Oklahoma and Texas have reached an agreement with the Big 12 allowing the schools to exit the conference in 2024, the league announced today. 

This deal allows the schools and league to part ways at the conclusion of the 2023-24 athletic year, meaning that 2023 will be the last football season Oklahoma and Texas compete for a Big 12 championship. The agreement allows Oklahoma and Texas to join the SEC a year earlier than expected, so the Longhorns and Sooners’ first year in the SEC will coincide with the first college football season featuring a 12-team expanded playoff format.

Prior to today’s announcement, both sides maintained that the schools would not leave the Big 12 until June 30, 2025, when the conference’s current grant of rights agreement is set to expire. 

“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,” Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said in a statement. “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.”

While the schools will owe the Big 12 a combined $100 million in foregone distributable revenues, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said the conference distributed an average of $49.9 million to its 14 member institutions by the end of the 2022 fiscal year, according to the Associated Press. Sports business data firm Navigate published a study last October projecting that the SEC’s member institution’s compensation would balloon to over $105 million a year by 2030.

Yormark told media that Oklahoma and Texas would remain in the Big 12 through 2025 as recently as October, but speculation that the exit would come sooner has been widespread since the schools’ first announced plans to join the SEC on July 21, 2021.