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Football: Bowlsby out to change perception of Big 12

The Big 12 is on stable footing. The conference is once again in a position of strength. The future is good.

League commissioner Bob Bowlsby knows the member institutions realize that. He’s not sure the rest of the public does.

As he enters his first academic year as the league boss, Bowlsby is out to convince the rest of the country that the Big 12 is no longer the dysfunctional, ready-to-self-destruct conference it was a year or two ago.

“I don’t think you can just declare yourself stable and forward thinking,” said Bowlsby, who held a press conference at ISU on Tuesday. “I think you have to state it as an aspiration and then do things moving forward.”

Signing a new TV contract and grant of rights are two ways Bowlsby plans on doing that. The TV contract with FOX and ESPN reportedly is worth $2.6 billion. Bowlsby said the negotiation was in the “late stages.”

One of the biggest hang-ups is the grant of rights, in which the league members essentially make a pact where no one will leave the conference. It has yet to be signed, and Bowlsby said it needs to before the TV contract can be finalized.

Possibly the biggest way for the league to start changing perceptions is through what Bowlsby calls “new platforms” such as cyclones.tv, the new ISU athletic website devoted providing coverage to all ISU teams.

“We are going to have unprecedented exposure and that allows us to proliferate the brand in ways that also allow us to send the kind of message that we would like to send,” Bowlsby said.

That message starts with the health of the league. Then it extends to building the brand to new heights.

“I would like us to be the most innovative, the strongest, the most highly competitive conference in college sports,” Bowlsby said.

That includes on the field, where he said that means winning the national title in football this season.

“I like the dog we have in the fight,” Bowlsby said. “The top of our league is competitive with anybody in the country.”

Before Bowlsby took office this summer, the league was already beginning to show its newfound strength when it paired with the SEC to create the Champions Bowl, a New Year’s Day game where both conference champions square off.

Bowlsby said early returns are promising as the bowl could produce two-and-a-half times as much revenue as initially expected.

“That money passes right through to Iowa State and the rest of our members,” Bowlsby said. “And it goes right along to the bottom line in terms of sustaining the programs and in terms of doing things that enhance competition.”

And it of course help enhance the public perception of the Big 12.

“We are still moving in the direction we would like to eventually reside,” Bowlsby said. “But I feel very good about the reality of the conference at this present time.”

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