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Pete Thamel, ESPN
The Big 12 is rapidly getting bigger, as the school’s presidents and chancellors voted unanimously to formally add Utah and Arizona State on Friday night.
They are expected to be introduced soon along with Arizona, which was approved on Friday. The only obstacle remaining is a University of Utah Board of Trustees vote, which is expected to happen Friday.
When the three schools go official, it will bump up the league’s membership to 16 teams beginning in the 2024-25 academic year.
Both Utah and Arizona State applied for membership prior to the vote, per ESPN sources, a necessary first step for schools to be approved to switch leagues.
The announcement could come as soon as the next 24 hours, as there’s an urgency on both sides to push through after a chaotic day that saw Oregon and Washington leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten.
The move crystalizes what will be remembered as a dizzying spiral for the Pac-12, which began Friday morning with optimism about the league’s presidents and chancellors agreeing to the schools’ grant of rights for a new television contract.
It’s expected to end the day with just four members, as Oregon and Washington were announced as officially in the Big Ten on late Friday afternoon. Colorado announced last week it was leaving for the Big 12.
With USC and UCLA announcing their exit last year, it’s expected that eight total schools have left the league in a span of nearly 18 months. Soon after taking over the Big 12 in June of 2022, Commissioner Brett Yormark began targeting the so-called “corner schools” for membership.
The key strategic maneuver to get to this point came when he opened up the exclusive negotiation window early with both FOX and ESPN and essentially jumped the Pac-12 in line for a television contract extension. At the time, the Big 12 had one more year remaining, but that move switched the expected chronological order and ended up charting a course that reshaped the entire landscape of college sports.
The Pac-12’s struggles to get a financially competitive television deal in the wake of that move led to this day. The primary streaming deal from Apple wasn’t enough to save the league.
Once the final three Corner Schools are formalized, it will build the Big 12 out to a 16-team conference. It would be the same size as the SEC and two smaller than the 18-team Big Ten. The ACC has 14 full-time football members.