Oklahoma, Texas to leave Big 12, join SEC in 2024 after negotiating early exit

Oklahoma and Texas have reached an settlement on a deal to exit the Big 12 one 12 months early and join the SEC in 2024, the convention stated Thursday.

The faculties will forfeit a mixed $100 million in income distribution, the Big 12 stated. The settlement is topic to remaining approval from the Oklahoma and Texas governing boards.

“As I have consistently stated, the conference would only agree to an early withdrawal if it was in our best interest for Oklahoma and Texas to depart prior to June 30, 2025,” Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark stated in a news release. “By reaching this agreement, we are now able to accelerate our new beginning as a 12-team league and move forward in earnest with our initiatives and future planning. I appreciate the approaches of OU president Joe Harroz and UT president Jay Hartzell to ensure an amicable conclusion to this process, and look forward to the bright days ahead for the Big 12 conference.”

The SEC set off a spherical of convention realignment when it invited Oklahoma and Texas to join its convention in July 2021. The introduced begin date for his or her membership was July 1, 2025. Leaders at each faculties declared they had been keen to wait till that date, when the Big 12’s grant of media rights expires, to transfer on.

The Athletic reported in December that there was rising momentum for an early separation and that discussions had been ongoing for a number of months. Big 12 bylaws required the 2 faculties to give an 18-month discover of departure and pay a buyout charge equal to two years of income distributions.

Oklahoma and Texas will now join the SEC in the identical 12 months that the convention’s new TV take care of ESPN will get underway, which can be the identical 12 months the College Football Playoff expands to a 12-team format and the 12 months USC and UCLA join the Big Ten. Starting subsequent summer time, the SEC will grow to be a 16-member convention.

The settlement additionally means the Big 12 might be a 14-member convention for under the 2023-24 college 12 months earlier than the Sooners and Longhorns depart. BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF had been invited to join the Big 12 in September 2021 and can formally grow to be members on July 1, 2023. Transition talks hit a snag late final week that left the early departures in doubt, however the Big 12 placing out a 2023 soccer schedule — as an alternative of schedules for 2023 and 2024 — was an indication that the league nonetheless anticipated to make a deal that might put Oklahoma and Texas in the SEC in July 2024.

One a part of the settlement that allowed the deal to attain completion entails an upcoming soccer sequence between Michigan and Texas, a supply with direct data of the association confirmed to The Athletic. The two will now play in Ann Arbor in 2024 — thereby making the sport broadcast by Fox — with the return recreation in Austin in 2027. The sequence had initially been scheduled in the alternative order.

Cincinnati, Houston and UCF had to negotiate an early exit from the AAC final 12 months, with every college agreeing to pay an $18 million buyout charge to their former convention.

What does an early exit imply for Oklahoma and Texas soccer?

Oklahoma and Texas have had 19 months to begin planning for his or her future in the SEC. Both applications have identified all alongside, too, that the move-in date would ideally get moved up. It’ll be fascinating to see simply how aggressive they’re straight away in their new convention.

Oklahoma had gained six consecutive Big 12 titles when it elected to join the SEC, however Brent Venables and his workers have a whole lot of work to do after enduring the Sooners’ first shedding season since 1998. Meanwhile, at Texas, Steve Sarkisian is getting into Year 3 and hoping to construct on the progress of an 8-5 season. The Longhorns and Sooners have constantly recruited at a high 5-10 stage and have five-star quarterback signees (Arch Manning and Jackson Arnold, respectively) to construct round for 2024 and past. But will both program be prepared to upset the order in the SEC and contend for a College Football Playoff spot by then?

How will the SEC change in 2024?

The SEC was already planning to drop its two-division format in soccer every time Oklahoma and Texas joined the convention. The subsequent resolution to make for 2024 is whether or not to transfer ahead with eight-game convention schedules that includes one everlasting opponent or shift to a nine-game convention slate with three everlasting opponents. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has stated they’ll “re-focus” on that call over the following few months.

Dropping its normal format of East and West divisions would imply the SEC’s high two groups will face off in its convention championship recreation beginning in 2024. The loser of that title recreation, although, would nearly be assured a spot in the 12-team CFP. Sankey is aiming to get as many SEC groups as attainable into the expanded Playoff and hopes the addition of Oklahoma and Texas can enhance these efforts.

What does it imply for the Big 12?

Yormark made it clear from the beginning of his tenure final July that he’d be keen to talk about an early exit for the 2 departing members if a deal made sense for all events. Yormark has critically explored the potential for additional Big 12 enlargement and has already negotiated a six-year extension of the Big 12’s media rights agreements with Fox and ESPN by means of 2030-31, a deal price greater than $2.2 billion.

The commissioner is set to get began on this new period for a convention that he has constantly defended as “bigger than two schools” — as TCU demonstrated by taking part in for a nationwide title in 2022 — so it’s no shock he and his board had been in the end keen to negotiate this separation. Yormark has an bold imaginative and prescient for his or her future and didn’t want the continued presence of Oklahoma and Texas to distract from these efforts for 2 extra years.

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(Photo: Tim Warner / Getty Images)