A potential union between Gonzaga and the Huge 12 is again on the desk in a transfer that might additional bolster the league’s popularity for glorious basketball, sources affirm to CBS Sports activities’ Dennis Dodd. Longtime staples of the West Coast Convention, the Zags are one of many premier basketball manufacturers outdoors the game’s evolving main convention construction.
Gonzaga and the Huge 12 flirted beforehand, however these talks cooled when the convention picked up new members Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah from the Pac-12 — additions that can take impact forward of the 2024-25 athletic season. Nonetheless, Huge 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is main a renewed push to land the Bulldogs, sources inform Dodd. CBS Sports activities analyst Seth Davis first reported on the event for The Messenger.
Yormark wish to have Gonzaga be a part of the Huge 12 — together with the 4 Pac-12 acquisitions — in time for the 2024-25 educational 12 months.
“It is a factor. It is nonetheless form of … we’ll see,” a Huge 12 supply instructed CBS Sports activities. Yormark was not instantly out there for remark.Â
Gonzaga becoming a member of the Huge 12 now appears to be a matter of negotiation. Throughout the summer season Gonzaga acquired a $15 million annual valuation from its consultants, trade sources instructed CBS Sports activities, ought to it be a part of an influence convention for basketball. That is lower than half of what full-ride Huge 12 members will obtain ($31.7 million) starting in 2024.Â
Increasing to 17 basketball groups would create scheduling issues, particularly with regard to a convention event format. However including the Zags would solidify the profile of what’s extensively thought to be faculty basketball’s high convention. Although Oklahoma and Texas are exiting the Huge 12 for the SEC after this season, nationwide energy Houston is about to embark on its first season within the league and can quickly be joined by one other large basketball model in Arizona.
Different new or forthcoming Huge 12 members corresponding to Cincinnati and Utah even have wealthy basketball histories, as do a number of longtime members, together with current national-title winners Baylor (2021) and Kansas (2022). Gonzaga has entertained the potential of departing the WCC for years however has been cautious about leaving a geographically smart league that it typically dominates. However becoming a member of the Huge 12 would additional elevate the nationwide profile of a program that has made eight straight Candy 16 appearances underneath coach Mark Few, who’s getting into his twenty fifth season as coach of the Bulldogs.
 “I feel it is the perfect basketball league proper now, depth-wise, and I at all times felt just like the Pac-12 match till UCLA and USC left,” a coach instructed CBS Sports activities this summer season as a part of the Candid Coaches sequence when requested a couple of potential transfer by Gonzaga to the Huge 12. “I feel there are too many unknowns there, and by default, you go to the subsequent one over. The Huge 12 is so deep and aggressive. [The WCC] is working in sure areas … however I feel it is like dominating the JVs and also you at all times wish to play on the varsity.” Â
It is no secret Yormark has a definite, long-term basketball imaginative and prescient, one which finally contains separate media rights contracts for basketball and soccer. That is by no means been accomplished, at the very least within the trendy period of the Energy 5. Basketball has at all times lagged behind in valuation with the soccer being the first income generator.
Yormark believes, with the curiosity of streaming properties on the rise, faculty basketball can be value extra to extra suitors sooner or later. There are these within the trade who disagree. One key challenge: Any motion in separating media rights must wait at the very least seven years till the Huge 12’s new media rights deal expires in 2031.