THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Zags to the Big 12 might not be as crazy as it sounds

Suddenly, there’s hoopla about Gonzaga joining the Big 12.

Any form of the word “sudden” here, is being misused — because the Zags have been involved in chats with the Mountain West, the Pac-12 and the Big East, off and on, for some time.

Gonzaga is a glamor name, a fine university, and any conference could be proud to add the Jesuit school from Spokane to its footprint.

However …

It’s just a fact that somewhere around 80 percent of major conference athletic revenue comes from football.

Hardly a shock, then, that no big-time conference has courted — let alone added — a school that doesn’t play football.

In the brutal world of accounting, why would any conference that hopes to be awash in cash pursue someone whose only true calling card is basketball, even if it displays Final Four quality and shows up consistently in national rankings, and so on?

This sounds a little cold (which is how athletic directors sometimes must look at things), but if the Big 12 invited Gonzaga to the party, it would in the position of dividing revenue with one more school — without the Zags helping raise that pile of cash from football.

NO ONE responsible for raising and spending money at, say, Iowa State would be thrilled with that sort of deal.

That’s why, if one of the giant money-spinning conferences offered an invitation to Gonzaga, it would be more than stunning.

We’d be talking historic.

Perhaps when Zags athletic director Chris Standiford met Big 12 commish Brett Yormack in Texas last week, they talked about options.

I’m certainly not a CPA, but maybe Gonzaga could increase its revenue — which is mostly necessary for all sports beyond men’s basketball — by taking a reduced share of the pie when the Big 12 (or any other major conference) doles out the money.

Or maybe …

There’s a convoluted formula out there which would allow the Big 12 or the Pac-12 to share revenue from basketball ONLY, rather than handing Gonzaga (or anyone else) an equal piece of the whole pie.

My question about that formula, though, would come down to this: What’s in it for the Zags?

The program has reached almost unimaginable national heights, with a string of mega-profitable non-conference games available every season.

So …

Is continuing to play and dominate in the WCC hurting Gonzaga’s image (and income) across the wider spectrum of hoops?

We tend to think otherwise, but we’re sitting right in the shadow of a school that wins 30-plus games per year, draws a high seed in the NCAA tournament, and seriously aims to win the whole thing.

On the nation’s other coast, where a huge chunk of America lives and most gigantic financial decisions are made, it’s possible that Gonzaga is just a speck in that universe — a unique little program that pops up only in March.

Would people on the East Coast stay up to watch the Zags play a conference game against Texas Tech?

Out here in our lovely corner of the country, such snobbery from elsewhere seems absurd.

Gonzaga, after all, has played in two of the past five national championship games, and owns the longest streak of reaching the tournament’s Sweet 16.

But …

Does that mean anything to a guy flipping channels in New Jersey?

THERE’S NO question that a Big 12 basketball season with Gonzaga banging around with Kansas, Baylor, Texas and all the rest would be beneficial to all parties.

That is, the Big 12 adds a serious bit of glitz to its hoops TV package, and the Zags truly get tested as never before.

Let me repeat that word, though …

Historic.

For obvious reasons.

Gonzaga joining the Big 12 or the Pac-12 (which arguably might need it more, EXCEPT for that dividing-the-money problem) would be stunning, because it would prove that a small private university off in the country’s hinterlands made sense for one of the mega-conferences.

So far, that demographic includes a party of one …

Notre Dame.

The Irish, though, have that monstrous football history — I mean, there haven’t been any movies about Gonzaga heroes.

There’s no comparison to Notre Dame.

None.

In fact, there’s nothing even CLOSE to a Gonzaga comparison, either.

If these “talks” between Standiford and Yormack are yielding new accounting possibilities that would make a merger work for both sides, we’re all dying to hear it.

With the monstrous, sometimes silly amounts of TV and social media money floating around these days, though …

You wonder if someone actually has a new idea.

Nothing is out of the question.

Email: [email protected]

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press each week, Tuesday through Friday.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”