UCLA, USC plan move to Big Ten

UCLA and Southern California are planning to leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten Conference in a surprising move that could lead to another major realignment of college sports.

According to reports Thursday on the discussions, the two universities and the Big Ten have taken steps to request an invitation to join the conference.

The move would come as soon as 2024, after the Pac-12’s current media rights contracts with Fox and ESPN expire, and increase the size of the Big Ten to 16 schools.

The decision by the Los Angeles schools — two of the NCAA’s most decorated athletic programs — comes almost a year after Oklahoma and Texas formally accepted invitations to join the Southeastern Conference in July 2025.

The Big Ten would become the first conference to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, build on previous expansion into the nation’s largest media markets and help the league keep pace with the SEC as one of the most powerful entities in college sports.

Big Ten leadership, including the council of presidents and chancellors, would still have to sign off on extending an invitation to the two schools.

The Big Ten has expanded twice in recent years, with Nebraska joining in 2011 and Maryland and Rutgers in 2014.

USC and UCLA fit the Big Ten’s academic profile. Both schools are among the 65 members of the Association of American Universities, which is made up of top research universities. All Big Ten schools except Nebraska are members.

The move to the Big Ten would greatly enhance USC and UCLA’s revenues.

The Pac-12 distributed only $19.8 million per school in fiscal year 2021, by far the least among Power Five conferences. The Big Ten’s per-school distribution was $46.1 million, second only to the SEC’s $54.6 million.

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