While the transfer portal and the NIL have been bringing the NCAA into a new era for several months, some conferences must also juggle departures from several major programs.
Thus, after Texas and Oklahoma, which in 2021 had announced their departure from the Big 12 to join the SEC, and especially after USC and UCLA which announced last year their intention to leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten after the season 2023/24, it’s this time Colorado which announces a similar choice: a departure from the Pac-12 to the Big 12.
The migration of the Boulder program will be effective from the 2024 offseason, and constitutes a third major departure for the conference from the Pacific coast of the United States, after those of the Bruins and the Trojans, therefore.
Obviously, this decision is primarily motivated by financial reasons: the departure from the university after the 2023/24 season coincides with the end of the current Pac-12 conference TV contract, and thus allows Colorado to leave the conference without suffer potential financial penalties. No doubt also, it seems logical, that Colorado will then sign a TV contract with the Big 12 more lucrative than its previous agreement with the Pac-12.
In addition, the migration to the Big 12, the most competitive conference in the country on the sports level, and whose media coverage is ensured by ESPN and Fox, will give Colorado a new influence on the national scale.
Now reduced to nine teams, the Pac-12 will soon have to reinvent itself…
