What TCU will focus on as it meets with the Texas Senate on college sports’ future
TCU is expected to have a number of talking points when its top representatives meet with the Texas Senate on the future of college sports Monday in Austin.
The central message TCU will try to get across is the importance of remaining in one of the country’s top athletic conferences and the economic impact it makes in the Fort Worth community and state at large.
TCU chancellor Victor Boschini and athletic director Jeremiah Donati are the scheduled speakers from TCU, and will emphasize how the school has grown and benefited since joining the Big 12 in 2012.
It extends beyond TCU, too, as representatives from Texas Tech, Baylor, Texas and the Big 12 are on the agenda to talk. TCU, Tech and Baylor face uncertain futures with the University of Texas departing for the SEC in 2025, at the latest. UT and Oklahoma announced their intentions to join the SEC last week, a crippling — and possibly fatal — blow to the Big 12.
Having TCU, Tech and Baylor remain in a top league is critical for the state to remain the epicenter of high school and college sports. Texas is the only state in the country with five Power Five schools in it. North Carolina and California each have four Power Five schools.
With that being said, those college communities and the state in general have benefited by having signature college sporting events every year. The Big 12 football championship has been played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington since it resumed in 2017. The communities in Fort Worth, Lubbock and Waco face losing hundreds of millions in economic impact.
The Perryman Group evaluated two scenarios in which the Big 12 remains intact without high-profile programs in UT and OU, or if the remaining schools end up in a non-power conference.
The Big 12 staying intact would result in a total annual loss in the three communities of $397.7 million in annual gross product and 5,322 jobs. If teams end up in lesser conferences, the combined loss would be $569.1 million in annual gross product and 7,615 jobs.
That’s why those schools are meeting with the Texas Senate.
Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, is serving as the chair for the hearing. Along with Nelson, others on the committee include vice chair Brandon Creighton and members Brian Birdwell, Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, Bryan Hughes, Lois Kolkhorst, Charles Perry, Beverly Powell, Drew Springer, Larry Taylor and John Whitmire.
The Texas Senate has remained in daily session while the House tries to round up members who left the state in an effort to block GOP voting legislation.
The Senate can conduct hearings such as one on the future of college sports, but can’t take action unless Gov. Greg Abbott, a UT ex, adds the topic to the special session agenda.
It was the Texas Senate that engineered Baylor and Texas Tech moving to the Big 12 along with Texas and Texas A&M when the Southwest Conference broke up in 1996. Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock insisted on including both schools in any move after A&M originally expressed interest in joining the SEC and Texas discussed joining what is now the Pac-12.
