[txpacer]

KappaMD-We basically had one before the Big 12 (it was called the SWC), but it didn't work out very well $wise. The schools were getting very little exposure by being confined (mostly) to the state of Texas.

There are many rumors going around right now, but very few (if any) people really know how everything will fall into place. There appear to be several scenarios:
1a. Texas bullies A&M into moving with them to the PAC-10 instead of the SEC, Tech gets left behind, and PAC-10 invites Utah or Kansas.
1b. Tech goes with
1c. Tech and Baylor go with
Reasons for Baylor to be there: 1) it will give UT a support base, the P10 has already shown that it will do whatever it wants to by bidding Colorado, Baylor is another vote in the conference to support the Texas schools, and 2) while this study was put out by a Waco economist (pretty sure he isn't a Baylor alum), no Texas legislator wants to deal with the possibility of:
Waco’s potential loss of $196.7 million annually. Those losses include tourism — money spent at restaurants, hotels, stores, gas stations, etc. — television revenue and other areas.
Additionally, Perryman projected the loss of 5,764 jobs statewide and 1,677 in the Waco area if Baylor is not in the same conference as the other Texas Big 12 schools.
This is all assuming that Baylor ends up in a conference like the MWC or C-USA. As far as why the legislature has any power in this situation? UT is a STATE school. The government controls their budget. This could turn into: take Baylor with you or we start putting $$ pressure on y'all.

2. A&M continues pushing its move to the SEC, possibly bringing Baylor along. Baylor's problem here is that the SEC might not want to divide their $$ into another piece of pie, since their TV contract doesn't end until around 2016, for a school that brings fewer eyeballs to the table.

3. Neb and Colorado leave the Big XII, the remaining ten schools fire the current commish for being useless, and add Utah, BYU, or Boise State. The reason this could still be a possibility? The Big XII has an auto bid to the BCS, and this is an insanely good bargaining chip for the B12. Also, 9 out of the 12 schools (very, very) recently voted for B12 solidarity, I am sure that you can guess the 3 northern schools that didn't vote for that. Then again, who knows?

This is by no means comprehensive, but these appear to be the main things floating around--maybe with an over-sprinkling of hope for Baylor, but hope springs eternal, right?