Brett Yormark's an idea man, and his latest is a doozy | Williams

Time spent on sports and other stuff keeps me from being a frequent movie goer, but "Night Shift" never disappoints, no matter how many viewings. When I caught the 1982 comedy for the umpteenth time a few months back, I surprised myself at all the lines I can still repeat almost verbatim.

Michael Keaton helps make "Night Shift" so memorable in his role as the quirky Bill Blazejowski, a self-described "idea man." Some nutty notion would hit him out of the blue — way to reduce garbage, edible paper — and the impractical dreamer would log it immediately into a tape recorder so as not to forget.

"What if you mix the mayonnaise in the can with the tuna fish?" Billy Blaze records, thinking out loud. "Or ... Hold it! ... Take live tuna fish and feed 'em mayonnaise! Oh, this is great.

"Call Starkist."

Brett Yormark is a sports version of Bill Blazejowski. He's an idea man, and he'll run anything up the flagpole. Here's his latest: The Big 12 is partnering with WWE to promote the conference championship game on Dec. 2. WWE Superstars will be "prominently featured and integrated" into events leading up to the game and on game day itself. A WWE wrestler will present a gaudy title belt on the field to the game's most outstanding player.

We'll see a co-branded Big 12 and WWE logo throughout AT&T Stadium and on the field.

Is that like mixing the mayonnaise into the can with the tuna fish? Is this where Yormark jumps the shark?

"WWE is a global brand that connects with a wide array of audiences," he said in the Big 12's announcement Thursday. "With this partnership, we will integrate WWE and its brand power into one of the conference's biggest moments, further strengthening the bridge between sports and entertainment throughout the Big 12."

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Like many American boys, professional wrestling was must-see TV for me on Saturday afternoons. Loved Dory Funk Jr., the recently deceased Terry Funk, Rapid Ricky Romero and more.

Then I turned 18.

You can't blame Yormark trying to think outside the box in his first 16 months as Big 12 commissioner. The Big 12 brought him in to pull out all the stops, hoping to revitalize a conference viewed as stale, stagnant, maybe even on the brink of dying. He's doing what he was asked to do conceptually, even if his presidents and ADs might not have envisioned what all that would entail.

Soon, you'll have sporting events south of the border as part of Big 12 Mexico. The conference has already sent its basketball coaches to New York to do youth clinics at Rucker Park. Conference championships in cities outside the Big 12 footprint such as Las Vegas are possible.

Maybe those are worthwhile efforts. Maybe the Big 12 commissioner is Brett Blazejowski.

One of the best ideas is one that has received the least attention: the Big 12 business advisory board. Announced a year ago this week, that group is made up of "some of the most successful leaders from a variety of fields — entertainment, finance, consumer brands, technology, media and more — that bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise in building global brands and dynamic businesses."

Their insights can't hurt, provided those three dozen or so men and women are truly engaged.

Again, to Yormark's credit, he's doing what he can to get the word out.

Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec has been a confidant of Yormark's since the latter's hiring in June 2022. I asked Schovanec recently, of Yormark's new ideas, which one or two he liked best.

"Here's my attitude about Brett when he would bring up new ideas," Schovanec said. "He was hired to bring us new ideas, and he was not a traditional athletic administrator who moved into that position. I tell him, 'You have tremendous capital.'

"I support every idea he has, because I think they're good ideas. He looks at the world of entertainment from a different perspective and lens than we're used to really using in athletics. And I think with all the challenges we have right now, we need to be pushed. I'm not going to start making a ranking of what I think is best. I would just say that I think, so far, he's hit on everything."

All the marketing and exploring new frontiers won't matter, though, unless the on-field product measures up. Perhaps Yormark can separately monetize the conference's basketball power in an unprecedented way.

The football played in the new Big 12, by the programs who'll make up the conference starting in 2024, leaves something to be desired. Among next year's members, the highest in this week's College Football Playoff ranking is Arizona at No. 17.

It'll take more than John Cena showing up at your championship game to change that.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Brett Yormark's an idea man, and his latest is a doozy | Williams