The Huge 12 and the College of Connecticut have reignited negotiations on the Huskies changing into a member of the league in all sports activities besides soccer as early as 2026 as Huge 12 commissioner Brett Yormark appears to be like to additional increase the convention’s footprint, sources confirmed to CBS Sports activities’ Matt Norlander.Â
Yahoo Sports activities’ Ross Dellenger reported that events from each side met final week in Dallas to debate the chance.Â
Yormark, who took over the Huge 12 commissioner job in August 2022, has lengthy made enlargement within the Northeast a precedence for the convention because the panorama of realignment has continuously modified since his hiring. It is not identified to what extent UConn and Huge 12 decision-makers would possibly assist such a transfer, and former discussions final yr went dormant with no deal. However following the assembly final week, Yormark is anticipated to fulfill with Huge 12 presidents and athletic administrators on Monday, based on Norlander, to current what including UConn to the Huge 12 would possibly seem like. It is unsure at this stage if Huge 12 presidents are prepared to flip their stance on UConn.
Huge 12 commissioner Brett Yormark declined remark when reached by CBS Sports activities.
Such a transfer would burnish the Huge 12’s standing as one of the best convention in basketball by nabbing UConn — which has received 16 nationwide championships in males’s and girls’s basketball since 1999 and claimed back-to-back males’s titles — from the Huge East. Importantly to the Huge 12 and central to UConn’s pitch: It will carry the Huge 12 from one of the best in basketball to the undisputed greatest, as Norlander reported.
The Huge 12 below Yormark has undergone a considerable change during the last two years with Oklahoma and Texas leaving the league for the SEC and UCF, Cincinnati, BYU and Houston becoming a member of the league through the AAC. The convention additionally added Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah from the Pac-12, strengthening its numbers to 16 member faculties. Current enlargement strikes may trigger Huge 12 presidents and athletic administrators to be apprehensive about including one other college, although, notably with the Home settlement case fallout nonetheless unknown.Â
Yormark beforehand tried to influence Huge 12 brass to undertake Gonzaga into the league, however that by no means gained traction.
UConn’s a distinct beast, although there’s additionally the complicating issue of the Huge East’s new media rights deal introduced on the finish of June. UConn was one of many huge promoting factors in these negotiations given its standing nationally. In the meantime, the Huge 12’s new media deal — set to kick in subsequent yr — spans six years and was agreed on earlier than including the 4 Pac-12 faculties. UConn could negotiate its share of earnings nevertheless it’s unlikely to be the $31.7 million-per-year common that Huge 12 faculties can be paid out by media companions Fox and ESPN, particularly if its contributions to the soccer stock wouldn’t start till 2031.
UConn was an authentic member of the Huge East earlier than briefly leaving for the AAC and returning in 2020. Transitioning from the Huge East to the Huge 12 would bolster the league’s standing as one of the best in school basketball and will enrich UConn past its present scenario largely by boosting its soccer program, however UConn has largely flailed away from the league it was a founding member of. In seven seasons within the AAC, the boys’s program went 112-63 and missed the NCAA Event 5 instances. Nevertheless, the ladies’s basketball workforce below Geno Auriemma received three nationwide championships in that span with the AAC, together with a three-peat in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Correction: An earlier model of this story indicated Yormark would current to Huge 12 ADs and presidents on Tuesday as a substitute of Monday.