Washington Board of Regents schedules surprise meeting as Big Ten speculation intensifies

Amid a wild week of conference realignment news and rumors, the University of Washington is now calling a surprise “Special Meeting” for its Board of Regents. On Thursday morning out west, Washington reporter Christian Caple leaked a screenshot of an announcement of the Board of Regents meeting, which was sent out by Tyler Lange, the board’s secretary.

Fellow Washington reporter Mike Vorel added what he knows right now about the meeting, which is planned for Thursday evening:

“FYI: UW’s Board of Regents have scheduled a ‘special meeting’ for tonight at 9 pm (Pacific Time). The meeting will include an executive session, though I’m told no action will be taken,” Vorel wrote on Twitter.

You can view Caple’s image a right here:

Ahem. pic.twitter.com/EBwqThvXsK

— Christian Caple (@ChristianCaple) August 3, 2023

Big Ten looking into Washington and Oregon

The Big Ten presidents met on Thursday morning to authorize Commissioner Tony Petitti to explore further conference expansion. In particular, they are looking for information on Oregon and Washington, according to a report by Pete Thamel.

Notably, no offers for admission into the Big Ten have been made.

A deal is also uncertain at this time due to several different reasons. The first is that these additions wouldn’t add any new money to the Big Ten immediately. On top of that, USC does not currently have a vote within the conference. However, they’ve been vocal about not wanting any additional West Coast schools in the conference.

According to the report, Oregon and Washington also wouldn’t receive an immediate full share of the revenue. This is similar to what happened to Rutgers when the Scarlet Knights entered the Big Ten. It’s not what either of those schools want but they have to weigh it against their current options in the Pac-12.

The most recent news out of the Pac-12 is that the conference’s proposed new media deal would primarily be a streaming deal with Apple+ and how much schools are paid would come down to how many people sign up to watch the conference.

This news comes one day after it was reported that the Big Ten presidents had begun exploratory discussions on further conference expansion.

It has also been reported that the Big 12 being aggressive in conference realignment could force the Big Ten’s hand in realignment. Despite that, Tony Petitti has maintained that his focus is on UCLA and USC transitioning into the conference.

“What I’ll say is all the direction I’m getting from leadership, our presidents and chancellors, athletic directors, is to focus on UCLA and USC,” Petitti said. “I’m proud of the scheduling format we created in football. I think it touches on all the right things.”