Oregon board of trustees accepts Big Ten Conference invitation in unanimous vote Friday

After a brief meeting of the board of trustees on Friday, the University of Oregon has moved to formally accept an invitation to join the Big Ten Conference. The Ducks will join the league after the upcoming 2023-24 academic year when the Pac-12 Conference Grant of Rights expires.

Washington, the other Pac-12 team to get an invite from the Big Ten recently, is expected to accept it shortly. A meeting for the Huskies board of regents has not apparently been scheduled.

After Colorado voted to leave the Pac-12 for the Big 12 Conference, the focus shifted to Arizona potentially following. And that unsettling move from the Buffaloes apparently put the Big Ten’s focus back on the two northwestern powerhouses as it appeared the Pac-12 was melting down.

Momentum grew throughout the week, building up to a fever pitch on Thursday evening, as the University of Washington board of regents met at midnight EST and it seemed Oregon and Washington were getting the moves squared away.

But late on Thursday news broke that the Pac-12 presidents would meet on Friday morning and potentially get the nine remaining programs — Arizona, Oregon and Washington included — to sign the new Grant of Rights for a media deal primarily via Apple TV streaming. It seemed the Pac-12 might’ve rallied to keep the league whole(ish).

However, Oregon reportedly raised some last-minute concerns about the revenue totals in the Pac-12 deal and the Grant of Rights didn’t get consummated by the league on Friday. Shortly after it broke that the Pac-12 hadn’t staved off the poachers, the intensity rose once again in the Big Ten’s pursuit of the northwestern schools.

Oregon won’t be getting a full revenue share like the rest of the Big Ten to start, but are reportedly getting around $35-$40 million annually to start before coming up to a full share over time.

“We think these shares are more generous,” University of Oregon President John Karl Scholz said of the Big Ten payouts versus the Pac-12 deal.

The Big Ten presidents met mid-day on Friday to keep pushing ahead and hammer out finer points of the deal. Shortly after noon on the East Coast, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that the Big Ten was planning to vote later that day to send formal invitations to Oregon and Washington, barring any further snags.

Hold ups in the process hadn’t been entirely on the Oregon and Washington side, as Thamel reported on Thursday that several current Big Ten members — and incoming West Coast member USC — might’ve opposed adding more West Coast presences to the league. Thamel added that the vote was anticipated to be unanimous — certainly a feather in the cap for relatively green league commissioner Tony Petitti.

I seems whatever concerns existed within Big Ten leadership were quashed as formal invitations to Oregon and Washington were extended. And now, one of the two has been accepted.