The rest of the “Four Corners” schools are heading to the Big 12. Arizona, Arizona State and Utah will all join Colorado in the Big 12 starting ahead of the 2024-25 athletic season, the conference announced Friday night. In adding three more Pac-12 teams, the Big 12 in 2024 will swell to 16 programs, the largest membership in league history.
Colorado was the first to jettison the Pac-12 for the Big 12 last week ahead of the Pac-12 finally unveiling a proposed media rights deal that was not received positively. Big 12 presidents unanimously voted to welcome Arizona into the league Thursday and did the same in a Friday meeting for Arizona State and Utah, sources told CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd. The schools’ respective Boards of Regents formalized their transitions into the Big 12 on Friday night.
The Wildcats and Sun Devils have called the Pac-12 home since 1978 when they left the WAC, expanding the league from eight to 10 members. The Utes joined in 2011 out of the Mountain West.
“We are thrilled to welcome Arizona, Arizona State and Utah to the Big 12,” said commissioner Brett Yormark in a statement. “The Conference is gaining three premier institutions both academically and athletically, and the entire Big 12 looks forward to working alongside their presidents, athletic directors, student-athletes and administrators.”
The Pac-12 held a Friday call as a last-ditch effort to keep the league together but ultimately failed in achieving its goal.
Despite Arizona linking with the Big 12 before Arizona State, there was substantial sentiment within both athletic departments that a conference sever was both undesired and unlikely, sources told CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander on Thursday. The Wildcats leaving the Sun Devils behind in the Pac-12 would have been “extremely surprising,” one high-ranking source said.
Yormark previously stated that the Big 12 only hoped to expand back to 14 members following the…
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