Wow. New Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby hasn't even officially started the job and already he's got Florida State wanting to join.
But let's tap the brakes a bit before booking any flights to Tallahassee. While it's nice for the Big 12 to be on the receiving end of a flirtation, after several recent bad breakups, that's all this is: a flirtation.
It all started over the weekend when the chairman of the Florida State board of trustees, Andy Haggard, gave a shoot-from-the-hip interview to Warchant.com. Haggard is ticked that the ACC's new TV deal gives up third-tier rights for football, while it maintains them in basketball.
What that means is basketball schools like North Carolina and Duke control the TV rights to their least-attractive games, the ones networks aren't willing to carry, and can package them themselves.
But in football, a third-tier game remains part of the conference package and, theoretically, a football school like Florida State would reap less revenue than if it broadcast or sold those games on its own.
"It continues the perception that the ACC favors the North Carolina schools," Haggard huffed and puffed, adding that his school's board of trustees would "unanimously" favor looking at what the Big 12 has to offer.
You know, the Big 12, that bastion of equality. The one where everyone gets an equal shake – as long as they do what the University of Texas wants.
Well, that's the Big 12's reputation to its detractors, anyway. It is truthful to say that Texas wields an enormous amount of influence in the Big 12 and has revenue streams that other schools wish for, such as the Longhorn Network.
It was only last fall, after the departures of Texas A&M and Missouri, that the Big 12 announced equal sharing of first and second-tier media rights. Until that point, the schools that got on TV the most also got bigger slices of the revenue pie.
So it's funny to see the Big 12 now characterized as some sort of commune where everyone shares equally in the harvest.
Florida State's president, Eric Barron, tried to put the kibosh on Big 12 talk on Monday by releasing a memo listing the pros and cons of ACC defection. The pros are few in number and somewhat superficial, with the main thrust being that FSU is a football school while the ACC is a basketball conference.
The cons are sobering. Barron says that whatever additional money the Seminoles would receive in the Big 12 would be eaten up by travel expenses. The Big 12 has a proposed TV deal that would pay each school $20 million while the ACC just agreed to a deal worth $17 million per school.
Barron's memo says the reports about preferential third-tier rights for basketball aren't true, and that it would cost between $20-25 million to leave the ACC, plus the loss of the rivalry with Miami.
He also threw in some faculty discontent that the Big 12 is "academically weaker" than the ACC, but when was the last time faculty or academics had a say in conference realignment?
Barron's point was made that talk of defecting to the Big 12 is just so much saber-rattling. The Big 12 has not initiated any advances on Florida State, although FSU football and Florida's recruiting grounds have great appeal.
But even saber-rattling is risky when everyone is still on full alert in the realignment wars. Fiery talk excites the troops, which could lead to a groundswell no level-headed academician can stop.
Haggard's bitter words are just that, right now. But the emotion behind those words could spread and grow into something that might not be good for his school or college athletics.
Follow Keith Whitmire on Twitter: @Keith_Whitmire
