Longhorn Network vs. Big 12-2

I figure if I'm going to talk about college sports then I might as well discuss this shit. Yes I do hold a degree from Texas A&M and yes there will be a slight bias. If you don't like it, this is my blog, so fuck you. If you want me to write articles with objective, unbiased journalism, give me a job.

Delusional Longhorn t-shirt fans best quit reading now. (lol as if I have readers)

Okay, so the latest controversy is that the newly branded ESPN channel the Longhorn Network will be airing Texas high school football games once it launches in August. And because no cable or satellite providers want to pay ESPN money to air this joke of a channel, they have announced that a yet-to-be-confirmed Big 12 Conference game (rumored to be the game between Texas and Texas Tech) will be moved from Fox Sports Net to the Longhorn Network as an incentive for fans to call their cable/satellite providers and demand them to add this glorified Pay-Per-View network to their lineups.

Now from everything I can gather Texas is trying to play innocent by placing all of the blame on ESPN. "It was ESPN's idea!" and "We would be mad if it were happening to someone else!" are paraphrases of some of the quotes I've seen in various articles.

The biggest issue everyone, specifically Texas A&M and Oklahoma, has with the network is that it will be airing high school football games. "The best games" according to the programming director of the Longhorn Network, who specifically mentioned verbal Texas commit Johnathan Gray, one of the top running backs in the state. When your team goes 5-7 and is in the process of getting its own cable network, don't play by the rules, change them up so that you have every advantage! Now the humor in this situation is that the Longhorn Network airing high school football games is a violation of NCAA rules. As of right now, Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe has announced that plans to air high school games as well as conference games on the network have been put on hold until the issues can be cleared up by the NCAA.

Now despite possible NCAA infractions, ESPN is paying Texas something like $300 million over 20 years for this shitfest of a channel, so they're going to want to protect their investment. If the games are still allowed to air on the Longhorn Network, there will be some kind of loophole, as suggested by this article:

If the network does broadcast high school games, Dodds said Texas will insist that it not be involved in selecting games and that all references the Longhorns and their famous logo be removed. 

Yes! Just change the rules so that they give you the advantage! This is just some more wink wink nudge nudge bullshit that the NCAA will overlook. Because if there's no Longhorn logo on the screen then it can't possibly be promoting the school!

Now a quote I personally found hilarious comes from Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe where he says about the network airing high school games: "It’s not going to happen until and unless the conference can make it happen with benefit to all and detriment to none."

Yes! Because obviously having a television network dedicated to ONE TEAM rather than the ENTIRE CONFERENCE (as other athletic conferences have done) is obviously benefiting to all members of the conference. As is having unequal TV revenue sharing between conference members, something that only the Big 12 does.

Nobody is being fooled by this bullshit, as the rumors are that A&M and OU are looking to jump to the SEC because of the situation. The big rumors were from yesterday's Board of Regents meeting at Texas A&M where they were to discuss the Big 12 Conference. I figured nothing would happen, and of course it didn't, other than a few statements from A&M President R. Bowin Loftin and AD Bill Byrne, both basically saying that Texas better play by the rules.

We went through this same crap last summer and nothing happened because everybody in the Big 12 loves being double penetrated by Beebe and UT. I'm assuming that nothing will happen again this year. Big 12 Conference games being aired on the Longhorn Network WILL HAPPEN, as ESPN needs a hook to get cable and satellite providers to pick up the channel (as of this writing, no providers plan on airing the network). High school games WILL be aired on the network, and there will either be a BS loophole like the "missing logo" mentioned above, or the NCAA will "investigate" the situation and come up with some new BS rules that allow Texas to get away with it.

I've come to terms that all of this is going to happen. It seems that the only thing that the other Big 12 Conference members can do is continue to beat Texas on the field. Like UCLA, Iowa State, Baylor, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M did to them at their place.