Washington, July 1 (BUS): In a surprising and seismic turn in college athletics, the Big Ten voted Thursday to add Southern California and UCLA as members of the conference starting in 2024.
The expansion to 16 teams will occur after the Pac-12’s current media rights contracts with Fox and ESPN expire and make the Big Ten the first conference to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The announcement, which took the Pac-12 by surprise, came nearly a year after Oklahoma and Texas formally accepted invitations to join the Southeast Conference in July 2025, according to the Associated Press.
Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said the USC and UCLA, both members of Pac-12 and its previous iterations for nearly a century, have submitted applications for membership and the university’s Council of Presidents and Chancellors voted unanimously to add Los Angeles schools.
The Big Ten builds on previous expansion into the nation’s largest media markets, and the move allows the conference to keep pace with the SEC as one of the most powerful entities in college sports.
The Big Ten will have Blueblood programs in football (USC), basketball (UCLA) and big-name brands that will enhance the value of the conference’s new media rights package that is currently being negotiated.
The loss of major schools like USC and UCLA is a huge blow to the Pac-12, which has had a long, friendly relationship with the Big Ten that is best illustrated by the Rose Bowl partnership.
USC and UCLA fit the Big Ten’s academic profile. Both schools are among the 65 members of the Association of American Universities, which consists of top research universities. All Big Ten schools except Nebraska are members.
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