What you need to know about OU’s early Big 12 exit
The Big 12 announced Thursday night that the league had reached an agreement with OU and Texas for those schools to depart for the Southeastern Conference a year early.
Here's a breakdown of the highlights of the announcement and what it means:
When will OU and Texas leave for the SEC?
In time for the 2024 football season, a year earlier than the league's grant of rights contract with the schools and television deal called for.
Does this affect the recently released 2023 Big 12 football schedule?
No. That schedule remains the same. The Sooners play three of the four new teams in the league, hosting Central Florida and traveling to Cincinnati and BYU.
How much will it cost OU and Texas?
The schools will forgo a combined $100 million in distributable revenue that will go largely to the eight Big 12 schools remaining from before the Sooners and Longhorns departed. So new members BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati, and Houston won't be a part of that revenue influx. The Big 12 announcement said OU and Texas would be able to partially offset that amount with future revenues.
How does this affect the Big 12’s television deal?
That remains to be seen. One of the biggest holdups, according to multiple reports, was how to compensate Fox for the loss of OU and Texas games in 2024 (expected to be six to eight games). How that was resolved remains unclear but Fox is expected to receive compensation either financially or with additional inventory to make up for the loss. That could include Fox getting games that would otherwise go to ESPN, including non-conference games featuring the departing schools.
What will the SEC football schedule look like in 2024?
That remains up in the air, but the SEC is expected to move to a nine-game conference schedule. The league isn't expected to be broken up by divisions, with each team having three permanent opponents with the other 12 members rotating on the schedule. Under this format, every member will play every other team in the league at least twice every four years.
When will that be determined?
The Sooners and Longhorns don't figure to have to wait nearly as long to find out their 2024 schedules as they did for 2023. The schedule for what ultimately turned out to be the only season with OU and Texas and the four new members was released just last week. The SEC announced its 2023 schedule in late September. The league's athletic directors — including OU's Joe Castiglione and Texas' Chris Del Conte — met last week and continue to work toward a scheduling format. The format could be determined when the group convenes again in March.
What does this mean for Bedlam?
The 2023 edition — scheduled Nov. 4 for Stillwater — figures to be the last for awhile at least. The schools could continue to meet in other sports, but it's hard to see the football series resuming in the near future.
How much will OU and Texas make in the SEC?
The exact figure remains to be seen, but USA Today reported Thursday that the SEC had revenue of just more than $802 million for the year ending Aug. 31, 2022. The per-school distributions came out to be about $49.9 million per school, down about $4.7 million from the distributions the conference reported in the 2021 fiscal year. That amount is expected to grow with the additions of OU and Texas and the beginning of the SEC's new television deal with ESPN. The SEC is the first of the Power Five conferences to release its tax records for the 2022 fiscal year. Last year, the Big 12 announced an average distribution of $42.6 million per school.
What does this mean for the Big 12?
The league can move forward with its future, which includes not only the newest four members but also could include future expansion. The league has courted basketball power Gonzaga and could target Pac 12 programs as well. In the short term, the new schools agreed to take a smaller cut of the revenue distribution in their first two years in the league, and that $100 million from OU and Texas figures to assure that the eight “legacy” Big 12 members won't take a financial hit in 2024 at least.
How has OU football fared against SEC schools?
The Sooners are 110-49-8 all-time against schools currently in the SEC, with Missouri being OU's most-played opponent in the league, by far, as the teams shared a conference for much of their history. The Sooners are 67-24-5 against the Tigers. OU is 19-12 against Texas A&M. Among the historical SEC programs, the Sooners have played everyone but Mississippi State and South Carolina.
Here is the Sooners' record against the other SEC teams, with the season the teams last played:
h Alabama: 3-2-1 (2018)
h Arkansas: 10-4-1 (2001)
h Auburn: 2-0 (2016)
h Florida: 1-1 (2020)
h Georgia: 0-1 (2017)
h Kentucky: 2-1 (1982)
h LSU: 1-2 (2019)
h Ole Miss: 0-1 (1999)
h Tennessee: 3-1 (2015)
h Vanderbilt: 2-0-1 (1977)