IRVING, Texas — Dealing a combination of crushing blows to the Pac-12, The Big 12 Conference announced Arizona, Arizona State and Utah as new members, completing its raid of the Pac-12.
Earlier Friday, the Big Ten announced it will accept Oregon and Washington as new members next August after stealing USC and UCLA in 2022.
“Our student-athletes will participate at the highest level of collegiate athletic competition, and our alumni, friends, and fans will be able to carry the spirit of Oregon across the country,” Oregon President John Karl Scholz said.
With the Ducks and Huskies, too, the Big Ten will be an 18-team conference, the largest in college sports, spanning 15 states from New Jersey to Washington.
“The Big Ten is a thriving conference with strong athletic and academic traditions, and we are excited and confident about competing at the highest level on a national stage,” Washington President Ana Mari Cauce said.
The additions of the Arizona schools and Utah this week and Colorado last week, give the Big 12 16 schools, stretching from Florida to Arizona. The University of Houston is also in the Big 12, which is losing the University of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC.
Meanwhile, the Pac-12 continues to crumble and is now down to four members beyond this year: Stanford, California, Oregon State and Washington State.
“We are disappointed with the recent decisions by some of our Pac-12 peers," Washington State President Kirk Schulz and athletic director Pat Chun said Friday before its Apple Cup rival announced it was leaving, "While we had hoped that our membership would remain together, this outcome was always a possibility, and we have been working diligently to determine what is next for Washington State athletics. We’ve prepared for numerous scenarios, including our current situation.”
Less than two weeks ago, Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti said his presidents and chancellors wanted to him to focus on USC and UCLA’s transition to the Big Ten and not more expansion. Now, the Pac-12's two biggest remaining brands and perennial football powers are heading for a new home. Their closest conference neighbor, the University of Nebraska, will be more than a 1,600-mile drive away.
Oregon and Washington will receive a reduced payout, Scholz confirmed, compared to current Big Ten members and to USC and UCLA, which are projected to receive more than $60 million each in media rights revenue from the league starting next year. A person familiar with the negotiations said the Ducks and Huskies would receive about $30 million per year for its first six years in the conference, with annual escalators and the ability to draw on future payments.
Washington was a charter member of the Pacific Coast Conference in 1916, the organization that eventually became the Pac-8, then 10, then 12. Oregon joined what was then the Athletic Association of Western Universities in 1964. USC's history in the league dates to 1922, UCLA's to 1928.
While the USC and UCLA decisions to leave started the Pac-12's demise, last fall's move by the Big 12 to get an early extension of its media rights deals with ESPN and Fox was key.
That left a thin market for Kliavkoff and the Pac-12, which ended up with the streaming-heavy proposal with Apple that would have left its schools lagging behind other Power Five conferences in revenue.
