Two years have passed since the Big 12 announced plans to play football, basketball, baseball, and women’s soccer games in Mexico—none of which have come to fruition yet.

But the conference hasn’t abandoned its international expansion strategy, despite first delaying the “Big 12 Mexico” initiative from 2024 to 2025, before ultimately pivoting away from its initial plans altogether.

“I want this conference to be a global conference,” commissioner Brett Yormark said at Big 12 football media days this week. “I think we can win globally big-time.”

The Big 12’s presence outside the U.S., like other Power 4 conferences, is growing.

In August, Iowa State and Kansas State will face off in Dublin, marking the first time Big 12 schools have competed in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic that’s become an annual Week 0 tradition since 2022. “The game in Ireland is an impetus for future global expansion, and I’m all in on it,” Yormark said. Big 12 member TCU will play North Carolina in Ireland next year.

In November, Baylor’s women’s basketball team will play Duke in Paris as part of a new event in France, and Yormark said there is a “good chance” the Big 12 will play baseball games in Mexico City in the spring of 2026. The Big 12 media days are being held in Arlington, Texas—which is notable, given that six member schools (Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, Houston, TCU, and Texas Tech) are based in states bordering Mexico.

New Borders

What else could be on the way outside the U.S.? “We’re having conversations with other countries throughout the world that are very interested in bringing the Big 12 to their marketplace,” Yormark said.

International expansion appears to be an area of growth that many college sports are interested in exploring further, as professional leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL have found great success in recent years, taking their products abroad.

ESPN reports that Nikola Jokić will not sign a three-year, $200 million extension that could have kept him in Denver until the 2029–30 season. While it could bring some nerves in Denver at a time when NBA teams are taking huge risks to satisfy their superstars, Jokić’s decision may be beneficial for all parties involved.

The first year of the extension would have started in the 2027–28 season, replacing the player’s option on his current deal worth $62.8 million.

However, by waiting until next season, Jokić can secure an additional year worth around $80 million—and would bring his total contract extension to around $290 million. It would also mean Jokić would be locked in to maximum money until the 2030–31 season, when he’d be 36 years old.

The Nuggets would lock in their franchise’s all-time best player to an extra year.

“We’re definitely going to offer [the extension],” Nuggets owner Josh Kroenke said late last month. “I’m not sure if he’s going to accept it or not because we’re also going to explain every financial parameter around him signing now versus signing later.”

There is a level of risk on both sides. Jokić could sustain a significant injury, a concern around the league following the volume of Achilles tears during the 2025 playoffs. Jokić, however, is one of the NBA’s most durable stars. 

Jokić also has achieved a large-enough star status that a long-term injury would likely not sway a team from offering him a max deal. Two-time Finals MVP Kevin Durant received a four-year maximum extension from the Nets in 2019 even though he was expected to miss the 2019–20 season due to injury.

Denver faces the risk of Jokić asking for a trade, especially after failing to advance past the second round since they won the 2023 NBA championship. The Nuggets have retooled around Jokić this offseason, adding Cam Johnson, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Bruce Brown, who was a member of the title-winning team.

However, the Nuggets are in the middle of a standoff surrounding Jonas Valančiūnas, one of their offseason acquisitions who was supposed to serve as Jokić’s backup. The Nuggets agreed to a trade with the Kings to acquire Valančiūnas, but the Lithuanian center had reportedly verbally agreed to a deal to play with the Greek team Panathinaikos.

Denver reportedly expects Valančiūnas to honor his contract, which has two years and $20.4 million remaining. NBA reporter Marc Stein said the Nuggets have not guaranteed the second season (2026–27) left on Valančiūnas’s deal, but the trade is on track to become official later this week.

U.K. officials have made a series of votes that keep some core, but oft-debated, elements of the Premier League firmly in place while also introducing a critical new level of financial oversight. 

The House of Commons voted by an overwhelming 415–98 margin to create a new independent regulator that will oversee men’s soccer in England’s top five divisions, promote better financial sustainability, and ensure clubs are accountable to fans.

The measure to establish the new soccer watchdog, now set for a quick assent by the House of Lords, arises as fiscal elements have roiled the Premier League on multiple fronts in recent years, including an ongoing financial fair play dispute involving Manchester City, continued losses by clubs such as Manchester United and Everton, and rising unrest and protests among fans over ticket prices. 

Lower-division clubs, meanwhile, have often existed on the brink of financial ruin. 

“We promised in our manifesto that we would end years of inaction and make the changes that fans have fought for for so long and are so overdue,” said U.K. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy. 

No Additional Free Broadcasts

Those same legislators, meanwhile, rejected a proposed move to put at least 10 Premier League matches per season on free-to-air television. 

Since the formation of the Premier League more than three decades ago, matches have been shown behind a paywall, with the only notable exception during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2025–26 Premier League season will be the first in a four-year media-rights term with Sky Sports and TNT Sports worth $9 billion, representing the largest sports-rights deal in U.K. history. Those exclusive rights form a key foundation of the league’s entire business model.

Current U.K. rules, however, keep other top competitions in the sport, such as the World Cup, European Championships, and the FA Cup final, freely available on broadcast. Changing that to include the Premier League games was defeated by a 340–86 margin.

“The government believes that the current list of events [on free television] works well, and it strikes an appropriate balance between access to sporting events and allowing sports to maximize broadcasting revenue,” said U.K. sporting minister Stephanie Peacock. 

Alcohol Policy Stays As Is

A third vote similarly rejected an amendment to force a formal consultation on scrapping a 40-year-old ban on alcohol in the stands across the top five tiers of men’s soccer in England. The ban has long been in place to curb hooliganism. In this instance, the alcohol measure was seen as outside the scope of the main soccer bill that was focused on ensuring the financial sustainability of clubs. 

The various votes arrived as the Premier League also recently warned of “an increased likelihood of fixtures moving at relatively short notice” during the season, introducing a level of flex scheduling common to the NFL. 

Oak View Group founder and CEO Tim Leiweke, one of the most accomplished and respected executives in the business of sports, has been criminally indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in an alleged bid-rigging scheme.

The government claims that Leiweke, while in the midst of bidding in 2017 and 2018 to build the Moody Center at the University of Texas in Austin, entered into an agreement with another potential bidder for the rival to drop its independent proposal. Leiweke was to provide lucrative subcontracts in return, but the indictment claims that he and OVG reneged on that promise.

The indictment includes a charge of conspiracy to restrain trade, in violation of the Sherman Act.

“The defendant rigged a bidding process to benefit his own company and deprived a public university and taxpayers of the benefits of competitive bidding,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “The Antitrust Division and its law enforcement partners will continue to hold executives who cheat to avoid competition accountable.”

The $375 million Moody Center opened in April 2022, with OVG submitting the lone qualified bid, and it still stands as one of the most advanced venues in a mid-sized market such as Austin. 

OVG, which was not named in the indictment and instead referred to as “co-conspirator company 1,” entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department and will pay a $15 million fine. Legends Hospitality, an OVG rival company, also entered into a similar non-prosecution agreement and will pay a $1.5 million fine.

Leiweke faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine. The Justice Department, however, also said that the fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime if either amount is greater than the statutory maximum fine. 

OVG said in a statement that it “cooperated fully with the Antitrust Division’s inquiry and is pleased to have resolved this matter with no charges filed against OVG and no admission of fault or wrongdoing,” while making no reference to Leiweke. Separately, a spokesperson for Leiweke said in a statement that he “will vigorously defend himself and his well-deserved reputation for fairness and integrity. The Antitrust Division’s allegations are wrong on the law and the facts, and the case should never have been brought.”

Amid that, Leiweke also said he will step down from his day-to-day CEO leadership role and transition to a new one as vice chair of the OVG board of directors. OVG360 president Chris Granger will rise to Leiweke’s former position.

Before this situation arose, Leiweke had amassed a career spanning more than four decades and many facets of team operations, venue development, and live entertainment. That run has included senior leadership positions with Anschutz Entertainment Group, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, and for nearly the past decade, OVG, in partnership with music business titan Irving Azoff.

Under Leiweke’s leadership, OVG has built and managed a series of major venues beyond the Moody Center, including Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena and UBS Arena in New York, and it has long eyed being a fundamental part of a new NBA-ready arena in Las Vegas should a team be placed there.