Big 12 Mailbag: ESPN Selling CFP Games, Softball Growing in Popularity, Plus Drama in the League
Heartland College Sports: The Big 12 Sports Podcast
Pete Mundo
4.8 • 870 Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this Big 12 mailbag episode, Heartland College Sports' Pete Mundo runs down the top Big 12, college football and other top college sports stories of the week, plus your mailbag questions!
0:00 Intro
0:30 ESPN Selling CFP Games?
5:45 College Softball is On Fire
11:00 Will Texas Tech ever Play Texas again in football?
17:31 2027 Recruiting Question
21:37 Brendan Sorsby's Latest
24:01 Breaking News ON the Show
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We've got ESPN selling college football playoff games. |
| 0:04.9 | What the heck is going on here? |
| 0:06.7 | I'm Pete Mundo. |
| 0:07.5 | We're Heartland College Sports. |
| 0:08.8 | We cover the Big 12, and we are so grateful that you are here joining us on the show. |
| 0:14.1 | Please make sure that you are liking the video right now as you're rolling in and subscribe as well. |
| 0:20.0 | So we'll get your questions here on the mailbag on this show. |
| 0:23.5 | But where I want to start, because a lot of you emailed me about this, is ESPN. |
| 0:28.6 | And what the heck's going on? |
| 0:30.9 | It's one of two things as far as I can tell. |
| 0:34.5 | All right? |
| 0:35.1 | Either they can make a fortune by selling playoff games or they've got budget issues |
| 0:42.5 | and they overpaid for the college football playoff. |
| 0:46.0 | And now ESPN is potentially trying to recoup some of that money. |
| 0:51.0 | It's one of those two things that's going on here. |
| 0:53.9 | So this came out on Monday |
| 0:55.6 | because the college football playoff announced its dates, its kickoff times, and broadcast |
| 1:02.0 | information for the upcoming college football playoff. And remember, the college football |
| 1:07.2 | playoff and ESPN agreed to a deal through 2031-22 back in March of 24. |
| 1:13.3 | So we're going into the third year of this deal since it was renegotiated two and a half years ago. |
| 1:19.9 | And at the time, it was the playoff and ESPN agreed to a new six-year $7.8 billion contract to ensure the network remains the sole media |
| 1:30.8 | rights holder of the event through the 231-22 season. |
... |
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