Editor’s Note: This summer, college football analyst FOX Sports Joel Klatt is interviewing the biggest names in college football as part of his new podcast series, “The Joel Klatt Show: Big Noon Conversations.” The following is an excerpt from Episode 6, featuring Brett Yormark. You can listen to the episodes with Deion Sanders here, with Nick Saban here, with Greg Sankey here, with the day Ryan is hereand with Chip Kelly here.
Brett Yormark has a long and impressive resume that has landed him in one of the most powerful positions in college sports: board member. large 12 Conference.
Yormark, 56, who was appointed to oversee the conference almost exactly a year ago to this day, is smart, bold and confident. He has been hugely successful at every career stop, including his previous role as CEO of the entertainment company Rock Nation.
Above all, however, Yormark is an innovator.
Dive into his conversation with Joel Klatt as part of “The Joel Klatt Show: The Big Afternoon Conversation” series, Yorkmark revealed that he has a whiteboard in his office at Big 12 headquarters, where he writes down all of his ideas. He takes pictures of the board every week, and those photos serve as a reminder of the innovation he wants to bring to the board.
“I promised my employees over the next few months that everything we’re doing we need to make sure we’re doing it brilliantly,” Yormark said. “I don’t want anything diluted because I’m allocating too few employees.
“We have incredible ideas for creating new IPs and developing new initiatives. Things that have never been done in this space before that I know are very transferable and that bring value to our member organizations and generate revenue opportunities. I’m really excited about that.”
Yormark wasted very little time putting those ideas to work, and it all started with the successful negotiation of a six-year TV rights deal with FOX Sports and ESPN worth nearly $2.3 billion. The deal was struck ahead of the expiration of the Big 12’s current media contract, which is slated to take place in 2025.
Yormark feels that completing the deal early is “critically important” to help the Big 12 “strengthen our future, creating stability and clarity for our conference members.”
“It was the real catalyst,” Yormark said of the TV deal, which he estimates will account for 60% of the conference’s revenue. “I know stability gives you a real place on the table. It gives you the voice that we’ve definitely been looking for long-term. And we capitalized on it. We used it to innovate, to create.
“That gave us the green light to think about the conference in a different way. To grow it. To diversify it. To think about an international strategy. To create a new IP. To think a little more about the future.”
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The start of Yormark’s term as a Big 12 commissioner comes at a time of transition for the conference. Last summer, Texas And Oklahoma State both announced their intention to leave SECOND. The Big 12, under the direction of former commissioner Bob Bowlsby, responded quickly, adding BYU, Cincinnati, Houston And UCF.
But when Bowlsby announced in April 2022 that he was stepping down, many wondered where the conference would find its next commissioner. Enter Yormark, who has limited experience in college athletics, but already has extensive knowledge of sales, broadcasting rights negotiations as well as operations and business strategy. It’s an uncommon background for a conference commissioner, many of whom come from managerial roles in college athletics.
When Klatt asked Yormark how his non-traditional background made him a good fit for the job, he initially approached modestly, saying he still had “a lot to learn”. But then he explained why he believes he is the right person for the role.
“This conference needs someone like me,” Yormark began, “who is willing to disrupt, innovate, create, and see the conference a little differently — to build the business, its brand, and its profile.
“Honestly, I’m the right person for the job. I think it’s a great fit. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’m the right fit to run another conference. Maybe [I’m] too aggressive, that’s totally fine. But this is the right place for me.”
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Appearing at his first Big 12 media day press conference in 2022, Yormark made it clear he was looking to “break” the scene, claiming that the Big 12 was “open for business”.
Yormark’s comments naturally led to speculation and rumors surrounding the conference expansion, which he addressed with Klatt.
“We have guiding principles to expand,” Yormark says of what he’s looking for in potential new members. “Leadership is incredibly important. Cultural fit. Geography. Sports performance. Brand benefits. There are many things that influence our decision-making.
“When I first took the job – and I’ve said it a few times since – I really wanted to be a national convention. I wanted to be in four different time zones. I wanted fans from coast to coast. But again, it needed to fit those parameters. Basketball was part of it too.”
Yormark believes basketball could be the catalyst for the international expansion of his conference, adding that he believes he can “separate” football from basketball in the next round of negotiations over media rights.
Yorkmark cited conversations he had with NBA commissioner Adam Silver as a reason why he pursues innovative basketball ideas.
“I’ll tell you from a Gen Z perspective, the demo we’re after, the demo is for younger people, they love basketball for a multitude of reasons,” Yormark said. “[Silver] and I spent a lot of time talking about it, and he guided me a lot. He believes I should play double basketball, no different than I do, for all the right reasons.
“Now, that doesn’t mean we compromise on football. We understand the value of football. But if I can develop football and develop basketball, I’ll be in a much better place in the long run.”
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Yormark also has ideas beyond the Big 12. Like many, he is interested in how names, images and likenesses as well as transfer portals are being used in the sport.
“I mean, it’s a mess,” Yormark said. “Solving each problem independently, it’s probably doable. But overall, it doesn’t work. In fact, it’s a disaster. And we need to fix it.”
Yormark says he’s a big fan of student-athletes being able to take advantage of NIL’s opportunities, but is calling for federal legislation to help level the playing field among all 50 states.
“We are working tirelessly on federal law and hopefully in the next few months we will have more clarity there,” Yormark said. “I’m not sure we have to go down the road of collective bargaining to protect our student-athletes. I think there are ways we can do that through federal law: certify agents, be more transparent. I think there are things we can do through legislation that can protect our student-athletes so that the agents that are not currently taking advantage of the commissions are currently exploiting them. what that transaction is really like.”
While Yormark is looking to improve college athletics outside of his conference, his main goal is to strengthen the Big 12.
As college athletics prepares to enter a new era in 2024, it is understandable that both the SEC and Big Ten has positioned itself at the top when it comes to number of institutions and financial strength. Both conferences will have 16 members starting in 2024 after Oklahoma and Texas join the SEC and USC And UCLA Go to the Big Ten. This has led to both conferences reaching major agreements on television rights.
Yormark realizes that the Big 12 are behind in that regard. But he thought there was a way he could help keep the conference up to date, and it all came back to the ideas he always jotted down on his whiteboard.
“We want to be the conference of innovation,” Yormark said. “We want you to push us as far as you can. … We may not be the most revenue-generating conference, maybe one day we will, but not today.
“But in all other respects, we want to be the leader. And that’s our goal.”
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