Brett Yormark
Commissioner | Big 12 Conference
Brett Yormark wasn’t joking when he told a horde of reporters in the summer of 2022 that the Big 12 Conference was “open for business” during his first Media Day as the league’s commissioner. Two years later, the veteran big-league salesman is shaking things up in college sports, whether it’s signing a deal with WWE to sponsor the Big 12 championship football game in 2023 or booking rapper Nelly to perform a halftime show for the same event.
“A lot of people said, ‘Brett, you can’t do a halftime show, this is college athletics,’” Yormark said. “I said, ‘There’s a way we can do it with a balance.’ Nelly performed the first two songs with the (Texas and Oklahoma) school bands and he choreographed it with them. It was fantastic and gave those students an experience they’ve never had before.” This year, there will be another halftime act for the championship game, set for Dec. 7 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. As of presstime, the artist had not been announced.
“You can disrupt business in a positive way, while at the same time, paying homage to the history of what’s been done here before,” he said. The same is true for the Big 12’s expansion effort. Yormark has publicly said his “open for business” comment did not pertain to realignment. Still, with four schools new to the conference, increasing it to a 16-team league, Yormark acknowledged the moves have made the Big 12 much stronger across the board in football, men’s and women’s basketball and Olympic sports.
“We’re in 10 states and four time zones,” he said. “We’ve got 90 million people in our footprint. We have changed dramatically since I took this job 25 months ago. It’s been a great positive for us and when there are opportunities to continue (expanding), then we’ll do it. We’ve got to kick the tires.”
The Big 12’s expansion has led to new digital rights deals with streaming platforms TuneIn radio and a partnership with Raycom to create Big 12 Studios, a new Fast Channel platform service that offers free access to pre-programmed video channels.
“This industry historically isn’t one that does a lot of storytelling,” Yormark said. “Our deals with ESPN and Fox help us do that, but we wanted to control that dynamic a little bit more.”
Under Yormark’s direction, the Big 12 has vastly increased its social media presence over the past two years, and has more than doubled the number of full-time employees to 48 now working at the Irving, Texas headquarters.
“This is our 29th season, so we’re still getting our footing compared with legacy conferences that have been around for 90 years,” he said. “We’re not a traditional conference. We want to connect with culture, use music to help tell our story and create a different narrative for us.”
On the venues front, Yormark is open to spreading the wealth among other Big 12 markets beyond AT&T Stadium and T-Mobile Center, where the conference extended deals through 2031 for football and basketball championships. Officials recently moved the women’s soccer championships to CPKC Stadium in a two-year agreement.
The Big 12 baseball championships were extended to Globe Life Field in Arlington, making it the only conference to book its postseason event in a venue with a retractable roof. That’s critically important because it provides event certainty, Yormark said. — Don Muret
