The pathetic thing is the tone coming from the Big 12 seems to be that of cold calling some bigger schools and gauging their interest. They were tepid on the schools that want in, they made that clear, but the tone seems to be that of pretending like a school is going to leave a power 5 conference to join them, which seems really silly. What this really means is they're going to pick up some lesser schools and call it a day.
I suppose the ACC deal did spook the Big 12, since it extended grant of rights decades into the future. They can put to rest the notion of adding Clemson and FSU (or the long shot of adding Notre Dame since from what I gather grant of rights applies to Notre Dame outside of football), so I guess they're realizing if they don't do something they might be stuck without being able to do anything.
I suppose the ACC deal did spook the Big 12, since it extended grant of rights decades into the future. They can put to rest the notion of adding Clemson and FSU (or the long shot of adding Notre Dame since from what I gather grant of rights applies to Notre Dame outside of football), so I guess they're realizing if they don't do something they might be stuck without being able to do anything.