Big 12 announces more solutions which only exacerbate problems

Although it shouldn't be necessary, we are compelled to point out that this post is satire. None of this is true. Although, knowing the Big 12, it could be by next week.

In a followup press conference following the conclusion of the spring Big 12 meetings, commissioner Bob Bowlsby announced a number of other decisions agreed to by the Big 12 Board of Governors. Bowlsby began with a statement regarding the conference's earlier announced decision to reinstate the Big 12 Championship Game while remaining a ten-team league, and dividing those teams into divisions. "After a great deal of thought and discussion, our leaders implemented plans which we consider to be logical and sensible. Further discussion resulted in several other measures which we also feel are logical, sensible solutions to serious problems facing the conference."

Noting the extensive public criticism of the quality of officiating in the Big 12, most notably expressed by the existence of the satirical Twitter feed @Big12Refs, Bowlsby announced that crews for football games would be reduced from eight officials to four.

"A thing that has been clearly expressed by fans and media is that our officiating crews are error-prone and often make poor decisions. In order to address this, the conference will now reduce the number of officials on the field to four. It's our hope that only having four officials rather than eight will result in the mistakes being cut in half," Bowslby explained.

Another measure being taken by the conference is a plan to remove teams from the basketball schedule prior to conference play if they aren't in the top 50 in RPI. "Right now, we have ten teams playing eighteen conference games each. Our studies have shown that this results in Big 12 teams losing a total of 90 conference games per season," Bowlsby explained. "If we simply didn't have the bottom four teams playing conference games last season, Big 12 teams would had a 71-37 record in conference games. Obviously, this would improve the league's profile, and our conference games would only feature strong teams playing each other. This strengthens our insistence that every game matters, and would also increase everyone's RPI."

Another decision adopted by the conference involves the relocation of West Virginia University to Amarillo, Texas. Bowlsby spoke at length regarding this move. "We understand that West Virginia fans, staff, and athletes are often annoyed by long travel times to Big 12 road games. By having them move to Amarillo, those travel times will be significantly reduced. The specific location was chosen because the biggest complaint is travel to Lubbock for games against Texas Tech, and Amarillo is the closest large city."

Lastly, in response to complaints from fans unable to find Big 12 games on television when they aren't on ABC, FOX, or an ESPN network, Bowlsby announced that going forward all games not carried on those networks would air on QVC, HLN, and TruTV. "Our feeling is that even though nobody ever watches those channels, they're on every cable provider in America," Bowlsby said. "So putting our second- and third-tier games on those networks increases their availability, and that should be a satisfying end result for viewers."

Bowlsby concluded by assuring reporters that the Big 12 will continue to investigate other options in order to improve the overall product, but continued to express doubt about expansion. "Adding teams may seem to make sense, but the bottom line is that if Big 12 teams are making a dollar less than the Big Ten or SEC teams, we're in an obvious position of unconscionable failure," Bowlsby stressed. "The only way to ensure the long-term stability of the conference is to chase every dollar we possibly can in the here and now. Planning for the future isn't a luxury we can afford."