Big Ten to announce 2024-25 schedule model, opponents with special edition of 'B1G Live'

The Big Ten is set to announce its 2024-25 scheduling model and opponents Thursday afternoon, the Big Ten Network said Wednesday. It will all be unveiled during a special edition of B1G Live Thursday at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Commissioner Tony Petitti, new chief operating officer Kerry Kenny and Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith will join B1G Live hosts Mike Hall and Howard Griffith for the announcement.

The 2024 season will be a big one for the Big Ten as two high-profile programs join the fray. USC and UCLA are in their last season in the Pac-12 and will officially join the Big Ten starting with the 2024 season. That will take the conference to 16 teams, which is why there are questions about what the schedule will look like with those additions.

The Big Ten currently has an East-West divisional model with two, seven-team divisions. The league hasn’t tipped its hand on what schedule model it will use once USC and UCLA join, but those questions will likely be answered Thursday afternoon.

There were talks of doing away with divisions in 2023, The Athletic reported in October. The NCAA recently changed its requirements for conference championship eligibility, and multiple leagues — including the ACC — are ditching divisions and putting the top two teams against each other in the conference championship starting this season.

However, as of October 2022, the plan for the Big Ten was to keep divisions in 2023 and restructure in 2024.

“There was strong consideration to revamp from geographic divisions to a single-conference entity for 2023 but there were too many issues to implement for next season,” The Athletic’s Scott Dochterman wrote. “Among the most discussed issues for Big Ten administrators and school officials include the desire to unveil one new system for USC and UCLA rather than in consecutive years, the number of protected games and television concerns.”

2024 will also be the second year of the Big Ten’s lucrative media rights deal, which kicks in with the 2023 season. The conference agreed to a massive $7 billion contract with FOX, NBC and CBS late last year under former commissioner Kevin Warren.

If the Big Ten does away with divisions, it’d become the second conference to announce such plans in recent weeks. During the SEC spring meetings late last month, commissioner Greg Sankey announced the league will move to a division-less, eight-game schedule in 2024. However, that might not be the long-term plan and conversations will continue to talk about future schedule models next offseason.