University of Colorado BOR Votes Unanimously To Join the Big 12

On Thursday afternoon, after just over a decade in the Pac-12, the University of Colorado Board of Regents unanimously approved a return to the Big 12.

The move will occur ahead of the 2024-2025 athletic season. The Big 12 presidents unanimously approved inviting Colorado as a new member on a conference call Wednesday evening.

A little over a year since USC and UCLA announced a move to the Big 10, the Pac-12 and its commissioner, George Kliavkoff, could ultimately not present a satisfactory television deal to keep the conference alive in its current state.

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Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark has repeatedly made public his desire for the Big 12 to expand west.

The deal comes as “no surprise,” with Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark making public a desire for the conference to expand west as far back as last July.

Yormark has repeatedly said any expansion has to be “additive” and is “not looking to add just to be bigger.” And per Brett McMurphy, CU will receive a full Big 12 share ($31.7M) from the ESPN and Fox media deal.

With Colorado joining the Big 12 as a full member starting in July 2024, the conference continues to expand its reach on a national scale. 

With the subtraction of the Universities of Texas and Oklahoma, the Big 12, as of right now, is scheduled to have 13 member institutions for the 2024 football season: Baylor, BYU, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech, UCF and West Virginia.

Despite just two bowl appearances and a mediocre record of 48-94 since leaving the Big 12 for the Pac-12 in 2011, the hiring of Deion Sanders as head football coach has put all eyes back on the Colorado program.

For the 2023 spring game, 47,277 fans filled Folsom Field to watch Sanders man the sidelines for the first time. Just a year prior, only 1,950 fans attended CU’s 2022 spring game.

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Deion Sanders was hired in December 2022 to be the next Colorado head football coach.

Sanders has completely overhauled the roster, and while it remains to be seen if the Buffaloes will be competitive in 2023, there’s no doubt “Coach Prime” will have Colorado in national headlines each week as he aims to bring the program back to the level it was throughout the 1990s under Bill McCartney.

In basketball, CU has reached the NCAA Tournament five times in 13 seasons under current head coach Tad Boyle. Boyle has coached NBA players such as Alec Burks, Spencer Dinwiddie and Derrick White but has not yet led the Buffaloes past the Round of 32.

As members of the Big 12, Baylor’s last matchup against Colorado in football was a 31-25 victory in 2010, but the head-to-head record as conference foes lean in favor of the Buffaloes, 4-to-3. The Bears are 7-9 against CU all-time in football.