"Ten is the right number" of teams, University of Texas president Greg Fenves said in a statement on Monday's no-expansion decision by the Big 12.

Elsewhere in the state, the governor shared a Fox Sports article calling for the conference to apologize after having all these schools publicly plead for membership, then not even voting on any of them:

The Big 12 owes a lot of people an apology. It punted on expansion & shanked its future. @UHouston deserved better. https://t.co/DDQCmblAGS — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) October 18, 2016

"Ten is the right number" for a thing with "12" in its name, and the Big 12's hemming and hawing has inconvenienced people to the point of suits taking offense. In other words, the Big 12 remains the Big 12.

"Based on multiple sources, SB Nation can confirm at least six schools presented expansion candidacy in person with the league, although the total number is thought to be higher," Steven Godfrey wrote on Monday. "We've also obtained marketing materials sent to the Big 12 by Cincinnati, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UCF, and USF."

These things happen, and not paying these schools the courtesy of a token vote once expansion was clearly off the table isn't the most egregious of all snubs. And while this doesn't necessarily destroy the conference's future, it does leave the question of what happens once its current revenue-sharing deal ends in only eight years.

I'm just amazed the Big 12 managed to exploit a contract into more money by panicking for parts of three years about not making one edition of the College Football Playoff.

In 2014, Ohio State made it in over Baylor and TCU, prompting a crisis that led to Oklahoma's president calling the conference "psychologically disadvantaged" for its lack of an 11th team, a 12th team, and a conference title game, despite the fact that his own school made it into the next Playoff.

From there, the conference threw open the doors a year later, calling for schools to send pitches for evaluation. It then goofed its way into exploiting its contracts with ESPN and Fox, according to a Sports Illustrated report from before the announcement, thus making itself more money without doing anything.

Multiple sources indicated there have been discussions with the Big 12's TV partners to pay the league not to expand. The purpose of the payment would be to eliminate the pro rata clause in the TV contract — which the TV officials consider a loophole — that enables the league to receive nearly $25 million annually for every school it adds.

The Star-Telegram now writes:

The strategy amounts to legalized extortion via the threat of expansion. Big 12 officials would prefer to call it a contract negotiation and the extra financial bump will be tied to whatever figure the networks pay for rights to future Big 12 football championship games from the 2017 through 2024 seasons. How much is the Big 12 being paid not to expand? That number is yet to be determined.

A frantic idea that goes nowhere and ends up making certain people richer: the Big 12 is, as always, the definitive college athletics conference.

And just in case you think the Big 12 is done doing silly things for money:

Big 12 ADs looking at football breakdown in 2017 for title game, divisions or no divisions or shifting divisions. Could decide by Nov. 1. — Chuck Carlton (@ChuckCarltonDMN) October 18, 2016

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