{"id":1805,"date":"2025-11-15T01:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T01:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/?p=1805"},"modified":"2025-11-28T01:04:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T01:04:31","slug":"big-12-commissioners-persistent-pitching-brings-espns-college-gameday-back-to-conference-campuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/sports-media\/big-12-commissioners-persistent-pitching-brings-espns-college-gameday-back-to-conference-campuses\/","title":{"rendered":"Big 12 Commissioner\u2019s Persistent Pitching Brings ESPN\u2019s College GameDay Back to Conference Campuses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After 1,120 days and 38 episodes without a single visit, ESPN\u2019s <em>College GameDay<\/em> finally returned to the campus of an active Big 12 member institution this season\u2014and it did so in back-to-back weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">College Football\u2019s premier pregame show first aired live from Salt Lake City on November 1 ahead of the Cincinnati vs. Utah matchup.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One week later, it traveled to Lubbock for the top-10 showdown between Texas Tech and BYU.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These appearances were the result of sustained effort from multiple voices within and around the conference.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>The Backstory: A Three-Year Absence and Growing Frustration<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Big 12-focused bloggers like Pete Mundo of <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.heartlandcollegesports.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Heartland College Sports<\/a> and John Kurtz of <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@JohnKurtzShow\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Open For Business<\/a> had long voiced frustration over ESPN\u2019s apparent lack of interest in the league.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their criticism highlighted a growing perception that the network was overlooking compelling Big 12 storylines in favor of more familiar SEC and Big Ten destinations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The discontent reached a national stage when TNT Sports\u2019 Adam Lefkoe took a subtle but pointed shot at \u201cother networks\u201d during a pregame segment ahead of the Kansas State-Kansas game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAnd there are some other networks, and I don\u2019t know if they care about Big 12 football,\u201d Lefkoe said on TNT. \u201cBut I\u2019m telling you right here, that\u2019s all we care about [at TNT].\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#8220;And there are some other networks, and I don&#8217;t know if they care about Big 12 football. But I&#8217;m telling you right here, that&#8217;s all we care about.&#8221; &#8211; TNT Sports&#8217; Adam Lefkoe \ud83c\udfc8\ud83d\udcfa\ud83c\udf99\ufe0f <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CFB?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CFB<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/w8wdaQHgXP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/w8wdaQHgXP<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/We239HO0w4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/We239HO0w4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/awfulannouncing\/status\/1982258490451399156?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 26, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Behind the scenes, however, the most decisive influence came from Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a conversation with Jon Wilner of <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2025\/11\/11\/big-12-college-gameday-brett-yormark-utah-texas-tech-byu-espn\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Mercury News<\/a>, Yormark revealed the conference\u2019s proactive strategy for courting College GameDay.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Far from waiting passively for ESPN to take notice, the Big 12 plans well in advance for potential high-profile matchups and aggressively pitches unique angles to make its games stand out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are constantly planning for scenarios,\u201d Yormark said. \u201cWe say, \u2018Here are the schools and here\u2019s what we\u2019ll do \u2026 to make the show different.\u2019 We let them know why they should go to Utah or Texas Tech. We\u2019re very aggressive pitching the merits of why they should come to the schools.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Breaking the SEC-Big Ten Monopoly<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the Big 12 works to maintain relevance alongside the SEC and Big Ten, Yormark emphasized the outsized value that <em>College GameDay<\/em> brings to the conference and its member institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe pregame shows are valuable,\u201d Yormark told The Mercury News. \u201cThey serve as infomercials for the schools, so those are big moments for us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wilner\u2019s reporting underscored the economic impact of hosting the show. According to his analysis, the exposure generated by a single College GameDay broadcast would require tens of millions of dollars in traditional marketing spend to replicate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While ESPN has faced ongoing criticism for disproportionately featuring SEC and Big Ten campuses, Yormark believes the recent visits to Salt Lake City and Lubbock left a lasting impression.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of different things behind the scenes on why they pick and where they pick,\u201d Yormark said. \u201cBut I know one thing\u2019s true: It\u2019s because you have a good team and a huge community that will support the show.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Looking Ahead<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>College GameDay<\/em> will not visit a Big 12 campus this Saturday, but it won\u2019t be at an SEC or Big Ten school either.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instead, the show will broadcast live from Pittsburgh in the ACC for the Notre Dame vs. Pitt game, airing at 9 a.m. EST on ESPN.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After 1,120 days and 38 episodes without a single visit, ESPN\u2019s College GameDay finally returned to the campus of an active Big 12 member institution this season\u2014and it did so in back-to-back weeks. College Football\u2019s premier pregame show first aired live from Salt Lake City on November 1 ahead of the Cincinnati vs. Utah matchup.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5665,"featured_media":1808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[267,264,238,285],"tags":[355,75],"class_list":["post-1805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-espn","category-news","category-sports-media","category-tnt","tag-college-gameday","tag-featured"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1805"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1809,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions\/1809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}