Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark stepping down for opportunity outside college sports

Big 12 Conference commissioner Brett Yormark is stepping down after more than four years on the job, marking the end of a transformational era for the Big 12 that saw an expansion of members and business initiatives. It also brings uncertainty to the conference amid major changes across college sports and growing power for the Big Ten and SEC.

Yormark approached Big 12 leaders about a departure in recent weeks, according to people briefed on the decision but not permitted to speak on a move that was not yet public. They cited multiple reasons for Yormark’s decision to leave now, from conference power dynamics to family reasons to new opportunities. One person briefed on the decision but not permitted to speak on a move that was not yet public told The Athletic that Yormark’s next steps will be outside of college athletics. He will depart Jan. 31, 2027.

“When I accepted this job, my goal was to put this conference on an upward trajectory and truly believe the future of the conference could not be in better shape,” Yormark said in a release Friday. “The next commissioner of this league will inherit a conference that is ‘16 strong.’ There has never been a better time to be a member of the Big 12 than right now.”

Hired in the summer of 2022, Yormark left a position as an executive at sports and entertainment agency Roc Nation to lead the Big 12 during a time of uncertainty as the conference was trailing the likes of the SEC and Big Ten in media rights deals and overall success in revenue-generating sports like football and basketball.

Yormark arrived just after Texas and Oklahoma’s departure for the SEC and the Big 12’s addition of BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF. He negotiated Texas and Oklahoma’s early exit and famously beat the Pac-12 to market by quickly signing a new television rights contract with Fox and ESPN in October 2022. It fueled the collapse of the old Pac-12, with the Big 12 ultimately adding the Four Corners schools in 2023: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.

Since declaring the Big 12 “open for business” at his introductory media days in 2022, expansion was a throughline of Yormark’s tenure, including pursuits of UConn and Gonzaga that never came to fruition. Yormark established a reputation as a deal-maker who was always seeking new revenue streams, exploring naming rights and private capital investments. Earlier this year, the conference finalized a private capital deal with outside investors that provided at least $12.5 million to the conference and optional lines of credit to member schools. This summer, the Big 12 announced a multi-year sponsorship agreement with Monster Energy that includes jersey patches and on-field/on-court logos.

“He was at his best as a wartime commissioner,” said one Big 12 administrator, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect relationships.

Yormark’s constant churn of glitzy initiatives and deal-making also wore on Big 12 members at times, whether it was pushing to add UConn or the failed decision to use an LED court this year at the Big 12 basketball tournaments that was eventually abandoned due to player safety concerns. No school took that line of private capital credit, but for a conference lagging behind the Big Ten and SEC and vying with the ACC and, briefly, the Pac-12, Yormark’s aggressiveness and showmanship helped keep the Big 12 relevant.

Yormark inked a three-year extension in May 2025 through to 2030.

From the moment he took the Big 12 job, people around college sports wondered how long Yormark would remain as a high-energy, New York-built executive caught up in the mundane bureaucracy of college sports in the middle of the country. There were other opportunities he considered, including going back to the NBA, one person familiar with Yormark’s opportunity at the time, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, said, but he opted to remain with the Big 12.

Until now.

Among the issues, Yormark had grown increasingly frustrated by the imbalance of power between the Big Ten/SEC and everyone else. That includes the ongoing College Football Playoff expansion TV negotiations with ESPN, which were led by Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua. The full group of commissioners and Bevacqua held a call on Oct. 15, hoping to mostly finalize the deal with ESPN, but Yormark pushed back heavily, according to people briefed on that call. That pushback continued in the ensuing days.

There is a belief from Yormark and others that the entire group should be consulted more on the numbers and the possibility of taking the rights to market. While there is a handshake agreement with ESPN that is “95 percent” done, that finalization has still not yet happened.

Yormark was among the commissioner group that granted overwhelming CFP power to the Big Ten and SEC in the spring of 2024, when the two leagues subtly threatened to make their own breakaway playoff on the heels of conference realignment. It was a move Yormark and others came to regret.

“I would say I was a rookie commissioner at that point in time,” he told The Athletic this spring. “Today, I’m a very different commissioner than I was, and I’m not sure I would have made the same decision.”

For someone who built a career on being aggressive and active with business, getting sidelined with diminishing power created a restlessness. So did the growing legal fights.

The conference sparked a flurry of headlines this summer when it filed a lawsuit against league member Texas Tech over the gambling and eligibility saga with Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby. When a ruling from a Texas state court overruled the NCAA, deeming Sorsby ineligible and clearing a path for the quarterback to play in 2026, it triggered outrage across college sports, including within the Big 12, with many calling on the conference to take its own punitive actions against Texas Tech if it allowed Sorsby to play.

The Big 12’s federal lawsuit against Tech and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that the league’s ability to sanction conference members was protected by the First Amendment, a clever tactical approach that led to Texas Tech and Sorsby pulling the plug on the eligibility battle. Other school leaders praised Yormark for the maneuver. (The SEC later filed a similar lawsuit against LSU in its dispute over athlete eligibility.) The Big 12 withdrew its lawsuit in September.

Continuous lawsuits from players attempting to get a fifth year of eligibility have added more legal uncertainty across college sports. The Protect College Sports Act has passed in the United States Senate, but its fate in the House of Representatives after next week’s election remains uncertain. Yormark made many trips to Washington D.C., for meetings with Congress.

It all added up to reasons to find something new.

Commissioner jobs used to be held for decades, but that’s changed. Kevin Warren spent less than four years as Big Ten commissioner, returning to the NFL after some conference expansion and locking in a new TV deal.

As for potential replacements for Yormark, American Conference commissioner Tim Pernetti interviewed for the job last time, when he was the president of IMG Academy. Big 12 and American headquarters are near each other in suburban Dallas. Big 12 leaders could also choose to cast a wider net inside or outside of college sports, as they did four years ago.

The next Big 12 commissioner will inherit a business in flux. The league’s TV deal expires in 2031, something Yormark continually pointed to. People in college sports believe more major changes are a few years away.

Yormark arrived with bold talk and a brash confidence that sometimes elicited eye rolls, but he more often than not followed through on those visions and expanded what people believed a college sports conference could accomplish. He leaves with many questions still unanswered, but a more stable foundation in place.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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