What was the deal that kept Oklahoma in the big 12 because I knew mizzou was ready to leave at a moments notice and would be a big 10 team had Nebraska not seen the writing on the wall. I just remember after aTm announced their intentions Oklahoma explored the PAC 12, but didn't want to go to the SeC because of academics. So was it just an act of them trying to leave or was Oklahoma also wanting to get away from Texas ?
This happened in a few stages, and if break it down piece by piece you really do see how Texas is terrible for their conference.
The initial discussions had Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Texas Tech (I believe), and Colorado all leaving to form a Pac-16. You'll notice, this included dumping Baylor, Missouri, Kansas, etc... Texas appeared to be the ringleader in this.
Now, prior to that the Big 10 kind of got the ball rolling, by peeling off Nebraska, but that largely had to do with how Texas had messed up the Big-12. Headquarters had been moved to Texas, Nebraska lost their rivalry game, the revenue sharing was unequal, etc... Oklahoma for their part chose to be Texas' sidekick. They were getting a big share of the revenue, they were getting Texas recruits, and I guess they decided to tie their fate to Texas, and push Nebraska and their own identity aside.
As a response to what was going on, Missouri flirted with the Big 10, but the Big 10 knew they had their pick and wasn't in a hurry to move beyond the single addition at the time. Now, myself and others, (Texas A&M fans, you name it) started to think about how may be the SEC was a better fit for A&M. This is where things got weird though, because apparently the SEC also flirted with Oklahoma as well (a move, that in this era makes very little sense).
Now, no one can really say for sure what happened from there. Texas didn't like the Pac's network deal, but as much as anything the threat of having to leave one of their sidekicks behind (which would expose them a bit more) probably scared them off of making the move. At the time though, the Big-12 was thought to be dead, but a lifeline was thrown to the conference and the reports were that behind the scenes people decided they didn't want to see that domino fall. The new deal, though built on uneven revenue sharing and bolstered by buyout money, promised to cut in Texas A&M at the top rate, and for a little while at least equal what the SEC would be paying. So, they held things together.
This worked for a bit, then it came out that the Longhorn Network was going to broadcast a Big-12 conference game. Now, I didn't figure out why that was allowed, but imagine how the entire conference took it. Texas was selling other team's games as their own, that's messed up and they managed somehow to pull that off. From there, the SEC just had to finally see common sense and go pick up A&M and Missouri.
Oklahoma and Texas have decided for better or worse that their fates should be tied together. Texas doesn't care about other programs, they never have, they don't even care about Oklahoma. They do, however feel very self important and having Oklahoma follow them around seems to cater to that. Oklahoma? They're a tiny state, Texas players make up almost half their roster, Texas provides a much larger audience. I suppose they feel as long as they're relevant in Texas, they're relevant period.