Brett Yormark to step down as Big 12 commissioner in January 2027

Brett Yormark is leaving the Big 12 Conference. The league announced on Friday, 30 October 2026, that its commissioner will step down on 31 January 2027, ending a four-and-a-half-year run that began when the conference looked to be in serious trouble and ended with it stable, bigger and richer than when he arrived.

Yormark, 60, was the fifth commissioner in the history of the Big 12. He took the job on 1 August 2022, after the league’s two biggest names, Texas and Oklahoma, had confirmed they were leaving for the Southeastern Conference. At the time, many people in college sport wondered whether the Big 12 could survive as a major conference at all. By the time he leaves, it will have 16 members and a television deal worth $2.28 billion.

The announcement surprised many people, because there had been no public sign that Yormark was planning to go. He was under contract through the 2029-30 academic year, after the league’s board gave him a three-year extension in May 2025, so he is walking away with more than three years left on his deal. The league said a national search for his successor will begin immediately, led by the Big 12 Board of Directors. Reports said he is expected to take a job outside college sport, although no new role had been announced.

Yormark said he was leaving on his own terms. “When I accepted this job, my goal was to put this conference on an upward trajectory and truly believe that the future of the conference could not be in better shape,” he said in a statement. “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.”

At a glance

What happened: Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark will step down on 31 January 2027, the league announced on 30 October 2026.

Why it matters: Yormark rebuilt the league after Texas and Oklahoma left, adding eight schools and signing a $2.28 billion television deal.

What happens next: A national search for the next commissioner begins immediately, led by the Big 12 Board of Directors, while Yormark stays on through the football championship game and bowl season.

The announcement

The news broke on Friday, 30 October, when the Big 12 published a short statement from its headquarters in Irving, Texas. It described Yormark’s time in charge as “one of the most consequential periods since the league was formed 32 years ago” and said he had guided it to “unprecedented stability, success, and growth”.

The statement carried warm words from Douglas A. Girod, the chancellor of the University of Kansas and chair of the Big 12 Board of Directors. “When Brett arrived, we were at a crossroads in the Big 12 and as a college sports enterprise,” Girod said. “Brett’s vision, business acumen, and confidence put us on the path we find ourselves on today.”

Yormark thanked the board, the league’s athletic directors, coaches, players and fans, and the staff at the league office. “Serving as the commissioner of the Big 12 Conference has been an extraordinary honor,” he said. “I am looking forward to passing the baton to the next commissioner and continuing to cheer this league on as a lifelong fan of the Big 12.”

The timing matters. Yormark will stay in the job until 31 January 2027, which keeps him in place through the end of the college football season, including the Big 12 Championship Game and the bowl games that follow.

An outsider who arrived at a crossroads

Yormark was an unusual choice when the Big 12 hired him in June 2022. He had almost no background in running college sport. He came from the world of professional sport and entertainment, and that was exactly what attracted the league’s presidents.

He started his career in sport in 1988, working in the ticket office of the New Jersey Nets basketball team after graduating in business from Indiana University. He went on to work for NASCAR, where he rose to vice president of corporate marketing and helped negotiate a $750 million sponsorship deal with the mobile phone company Nextel, which at the time was the biggest deal of its kind in the sport’s history.

In 2005, he became chief executive of the Brooklyn Nets and the company that ran the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, New York. Over 14 years there, he oversaw the team’s move from New Jersey to Brooklyn and the opening of the new arena in 2012, turning the Nets from a struggling team into a global brand. He left the Nets in 2019 and joined Roc Nation, the entertainment company founded by the rapper Jay-Z, where he served as chief operating officer and co-chief executive of its commercial arm.

He arrived at a frightening moment. Texas and Oklahoma, the Big 12’s two most famous and most valuable members, had announced in 2021 that they would leave for the Southeastern Conference, known as the SEC. Those two schools brought the biggest television audiences, the biggest stadiums and the most history. Without them, the Big 12 risked being left behind by the SEC and the Big Ten, the two conferences that were pulling away from everyone else in money and power. His predecessor, Bob Bowlsby, had already started the repair work by inviting four new schools to join, but it was Yormark who had to finish the job and keep the remaining eight schools together.

The television deal that steadied the league

His first big move came fast. Within about three months of starting, Yormark opened talks with the television networks ESPN and Fox more than a year before the league’s exclusive negotiating window was due to begin. The gamble paid off. In October 2022, the Big 12 agreed a six-year, $2.28 billion extension of its television rights deal with ESPN and Fox, running through the 2030-31 season. The deal was worth about $380 million a year on average, and its timing was just as important as its size.

By locking in its television money early, the Big 12 removed the biggest doubt hanging over it. Schools that might have looked for a way out now had a reason to stay. Just as importantly, the early deal left the Pac-12, a rival conference on the west coast, exposed. The Pac-12 could not match the Big 12’s deal, and within a year it had effectively collapsed as a major conference.

Eight new members and a 16-team league

Yormark oversaw the arrival of eight new members during his time in charge, the biggest expansion in the league’s history. The first four, Brigham Young University (BYU), Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida (UCF), had been invited before he arrived but joined in 2023 under his watch. The next four came in the summer of 2023, when Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah all agreed to leave the Pac-12 and join the Big 12. They started playing in the league in 2024.

At the same time, Yormark agreed to let Texas and Oklahoma leave a year early, in 2024, calling the arrangement a win for everyone involved. The early exit brought the league an agreement on money and scheduling, and it let the Big 12 move on with its new line-up instead of spending another year in limbo.

The result is the 16-team league Yormark described as “16 Strong”: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Christian University (TCU), Texas Tech, UCF, Utah and West Virginia. The league now stretches from Florida to Utah and from Arizona to West Virginia, covering ten states. It is a very different map from the old Big 12, which was centred on Texas and the Great Plains.

Not every idea for growth worked. Yormark pushed to add the University of Connecticut and Gonzaga University, but the league’s board did not approve either move. Those misses are a reminder that a commissioner can propose, but the university presidents dispose. Still, the overall record on expansion is the strongest part of his legacy: the league he inherited had ten members and was losing its two biggest; the league he leaves has 16.

Money, players and the new rules of college sport

Yormark’s time in charge coincided with the biggest changes to college sport in a generation, and he was in the middle of all of them. The old model, in which players were amateurs who could not be paid, was swept away. In its place came a new world of name, image and likeness deals, in which players can earn money from sponsorships, and revenue sharing, in which schools can pay players directly.

The Big 12’s own statement credits Yormark with playing a trusted role in the national talks around the House settlement, the court agreement that reshaped how college sport handles player pay; the creation of the College Sports Commission, the new body set up to oversee the settlement; the Protect College Sports Act, a bill in Congress aimed at giving college sport a single set of national rules; and the expansion of the College Football Playoff.

The playoff is a good example of how the job changed. When Yormark arrived, the playoff had four teams. It has since grown to 12, and Sports Illustrated reported on the day of his departure that a further expansion, to 24 teams in 2027, was close to being agreed. A bigger playoff means more places, more money and more arguments about who deserves to be in. The Big 12, which has often felt it gets less respect than the SEC and the Big Ten, has fought hard for a fair share of those places.

Yormark also broke new ground on how a conference raises money. This spring, the Big 12 became the first major conference to approve a league-wide private capital deal, a five-year partnership with the investment firms RedBird Capital Partners and Weatherford Capital. According to Sports Illustrated, the deal sent $12.5 million to the conference office and offered each school a line of credit of up to $30 million. Private investment in college sport was once unthinkable. Now it is a real source of money for schools facing rising costs, including payments to players.

What happens next

The search for the next commissioner starts now, and it will be watched closely across American college sport. The Big 12 Board of Directors will lead it, and the new commissioner will inherit a league that is stable but still faces hard questions.

The first is money. Even with its $2.28 billion television deal, the Big 12 earns considerably less from television than the SEC and the Big Ten, whose deals are worth far more. That gap affects everything, from how much schools can spend on coaches to how much they can pay players. Closing it, or at least stopping it from growing, will be the new commissioner’s biggest task.

The second is the playoff. If the competition does grow to 24 teams, the Big 12 will want guarantees that its champion and its best teams get a fair chance. The details of that format, including whether conference championship games survive, are still being argued over. The third is the wider state of college sport: Congress has not yet passed a national law on player pay, the rules differ from state to state, and the College Sports Commission is still new. The next commissioner will need to keep pushing for the national rules the Big 12 has been asking for, while protecting the interests of 16 very different universities.

For Yormark, the next step is unclear, although he has said he will announce his future plans in the coming weeks. What is clear is that he leaves at a moment of his own choosing, with the league in a far stronger place than he found it.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Brett Yormark?

Brett Yormark is the commissioner of the Big 12 Conference, one of the major college sports leagues in the United States. He took the job on 1 August 2022, after working as chief operating officer of the entertainment company Roc Nation and, before that, as chief executive of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team and the Barclays Center arena.

Why is Brett Yormark leaving the Big 12?

The Big 12 announced on 30 October 2026 that Yormark will step down on 31 January 2027. Yormark said he was leaving because he felt he had put the conference on an upward path and that its future was in good shape.

When does Brett Yormark actually leave?

He stays in the job until 31 January 2027. That means he will still be commissioner through the end of the college football season, including the Big 12 Championship Game and the bowl games that follow, before handing over to his successor.

Who will replace Brett Yormark?

No successor has been named. The Big 12 Board of Directors has begun a national search immediately. The new commissioner will be the sixth in the league’s history.

What did Brett Yormark achieve as Big 12 commissioner?

His biggest achievements were signing a six-year, $2.28 billion television deal with ESPN and Fox in 2022, and expanding the league to 16 teams by adding BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, UCF, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.

How many teams are in the Big 12 now?

There are 16 full members: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech, UCF, Utah and West Virginia.

What is the Big 12 Conference?

The Big 12 is a college sports conference in the United States, made up of 16 universities. Its teams compete against each other in sports including American football, basketball, baseball and many others. The league says it was formed 32 years ago, and Yormark was its fifth commissioner.

Conclusion

Brett Yormark’s departure closes one of the most eventful chapters in the Big 12’s history. He arrived as an outsider from the entertainment world, at a moment when the league looked vulnerable, and he leaves as the commissioner who rebuilt it into a 16-team conference with its finances secured and its future mapped out.

The next commissioner will face a different set of problems: a bigger playoff to shape, a gap in television money to close, and a sport still waiting for clear national rules on paying players. Whoever gets the job will start from a much stronger position than Yormark did in August 2022. That, more than any single deal or decision, is his legacy.

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.

Sources

• https://big12sports.com/news/2026/10/30/general-commissioner-brett-yormark-to-leave-big-12-conference.aspx (Big 12 Conference, 30 October 2026)
• https://frontofficesports.com/article/brett-yormark-stepping-down-as-big-12-commissioner-after-4-years/ (Front Office Sports, 30 October 2026)
• https://srnnews.com/big-12-commissioner-brett-yormark-leaving-on-jan-31/ (SRN News, Field Level Media, 30 October 2026)
• https://www.si.com/fannation/college/cfb-hq/news/big-12-commissioner-brett-yormark-makes-surprise-decision-leave-conference (Sports Illustrated, 30 October 2026)
• https://big12sports.com/sports/2022/7/31/BrettYormarkBio.aspx (Big 12 Conference, Brett Yormark biography)
• https://247sports.com/Article/big-12-conference-names-roc-nations-brett-yormark-as-league-commissioner-189394980/ (247Sports, 29 June 2022)