Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said he believes the conference has to be constantly improving after getting left out of the first College Football Playoff. That doesn’t necessarily mean making the 10-team league bigger through expansion. “We have to recruit better. We have to develop better. We have to play better,” Bowlsby said Monday in his annual address to open football media days. “We have to win the big games when we have a chance to win the big games.” But Bowlsby doesn’t see the league at any real disadvantage with only 10 teams, despite Oklahoma President David Boren suggesting in the last month that the Big 12 is “psychologically disadvantaged” as the smallest of the five power conferences and should strive to again have 12 teams. It would be the presidents and chancellors — not Bowlsby or the athletic directors — who would make any ultimate decisions on possible expansion. The Big 12, going into its fifth season since reducing from 12 to 10 teams, is the only one of the five power conferences with a full round-robin schedule and no championship game. Also, a new tiebreaker procedure has been put in place after Baylor and TCU were declared co-champions last season — and both one-loss teams got left out of the playoffs. “We’ve put in place a tiebreaker that will ensure that not only do all of our schools play each other, but the title isn’t going to be decided by who you didn’t play,” Bowlsby said.
BASKETBALL
WNBA’s Shock may leave Tulsa
Tulsa Shock majority owner Bill Cameron announced plans Monday to move the WNBA franchise to the Dallas-Fort Worth market as early as next season. Cameron said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press that he hoped the WNBA Board of Governors would vote as soon as possible on the relocation, though the team will finish this season in Tulsa. He said he was proud of the effort by the community since the team moved from Detroit before the 2010 season. There is still hope for Tulsa; the league’s 12-member board needs to approve the request by majority vote. And not all the team’s owners want to leave. Cameron holds a majority stake, as does David Box, and there are 11 minority owners as well. One of the minority owners, Stuart Price, filed a lawsuit against Cameron on Monday in Tulsa County District Court in hopes that the team will be forced to stay. Tulsa thought it was bringing a winner to town, but most of the players from the powerhouse Detroit teams that won three WNBA titles didn’t move with the team, and the Shock went 6-28 in their first year in Tulsa. In the second year, the team went 3-31. The Shock went 9-25 in 2012, 11-23 in 2013 and 12-22 in 2014. The on-court struggles were reflected at the gate. According to the Sports Business Journal, attendance has been last in the league the past four years. Tulsa is 10-7 and in third place in the Western Conference.
MOTOR SPORTS
Two Spanish riders killed
Two Spanish racers were killed in a chain-reaction crash on the first lap of a World Superbike race. The deaths occurred Sunday at Mazda Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., Monterey County sheriff’s spokesman Cmdr. John Thornburg said. MotoAmerica spokesman Paul Carruthers said there were 28 riders in the race and thousands of spectators in the stands when five competitors collided on the first lap. Riders were tossed into the dirt to the side of the track. The sheriff ’s office is not investigating the crash at the MotoAmerica Superbike/Superstock 1000 race, which appeared to be an accident, he said. The track was dry during the race, Carruthers said. Carruthers declined to comment on whether MotoAmerica, which organizes the race, will investigate. MotoAmerica identified the riders killed as Bernat Martinez, 35, of Alberic, Valencia, Spain; and Daniel Rivas Fernandez, 27, of Moana Galicia, Spain. Both were taken to hospitals, where they died. Track spokesman David Hart said four other riders were treated at the track and released. Their names were not released.
HOCKEY
Quebec, Vegas submit bids
Prospective ownership groups from Quebec City and Las Vegas submitted expansion application bids to the NHL before the league’s 4 p.m. deadline Monday. The deadline was set as part of the NHL’s first phase of their formal expansion process. Ownership groups had to pay $10 million, $2 million of which is nonrefundable. None of the three known groups interested in bringing a team to Seattle submitted a bid. If the NHL wants to expand by 2017-2018, the league may have only two options. Las Vegas Hockey Vision, the group led by Bill Foley that includes the Maloof family, formally submitted a bid, according to ESPN.com. Quebecor, a Canadian telecommunications company that also owns TVA Sports — the NHL rights holder for French-language TV — among other holdings, also confirmed it has formally submitted a bid. The company also specifically noted that their aim is to bring the Quebec Nordiques back to the city. The Nordique moved to Denver ahead of the 1995-1996 season and are now known as the Colorado Avalanche. A Las Vegas team would play in a new arena currently being built by AEG and MGM Resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. The arena holds about 18,000 for hockey. The Videotron Centre in Quebec City was recently completed and like Las Vegas, will be able to hold 18,000.