Oklahoma and Texas are becoming a member of the SEC in 2024.
The Big 12 introduced Thursday night that the 2 faculties would depart for the SEC a 12 months sooner than scheduled. The announcement comes per week after reviews that it was “unlikely” Oklahoma and Texas can be leaving the convention earlier than 2025.
“As I’ve persistently said, the Conference would solely conform to an early withdrawal if it was in our greatest curiosity for Oklahoma and Texas to depart previous to June 30, 2025,” Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark stated in a press release. “By reaching this settlement, we are actually in a position to speed up our new starting as a 12-team league and transfer ahead in earnest with our initiatives and future planning. I admire the approaches of OU President Joe Harroz and UT President Jay Hartzell to make sure an amicable conclusion to this course of, and stay up for the brilliant days forward for the Big 12 Conference.”
A giant reported stumbling block for the negotiations for UT and OU to go away forward of the 2024 soccer season was the tv contracts the Big 12 at present has with ESPN and Fox. The latter community broadcasts a lot of the Big 12’s soccer schedule and Oklahoma and Texas are the 2 largest soccer manufacturers within the convention. Any potential points Fox had with an early departure have clearly been labored out a technique or one other.
The settlement for the 2 faculties to go away in 2024 is topic to approval from every faculty’s board of regents. But that’s a formality. As will the roughly $50 million every faculty will owe the Big 12 for leaving the convention early. The Big 12 stated that fee will be capable to be partially offset with future income from the SEC.
“We have at all times been dedicated to fulfilling our contractual obligations to the Big 12. The collegiate athletics panorama has continued to evolve quickly, and dealing collectively to speed up our exit produced advantages for all events,” Texas president Jay Hartzell stated. “The Big 12 has been a revered companion for practically three a long time, and we stay up for a ultimate season of spirited competitors with our mates and rivals. I admire Commissioner Yormark’s and Chairman Schovanec’s considerate method and the collaborative work towards an answer that prioritizes one of the best pursuits of all establishments.”
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With OU and UT leaving the Big 12 after the 2023-24 seasons, the Big 12 will play as a 14-team convention for only one soccer season. The convention introduced its schedule earlier this 12 months and the 2023 season would be the just one that features OU, UT, BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF as members of the convention.
The 2024 soccer season can also be the beginning of the SEC’s profitable TV contract with ESPN. Every SEC sport might be televised by an ESPN community — ESPN owns and operates the SEC Network — because the 2023 season is the ultimate 12 months of the convention’s take care of CBS.
The arrival of the 2 Big 12 faculties additionally means the SEC will seemingly rework its scheduling association forward of the 2024 soccer season now that it’ll have 16 members. SEC groups at present play six division video games and two video games every season in opposition to opponents from the opposite division. One of the cross-division matchups is an annual rivalry sport and the opposite rotates among the many division’s six different faculties. That signifies that a group like LSU solely performs Georgia as soon as each six seasons.
Oklahoma and Texas are heading to the SEC in 2024. (Photo by William Purnell/Icon Sportswire through Getty Images)
