Texas Tech baseball will host Sam Houston State for the weekend and Texas Tech sort of needs to sweep, which will not be easy. All games will be on ESPN+.

• Friday, May 5th @ 6:30 p.m.: LHP Mason Molina (4-2, 3.70 ERA) vs. RHP Coltin Atkinson (7-2, 3.16 ERA)
• Saturday, May 6th @ 2:00 p.m.: RHP Trendan Parish (3-0, 4.76 ERA) vs. LHP Steven Beard (5-3, 5.34 ERA)
• Sunday, May 7th @ 1:00 p.m.: TBA vs. LHP Gavi Coldiron (2-2, 6.25 ERA)

Progress.

The ladies golf team will be in Pullman from May 8th through the 10th to start their NCAA regional, the 6th seed out of 12 teams. The men’s team is in Norman as the No. 1 seed, but they don’t start until May 15th through the 17th.

I’m not going to lie, I sort of miss Ric Renner and here’s 50 minutes of Renner interviewing Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire. To hear McGuire talk about all he’s thinking about his how to beat Sonny Dykes and Chris Klieman is terrific.

CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd reports that ESPN is out as a media partner, the news arrived as ESPN informed that the Big 12 was one of three conferences they would air, the other two being the SEC and ACC. As far as the future, the Pac-12 is still looking and the Big 12 is waiting:

Oregon and Washington remain the Pac-12’s biggest brands with USC and UCLA departing the conference. What is not known is what those Pac-12 top tier games would look like. CBS Sports ranked the top-rated Pac-12 games on TV combined in 2021 and 2022 not including USC and UCLA. Oregon and/or Washington appeared in four of the top-five rated games.

In its new deal, Big 12 schools will average $31.7 million base revenue annually. With a $300 million rights deal, Pac-12 teams would receive $30 million annually.

Sources would not indicate an exact figure that would keep Pac-12 schools from considering a Big 12 move. Arizona president Robert Robbins has similarly declined to provide a number. However, informed speculation suggests the Pac-12 landing within 10% of the Big 12 figure — approximately $28.5 million — may be enough to keep the league together.

It is well known that Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark prefers some combination of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah as his league continues to explore expansion. Sources have indicated for months that there has been at least informal contact between those parties.

SI’s Ross Dellinger also reports that the Big 12 is considering all sorts of in-game additions, including additional interviews, additional access, etc.

Modernizing game broadcasts is a small piece of a larger plan that first-year commissioner Brett Yormark is leading. Coming to college sports from an entertainment agency, Yormark enters with an innovative agenda that he hopes will propel the conference. In his first few months on the job, the league plans to play conference games in Mexico, has somewhat rebranded the league and plans a concert tour of music acts.

The broadcasts of professional sports games have continuously evolved as leaders look to keep the attention of younger audiences in this social media world. More networks have started to expand access to interviews and locker rooms, but college sports have, for the most part, remained the same.