that was once left for dead had grown stronger, deeper, and more viable.
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The Big 12 didn’t just survive – it reloaded.
Compare that to the Pac-12, where leaders fumbled negotiations, overestimated their value, and ended up offering member schools nothing but empty promises and uncertainty.
Yormark doesn’t wield Sankey’s influence or sit atop a behemoth like the SEC, but in terms of what he’s meant to his conference — how decisively he’s altered its trajectory — no one in college athletics has had more impact.
His contract extension and hefty pay raise were well-earned.
