The Big 12 is in the process of finalizing its football schedules for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. The conference is working on a rotation for a 14-team conference slate that will include new additions BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF as well as Texas and Oklahoma, which have two more seasons in the Big 12 before joining the SEC ahead of the 2025 campaign.
The nine-game conference schedules will feature a temporary two-year rotation that allows all 14 teams to play one another at least once, according to CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd. There will be permanent opponents set for both seasons without key rivalries being interrupted.
The Big 12 will not play divisions those two years, though it may revisit such a split in 2025 when the league moves back to 12 members. Sports Illustrated first reported the scheduling details, noting that Big 12 executives agreed to the format this week in Dallas.
Though there was a belief that Texas and Oklahoma may have been attempting to exit the Big 12 one year early in 2024, sources told Dodd that Fox would likely have demanded years of significant television inventory trades from ESPN as the marquee programs would have left its airwaves. That’s beyond what would have been a potentially massive early exit fee the programs would have needed to pay the Big 12 directly.
Fox and ESPN are currently partners in Big 12 programming, while ESPN will be the exclusive television partner of the SEC beginning in 2025 when the Longhorns and Sooners join the league.
The Big 12 is actively seeking a new media rights deal with Fox and ESPN both engaged in conversations.