Texas, Oklahoma will join the SEC in 2024 as Big 12 announces exit plan

Texas and Oklahoma will leave the Big 12 after the 2023-24 school year, the conference announced Thursday evening.

Despite announcing their intention to join the Southeastern Conference back in the summer of 2021, the Longhorns and Sooners had been contractually obligated to remain in the Big 12 until the end of the 2024-25 school year. Thursday's announcement allows them to officially become SEC members on July 1, 2024.

Texas and Oklahoma were founding members of the Big 12, which played its first football game in 1996.

In exchange for the early exits, the Big 12 said Texas and Oklahoma will owe compensation that totals "$100 million in foregone distributable revenues, which OU and UT will be able to partially offset with future revenues." ESPN and The Athletic additionally reported that Texas has agreed to swap home dates in a nonconference series with Michigan, and the movement of UT's trip to Ann Arbor in 2024 allows Fox to televise that marquee matchup.

With deal finalized, it's time for schools, Big 12 and SEC to move on

Details are still being finalized among the relevant parties. Both Texas' and Oklahoma's governing boards must approve this deal.

"As I have consistently stated, the Conference would only agree to an early withdrawal if it was in our best interest for Oklahoma and Texas to depart prior to June 30, 2025," Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said in the news release. "By reaching this agreement, we are now able to accelerate our new beginning as a 12-team league and move forward in earnest with our initiatives and future planning."

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said in a separate statement: "The Southeastern Conference learned today of the decision by the Big 12 Conference to alter the membership exit date for the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas. We are continuing our preparation for this membership transition, and we look forward to welcoming the Conference's new members and moving into our future as a 16-team league."

'Negotiations take a lot of twists and turns'

Multiple reports over the past few days indicated that Texas and Oklahoma were in for a long divorce with the Big 12. Due to TV contracts, it was reported that an early exit seemed unlikely. However, Yormark recently told the American-Statesman: "We’ll see how it goes. Negotiations take a lot of twists and turns."

In the Big 12's news release, UT President Jay Hartzell was quoted as saying: "We have always been committed to fulfilling our contractual obligations to the Big 12. The collegiate athletics landscape has continued to evolve rapidly, and working together to accelerate our exit produced benefits for all parties."

Although they now have clarity, Texas' teams can't look too far into the future. The Longhorns won't join the SEC for another 17 months.

"When that time comes, we'll jump into that fish bowl and swim with those sharks," Texas women's basketball coach Vic Schaefer said Friday. "Right now, I got to swim with the sharks that I'm (with) right now."

Before Texas joins the SEC, there's Big 12 work to do

Both Texas basketball teams sit atop the Big 12 standings. Nine Longhorns programs — women's golf, rowing, men's and women's swimming and diving, women's tennis, men's and women's indoor track and field and men's and women's outdoor track and field — must defend their conference championships in the upcoming months. Texas' softball team was picked to finish third in the Big 12, while the baseball program was fourth in the conference's preseason poll.

In their final year in the Big 12, Texas and Oklahoma will compete for conference championships alongside new members BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston. Texas' football team will travel to Houston and host BYU this fall. Oklahoma has Central Florida and BYU on its schedule.

"I'll say this: I'm a member of the Big 12 right now. I'm all in," said Schaefer, who took over at Texas after coaching eight seasons at Mississippi State. "I'm going to support this conference and sing the praises of these teams and these coaches in this conference until I'm not in this conference anymore. I think it's a heck of a league."

Texas' football program will get a preview of life in the SEC in September when it travels to Alabama for a nonconference rematch of last fall's 20-19 Crimson Tide win in Austin. UT has played nearly 300 football games against teams that are currently in the SEC and is 191-94-9 in those matchups. Many of them, of course, involved Texas A&M, and the Longhorns also battled fellow Southwest Conference member Arkansas on 79 occasions.

While the Horns will reunite with some old foes, they won't have bad blood with all of their new rivals. In fact, there are five SEC schools — Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, Florida and Mississippi State — that have played fewer than five games against Texas. Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee haven't met Texas on a football field in the past 50 years, and the Longhorns last played Vanderbilt in 1928.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas, Oklahoma programs leaving Big 12 for SEC in 2024