[FWST: Best hope for Big 12 in expansion is death of Longhorn Network
BY [big steaming pile]Â tengel@star-telegram.com
DALLAS – The reason the Big 12 must ponder expansion is a network that wanders in a pasture like a lost, fat cow.
Had ESPN never handed the University of Texas a 20-year, $300 million contract to create the Longhorn Network, Texas A&M and Missouri might still be here, and the Big 12 would not be evaluating Memphis as a candidate in expansion.
(Here’s a hint — it’s not.)
The dreaded and randomly seen Longhorn Network resides in a cable TV universe where “cord cutting†is a real thing that damages conventional television daily, ESPN included.
Whatever we feared the Longhorn Network was going to become, it hasn’t. What it has become is another niche sports station in a land of nearly 100 of them.