One Aggie's Opinion:
The concensus among the Aggie faithful is that the Big 12 is no longer a premiere conference. In the NCAA you are either growing or shrinking, and the Big 12 is shrinking. The downfall of the SWC began with Arkansas' departure and likewise, you don't lose a Nebraska and a Colorado in the same year and say that all is well.
Clearly, the SEC is the premiere sports league in football. Likewise, the Big 10 has an unbelievable history, academics, and prestige. Larry Scott has brought the Pac10/12 to the forefront with innovation, expansion, and leadership.
Beebe is the antithesis of a leader. He is a Longhorn puppet. The whole conference is a front for Texas. And the mass of members don't have clout to pursue other options. Baylor / Iowa State have no room to tell Texas to f off. Oklahoma seems to be hesitatnt to react. But Mizzou, A&M, and Tech have all had words / actions speaking against the LHN. Look, no real conference has unequal revenue sharing. But the Big 12 was set up to be the MLB and the Longhorns signed up to be the Yankees.
What's wrong with the Longhorn Network you ask? Well a better question would be why would you have a Longhorn Network instead of a BIg 12 network? I could give you a 1000 reasons why it is a bad idea. But to me it is like when free agency first appeared in baseball. It will now be a mad rush and the richer will only get richer. But just imagine you had to play a national telecast with announcers chosen by your opponent (contractually obliged to be approved by Texas or they are fired)? And imagine that Texas is the one that gets paid for games on that network, not the conference?
Now imagine that Texas could broadcast HS games. The counter that "we get all the recruits we want" does not make it right. I loved the argument that "hey I get all my recruits before September anyway. . . " from Mack Brown. Which is why they are planning to televise the state;s top JUNIOR in their first game. Coincidence? The president of the LHN said in an interview that they were indeed intentionally televising Texas recruits and they would go out of state to do so. It is a clear NCAA violation. You can't even put a recruit's name on a bigscreen but now you can pay his high school money, televise his game on your network, and have hand-picked announcers talk about what a great fit said recruit will be for Mack and how great the Longhorn staff is blah blah blah.
So that's a long way of saying the Aggies are tired of the Longhorns pushing their weight around (something Michigan does not do in teh Big 10 nor Alabama in the SEC). Thus, we want out. The Big 12 has become a joke and watching Beebe reminds me of Brownie leading the FEMA effort.
I could care less if we play Texas again. Like most Aggies, I realize the SEC is a whole level of competition higher, but it is worth it. Besides, road games at Tennessee and Georgi and Florida, etc >>> beat Ames, Manhattan, and Lubbock.
Now, would love the NEW SWC if that could happen
UNT
UH
Rice
SMU
TCU
Baylor
Southwest Texas
Tulsa
La Tech
or somesuch. Personally, I would love to see that.