The Juice: No matter what, Big 12 expansion will be good for Tech

No matter what teams the Big 12 Conference decides to add – yes, even the University of Houston – the league’s long overdue expansion will be a good thing for Texas Tech.

Hear me out.

First and foremost, Texas Tech and its current Big 12 peers stand to earn more money as a result of expansion.

In case you have somehow missed the mechanics of it all over the last week, the Big 12’s contracts with its television partners provide for proportional increases in revenue if it decides to expand. If the league adds two teams, its television partners would be obligated to pay out 20 percent more. If the conference grows by four, the increase would be 40 percent. The newcomers would then receive less than a full share, probably much less, of the Big 12’s media revenue pie, and the incumbent members would split what is leftover among themselves.

More money is great, but it’s far from the only reason fans should welcome the news of two or four additional conference members.

An expanded Big 12 would provide the Red Raiders with a more secure position on the college football landscape. If Texas and Oklahoma bolt for greener pastures when the conference’s Grant of Rights expires in 2025 and Texas Tech is left behind, a league made up of 10 or 12 leftovers – while not anyone's first option – would stand a much better chance of continuing on as a major college football entity than it would with just eight.

There’s also a potential competitive benefit to consider.

Who knows? Texas Tech might just catch a break with the way an expanded Big 12 divides up the league. The university’s football program fought its way through a murderous Big 12 South for the better part of a decade, and its schedule certainly didn’t get any easier when the league moved to a nine-game, round-robin schedule format.

That doesn’t just apply to football, either. Look at how much easier the Kansas Jayhawks had it in basketball during the mid-2000s. The Big 12’s divisional format ensured that they would play teams from the weaker North Division twice a season while playing the tougher South Division squads just once.

Texas Tech stands to earn more money, gain an additional measure of security and potentially luck into a slightly-less challenging football schedule as a result of Big 12 expansion.

Despite all of that, a significant number of Red Raider fans seem to be more focused on drawbacks – real, overblown or imagined – of Houston’s potential addition to the Big 12 than anything else.

Consider the reaction to Friday’s carefully-worded statement from Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec. For publicly expressing support for the “consideration” of UH’s Big 12 candidacy, many fans skewered the newly-minted Schovanec.

“Did he fall and hit his head?”

“I already hate our new president.”

“Don’t want him representing this university without Tech’s best interest in mind.”

Really?

Yes, the addition of a sixth in-state Power Five program would probably make recruiting Texas incrementally more challenging for Texas Tech. Yes, Houston would be probably a tougher on-field opponent than Memphis or Colorado State. But UH in the Big 12 would hardly be the death-blow for Texas Tech that many are describing.

Many of the same doom-and-gloom predictions being offered now about Houston were shared in the build up to the announcement of TCU’s addition in 2011. Since that point, have the Horned Frogs dramatically impacted the Red Raiders’ football program on or off the field? I would argue that they have not. The two teams have split their four meetings as Big 12 opponents, and Texas Tech’s average finish in the Rivals.com recruiting team rankings from 2012-16 (42) is nearly identical to what it was from 2007-11 (40). That’s not exactly what I would call a dramatic shift.

Yet, the apprehension five years ago about the TCU addition was more understandable. Not because of overblown concerns about how it would impact Texas Tech, but because the Red Raiders stood to gain nothing in 2011 but the status quo. That round of league expansion was simply about survival. The Big 12 had suffered four defections in 18 months and needed to add two members to get back to 10.

That is obviously not the case today. Whatever downsides there may be to Houston joining the Big 12, they are insignificant when compared to the ways Texas Tech stands to benefit from expansion.

So buck up, Red Raider fans. No matter what direction the Big 12 takes in the coming weeks and months, your university and athletic programs will be much better off as a result.

I’ve been a Star Trek fan for as long as I can remember. My father and I would watch first-run episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation together every week, him on the couch and me lying on the floor. I’ll geek out over Star Wars and Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead and movies based on comic book characters, but I will always be a Star Trek fan first.

The Best of Both Worlds cliffhanger still amazes me. I still grin at all the jokes and gags – “Well, double dumbass on you!” – in The Undiscovered Country. Spock’s death in The Wrath of Khan, the ending of The Visitor and the final scene of The Inner Light always hit me right in the feels. I can rattle off the starship class of every U.S.S. Enterprise shown on screen, and I will fight anyone who talks ill of Deep Space Nine. Darmok, In The Pale Moonlight, City on the Edge of Forever, Year of Hell…

I’ll be honest: I was super apprehensive going into Star Trek: Beyond yesterday. I surprised myself three years ago with just how much I disliked – hell, hated – its predecessor, Star Trek: Into Darkness. It was a transparent, ham-handed imitation of the franchise’s best moments that, to me, was more of an insult than a tribute.

Beyond wasn’t any of that. It wasn’t perfect, but it was really fun. I loved it.

Now about that ship design for Star Trek: Discovery…

> Goodbye, Yahoo. Hello, Verizon.

> This may surprise you, but the Olympic Village in Rio is apparently a total disaster.

> I’m probably more excited about the Lego Batman movie than I should be. The new trailer that debuted this weekend at Comic-Con isn’t doing anything to dampen that excitement.

> J.J. Watt sent out a thank you note to fans on his Twitter account on Sunday… by posting a photo of a hand-written letter. My man, what’s wrong with using the Notes app?

> Heartbreaking, tragic story this weekend out of Wisconsin.

> It’s been a busy few days for the Chicago White Sox. First Chris Sale cut up some jerseys, and now they’re in the middle of an interesting story regarding clubhouse dues and tips.

> Who is the best quarterback in the Big 12? The Dallas Morning News’ Chuck Carlton thinks it’s Patrick Mahomes.