Big Ten votes to add USC, UCLA as members starting in 2024 | Aaj Sport

Big Ten votes to add USC, UCLA as members starting in 2024

Southern California and UCLA were overwhelmingly approved by the Big Ten to join the conference in 2024.

The Big Ten decided on Thursday to welcome Southern California and UCLA as league members beginning in 2024, marking a stunning and dramatic change in collegiate athletics.

The Pac-12's current media rights agreements with Fox and ESPN expire following the expansion to 16 teams, making the Big Ten the first conference to span the Atlantic and Pacific.

The news came over a year after Texas and Oklahoma publicly accepted invitations to join the Southeastern Conference in July 2025, shocking the Pac-12.

USC and UCLA, who have both been members of the Pac-12 and its earlier incarnations for than a century, submitted membership applications, and the league's Council of Presidents and Chancellors unanimously decided to accept the Los Angeles schools, according to Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren.

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As we enter the next era of collegiate sports, the Big Ten is ultimately the greatest home for USC and Trojan athletics, according to USC athletic director Mike Bohn. "We are thrilled that the member institutions of the league share our ideals. Additionally, we will gain from the conference's stability and strength, the athletic calibre of Big Ten universities, the conference's ability to increase engagement with our devoted alumni across the country, and the increased visibility, exposure, and resources it will provide for our student-athletes and programmes.

The move enables the Big Ten to keep pace with the SEC as one of the most influential organisations in college sports by building on prior expansion into the country's top television areas.

The addition of USC and UCLA in basketball and football, as well as other prestigious programmes, will increase the value of the Big Ten's new media rights package, which is presently being negotiated.

The Pac-12 has had a long-standing, cordial relationship with the Big Ten, best demonstrated by its Rose Bowl cooperation. Losing prestigious universities like USC and UCLA is a serious setback for the conference.

We have a long and storied history in athletics, academics, and leadership in supporting student-athletes, which we're confident will continue to thrive and grow into the future, the Pac-12 said in a statement. Nevertheless, we are extremely surprised and disappointed by the news coming out of UCLA and USC today.

Unknown at this time, the Pac-12 could replace USC and UCLA by adding new schools.

The Pac-12 stated, "We look forward to working with current and potential members to jointly pioneer the future of college athletics."

Maryland and Rutgers joined the Big Ten in 2014, and Nebraska joined the conference in 2011.

USC and UCLA are academically compatible with the Big Ten. Both institutions are among the 65 institutions that make up the top research universities' association. Except for Nebraska, every Big Ten school is a member.

The decision, according to UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond, "will help safeguard the heritage of UCLA Athletics for generations to come, from improved visibility and a bigger national platform for our student-athletes to enhanced resources for our teams."
"We have much enjoyed being a part of the Pac-12, and we have a tremendous deal of respect for both the organisation and our fellow member universities, but every school has its own special problems and situations. We think UCLA made the correct decision at the right moment with this move.

Revenues at USC and UCLA might rise dramatically. The Pac-12 distributed the least amount of money per school among the Power 5 conferences in fiscal year 2021, at only $19.8 million. The SEC had the second-highest per-school allocation ($54.6 million), ahead of the Big Ten's $46.1 million.

The Big Ten Network is the most established conference network, whereas the Pac-12 has had trouble getting its conference television network untracked.

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In terms of publicity and rivalry, USC and UCLA would improve in football.

It has been challenging for the league to gain attention due to "Pac-12 After Dark" broadcast games that begin in the middle to late evenings in the majority of the country. Only two Pac-12 teams have participated in the College Football Playoff: Oregon in 2014 and Washington in 2015. (2016).

USC President Carol L. Folt stated that she and university administrators took into consideration the cross-country travel required to compete in the Big Ten. Lincoln, Nebraska, is currently the conference's westernmost institution, and it is over 1,500 miles from Los Angeles. The travel from LA to Rutgers, the easternmost Big Ten institution, takes almost 5 1/2 hours.

Folt added, "We are fortunate that we can work with the conference on travel and scheduling preparations over the next two years.

After Oklahoma and Texas joined the SEC in August, the Big Ten, Pac-12, and Atlantic Coast Conference teamed together. The conferences said that the 41 participants will plan the future of athletics in a cooperative manner. In order to boost player welfare, the three conferences have pooled resources and established scheduling agreements in various sports.

Less than a year later, with the Big Ten acquiring two of the Pac-12's most recognisable names, the alliance's future appeared dismal.

Long-standing league ties between USC and UCLA will be broken. In 1922, USC became a member of the Pacific Coast Conference along with California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington, and Washington State. UCLA followed in 1928.

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