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Oklahoma State AD Chad Weiberg feels early exit of OU, Texas best for all. 'What everyone wanted.'

Scott Wright
Oklahoman

STILLWATER — Oklahoma State athletic director Chad Weiberg thinks back to where the Big 12 Conference stood, and what the national narrative of the league was, in July 2021, when its two marquee schools, Oklahoma and Texas, announced their plan to leave for the Southeastern Conference. 

Outwardly, it looked like a league that had been crippled. Internally, it was shaken, at the very least.

Yet 18 months later, with an official timetable in place for the exit of OU and Texas after the 2023-24 school year, the conference is surging. 

“You have to feel better about what that says, how the market is viewing the Big 12, and also the job that our commissioner, Brett Yormark, has done to put us in that position,” Weiberg told The Oklahoman on Friday.

“I think the end result was what everyone wanted. We knew how this was going to end, so the question was what does it look like and what’s fair to everyone involved. And I feel good that they reached that as best they could.”

More:Oklahoma's move to SEC: Here's what you need to know about Sooners' early exit from Big 12

OSU athletic director Chad Weiberg and other Big 12 leaders are on more solid footing when looking to the future.

Like most everyone else with any rooting interest, Weiberg has been wondering for the last 18 months when we’d all know the exact timeframe and circumstances for the departure of OU and Texas.

And Thursday’s announcement brought a sigh of relief.

“Now we have the answers to those questions,” Weiberg said. “I think that’s what allows us to move forward now, into the future, knowing what it’s going to look like.

“I think it’s great for the Big 12 Conference and for Oklahoma State.”

The finish line for OU’s and Texas’ time in the Big 12 is set, so decisions by the rest of the conference’s athletic directors can be made without that date constantly in flux.

The conference can lay out its ideals for future football schedules and can begin to contemplate any desires for additional expansion. Weiberg can discuss with his non-football coaches about what future Bedlam competitions might look like. Conversations about 2024 and beyond can be had without a bunch of ifs and buts.

Even in the chaos of the last 18 months, Yormark brought in four new schools set to enter the league in a few months and landed a six-year media rights agreement with ESPN and Fox that is worth a reported $2.28 billion beginning in the summer of 2025. Individually, the deal is expected to net the universities around $50 million per year in revenue, on average over the life of the deal. 

More:Why I'm excited Oklahoma, Texas will join SEC in 2024, including a spicy football schedule | Toppmeyer

What does the early exit of OU and Texas from the Big 12 Conference mean for Oklahoma State?

Now, as part of Thursday’s announcement, OU and Texas are set to pay a combined $100 million to the Big 12 to leave the league a year earlier than their contract called for. Brett McMurphy of the Action Network reported that each legacy Big 12 school will receive $10 million from the buyout, with Fox netting $20 million to cover lost revenue from OU and Texas football games under the current media contract.

Weiberg says the exact details haven’t been fully nailed down yet. 

“I think the details of it are continuing to be finalized among all the parties,” he said. “I know the compensation to the conference was a combined $100 million from OU and Texas. I think what that does, for the most part, for Oklahoma State and member institutions, is it keeps us whole as we move forward, and at the end of the day, that is what is important.”

Basically, that money will fill the void of lost revenue without OU and Texas in the conference.

Now, Weiberg and other Big 12 leaders are on more solid footing when looking to the future.

They can begin to settle on a scheduling method for the nine-game conference football schedules they’ll begin to put together for 2024 and beyond. The 2023 schedule, which was only released a couple weeks ago, was delayed significantly as conference leaders worked to organize a scheduling plan not knowing for sure if OU and Texas would be in the league for 2024. 

Since settling in as a 10-team league in 2012, the football schedule has been a full round-robin, but that won’t be possible with the bump to 12 teams starting in 2024. So the administrators will have to determine a plan in a balanced way. 

“We’ve had those conversations, and I think there will be some guiding principles to the scheduling, as there always have been,” Weiberg said. “Now, with the certainty we have, we can start to finalize some of those things. I think there will always be the protection of rivalries, so if you think about Kansas State-Kansas, for example, that will be built into the principle of the schedules.

More:Carlson: Why terms of SEC-bound OU & Texas divorce from Big 12 are good for all parties

New Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark worked to orchestrate the early exit of OU and Texas from the league, which will occur in the summer of 2024.

“What you’re trying to do is come as close as you can to begin equitable in how it rotates from year to year with the end result being, you want to have a schedule that allows you to put the best two teams in the conference championship game.”

At the same time, Weiberg acknowledged the desire for everyone in the league to play everyone else within a reasonable timeframe, rather than going several years without matchups between two certain teams. 

And that brings us back to Bedlam — but not the football variety. Weiberg has maintained throughout this process that non-football meetings between OU and OSU could pick up as non-conference games as soon as the respective programs want to make it happen. 

“We’ve had general conversations with our coaches about what that might look like or what their thoughts on that are,” Weiberg said. “But now that this decision has been made and we know when the transition is going to be complete, that provides a lot of clarity to how it needs to look going forward. 

“That will help with the conversations about what Bedlam in each of those sports looks like moving forward.”