Oklahoma and Texas agree to pay the cash to ditch the Big 12a year ahead of schedule, giving us one final year of the SEC in its current form.
Oklahoma and Texas agreed to join the SEC in 2025, after the 2024 season which would have fulfilled their contractual obligations to the Big 12 and its broadcast agreements. Leaving early was always an option, but not without paying substantial fines for early departure. And those discussions seemed to break down as recently as early last week, with multiple reports citing unhappy TV execs as a reason OU and UT might stay put in the Big 12 until after the 2024 football and basketball seasons had concluded.
But money has a way of smoothing things over. And that’s what it took to get things moving. Texas and Oklahoma have agreed to pay a combined $100,000,000 in order to make the jump to the big boys’ conference one year ahead of schedule. That’s a huge sum to make a move that would have been free one year later, but at least part of those costs are expected to be covered by the increase in revenue earned by being in the SEC starting in 2024.
The SEC has been criticized for only playing 8 conference games. But with these jobs joining the conference, they may be poised to go to 9 conference games and no divisions.
– Mike G on The Morning Drop
It was an expected jump, and now we finally have a date. Life in the SEC will begin officially in August 2024 for Oklahoma and Texas. What does this mean for the SEC’s conference scheduling? How soon will these transplant teams be able to compete for an SEC title? Will either of them do better than 6-6 in year one?
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