The Big 12 appears to have new plans for Mexico.
Conference commissioner Brett Yormark said on Tuesday that the league is “pivoting” away from the idea of playing football and men’s basketball games south of the border. Instead, the Big 12 is now looking at moving other sports there.
“We continue to explore Mexico for the Big 12,” Yormark said during Big 12 Media Days. “We are currently looking into pivoting Big 12 Mexico towards women’s soccer or baseball for our official launch.”
That is a huge change from what the Yormark and the Big 12 initially planned when they announced their intentions to expand into Mexico. The Big 12 hoped to launch a bowl game in Monterrey that could have featured KU or K-State football teams in any given postseason. It would have been the first Mexico-based bowl game in college football history.
The conference also planned to play high-profile basketball games in Mexico City.
On the hoops front, the Big 12 went so far as to tentatively schedule a game between Houston and Kansas for the 2024-25 season . The conference even promoted it during the Big 12 basketball tournament last March. But that game was eventually delayed (and potentially canceled), with both KU coach Bill Self and Houston coach Kelvin Sampson saying they never wanted to play the game in the first place.
The Big 12 will play a football game in a different country in 2025. Just not in Mexico. Kansas State and Iowa State will begin the 2025 season in Ireland.
It is possible that the Big 12 will try to play higher-profile games in Mexico down the line as the conference looks to expand its footprint to another country. For now, though, the conference is focused on other sports.
“Mexico and Mexico City, specifically, are very important for us,” Yormark said. “We, as a conference, realize the benefit that having a presence there makes sense. We’re going to lean in and probably launch that platform with women’s soccer and or baseball.”
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