These Big 12 stories have a way of taking on a life of their own -- but for good reason. You see, when the Commissioner of your conference comes out and says "part of their thinking is that we'll hold out the distribution [money] that would have gone to us (the Big 12 conference) from those member institutions and use that to help Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Texas hopefully stay in the conference."
"Their" in this case is Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Baylor. And he is clearly indicating that these teams would give up their share of Colorado and Nebraska's buyout money -- reported to be worth a total of $35-40 million -- to Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma to keep them in their conference.
After he said that, the denials from both Missouri and Texas officials came out saying they didn't know anything about it.
Apparently, they're right.
A Big 12 spokesman confirmed to the Associated Press that Beebe's words were just a "good-faith offer" and that the money would in reality be distributed evenly, as the bylaws state.
So, to get this straight -- Beebe publicly told reporters that they were thinking of giving the buyout from for the shares of five schools to Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma. But that is not the case.
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