Peterson: Bowlsby fires a salvo at people thinking the Big 12 is dead

FRISCO, Texas — If you’re in the camp that believes the Big 12 Conference is on life support, it’s time to find something else about which to rant.

Commissioner Bob Bowlsby is on the verge of signing a contract extension, which means television — or digital — negotiations in the 2020s will be in capable and experienced hands.

“My health is good,” Bowlsby told a scrum of reporters Monday after his former press conference at Big 12 Media Days. “I feel like I’m a pretty young 65. I’ll stay at it for a while. I like what I’m doing. I like the schools. The board has been very good to me.”

The contract extension likely will go through the 2024-25 school year, Bowlsby said. That coincides with the end of the Big 12’s current television contracts. The new media negotiations likely will start in 2023 or before.

"Our board is as unified as it’s been in five years," Bowlsby said. “They’re singing off the same sheet music. They’ve been through baptism by fire. They feel good where we are.”

They also feel good that the conference has an experienced commissioner and not a newbie or even an interim doing the backroom wheeling and dealing.

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“It’s not a coincidence,” Bowlsby said. “They want continuity. I think they believe I’m the right person to go through the process — the process of looking for the right opportunities, and then capitalizing on it, from a financial standpoint.

“That’s certainly among the critical success factors for us going forward. If I stay in good health and they continue to want me, I’ll be proud to be the commissioner for as long as I can do it.”

Big 12 naysayers must find something else to criticize about a league that’s in better shape than a lot of people like to admit.

“It’s fantastic,” said Joe Castiglione, the Big 12’s senior athletics director. “We love what Bob Bowlsby has done for our league in the five years he’s been leading us.

“We couldn’t be more proud to have him as our leader going forward. He’s one of the pre-eminent leaders in all of the NCAA. We know how well-respected he is.”

This is the calm before college football’s national storm — the almost simultaneous end of financially lucrative television contracts that occurs in the mid-2020s.

How will fans watch college football in 10 years?

“Man, if I knew that, I wouldn't be here,” Bowlsby said. “The pace of change is so extraordinarily fast. I was shocked a week or 10 days ago to learn that the iPhone is only 10 years old. I mean, smartphones — think how smartphones have changed our lives.

“I'd venture a guess that, except for maybe a couple of curmudgeons in the room that I can identify, that everybody's got a smartphone. It's the way we do business. If you don't respond to an email by the end of a business day, people think you're rude. I mean, it's changing everything.”

Watching big regular-season games on your smartphone?

“The migration to mobile distribution is extraordinary,” Bowlsby said. “I watched a '60 Minutes' segment on artificial intelligence and the things that computers can teach themselves to do... It's just astonishing, and anybody that tells you they know what it's going to look like 10 years from now is delusional. We may be watching the Super Bowl on the insides of our eyelids before too long.

“The number of platforms, the number of distribution mechanisms — the one thing I will tell you is that the best reality TV available is live sports. It's destination viewing, and people want to watch it in real time, and as long as that's the case, it doesn't matter how they consume it.

“Live sports will be really valuable.”

And so will the Big 12, now that Bowlsby is continuing as its leader. It would be even more valuable if one of its 10 members someday wins the College Football Playoffs.

"I am not at all concerned about our future," Bowlsby said after a 45-minute address to open Big 12 media days at the Ford Center. "I think we compete at a very high level, and we'll win our share of national championships."

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The Big 12 watched as others participate twice in the three-year history of the college football playoffs. Thus, the stained reputation.

"That's a really short window," Bowlsby said. "It gets tiresome, because I know we play at a very high level, and I know that, top to bottom, we're the best in the country, in terms of balance. And I know that the method by which we conduct our championships and conduct our regular season is the most difficult.”

Football drives the perception, rightly or wrongly.

"I think we play at an exceedingly high level,” Bowlsby said. “I think over the 12 years of the playoff, you'll see Big 12 teams in there.

“But make no mistake, it's not about making the playoff. It's about winning national championships.”

Then, and only then, will the "the Big 12 Is Dying" mantra be squashed.

Iowa State columnist Randy Peterson has been with the Register for parts of five decades. Randy writes opinion and analysis of Iowa State football and basketball. You can reach Randy at rpeterson@dmreg.com or on Twitter at @RandyPete.