Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark releases statement on early departures of Texas, Oklahoma

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has released a statement after the league announced the early departures of Texas and Oklahoma. They will leave for the SEC in 2024 rather than in 2025.

“As I have consistently stated, the Conference would only agree to an early withdrawal if it was in our best interest for Oklahoma and Texas to depart prior to June 30, 2025,” Yormark said. “By reaching this agreement, we are now able to accelerate our new beginning as a 12-team league and move forward in earnest with our initiatives and future planning.

“I appreciate the approaches of OU President Joe Harroz and UT President Jay Hartzell to ensure an amicable conclusion to this process, and look forward to the bright days ahead for the Big 12 Conference.”

The conference came to the agreement with its television partners Thursday to allow the programs to leave early. News broke last week that talks had stalled between the Big 12 and its television partners, but things heated back up this week and the deal came together Thursday.

As a result of the agreement, the two teams will owe a combined $100 million to the Big 12, and much of that figure will go to the eight legacy universities to help account for an expected decrease in revenue in 2024.

The move will coincide with several other big changes across college football in 2024. That includes the expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams and the additions of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten.

Advancing of the timing of the move allows the Big 12 an opportunity to finally move on. The conference is set to add four teams — BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF — in 2023. That means it will move forward with 14 teams in 2023 before going back down to 12 the following year.

On3’s Chandler Vessels contributed to this report.