Report: Colorado received $2.5 million signing bonus to join Big 12
It seemed like all was quiet on the conference realignment front in late July. Then, news started to come out about increasing interest between the Big 12 and Colorado, and an announcement came that night.
That move kicked off a massive shakeup that, eventually, saw the Pac-12 crumble to just two teams in 2024. According to documents obtained by USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz and Kirk Bohls, the Big 12 paid Colorado a $2.5 million signing bonus as part of the deal.
It’s unclear what contract details were for the rest of the “Four Corners” schools — Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. Utah told USA Today the documents was “still in draft form” and, therefore, denied the open records request. Arizona and Arizona State didn’t yet respond to USA Today at the time of publication.
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Those four additions were just one part of the groundbreaking round of realignment. Oregon and Washington announced their departures for the Big Ten in early August while Cal and Stanford confirmed their plans to join the ACC a few weeks later. That leaves Oregon State and Washington State to figure out what’s next, and they’ve started that process by taking the Pac-12 to court over voting rights.
Rumors about the Big 12’s interest in the Four Corners schools swirled for months in the lead-up to the announcement, which came after the Pac-12’s media rights talks fell through. The Big 12 initially added four teams — BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF — to offset the losses of Oklahoma and Texas. The details of those departures also came out in USA Today’s report.
Still, Brett Yormark declared the league “open for business” during his first appearance at media days and aggressively pursued expansion. He confirmed he held talks with Gonzaga and UConn, but those came to an end once he got his “dream scenario” of landing the Four Corners institutions.
“I did have conversations with UConn and Gonzaga,” Yormark said on the Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast. “Unfortunately, you know, things didn’t work out only because the dream scenario unfolded for us. So, those conversations are no longer. I’m a big admirer of both, those programs are fantastic for all the right reasons.
“But right now, you know, I’m focused on the transition of those four (schools) in right now. And also, how do I leverage the fact that (we have a) 16-team league in 10 states with 90 million people in four different time zones? So that’s my focus right now.”