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Recently, on August 4th 2023, five schools announced they would be leaving the Pac-12 conference, but how did the conference begin, and what led to this series of events?
- 1915 – The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was founded in 1915 and consisted of four schools; University of California, Berkeley, University of Oregon, Oregon State University, and University of Washington.
- 1917 – Washington State University joined the PCC
- 1918 – Stanford University joined the PCC
- 1922 – University of Idaho and University of Southern California joined the PCC
- 1924 – University of Montana joined the PCC
- 1928 – University of California, Los Angeles joined the PCC
- 1959 – The PCC disbanded over a play or pay scandal
- 1968 – The Pac-8 was formed with the original PCC universities, with the exception of University of Idaho and University of Montana.
- 1978 – University of Arizona and Arizona State University joined the Pac-8 to make the Pac-10.
- 2010 – University of Colorado and University of Utah joined to make the Pac-12
- June 30th, 2022 – UCLA and USC announce they are leaving for the Big 10 Conference because the Pac-12 only paid $19.8 million per year to its schools which was the lowest of the Power Five conferences.
- Fall 2022 – The remaining Pac-12 Schools were offered a $30 million contract, but the member schools wanted $50 million instead. The deal fell apart and left the remaining 10 schools without a television contract (Pac-12 Website).
- Summer 2023 – Apple TV offered a television deal to the 10 remaining schools of around $25 million a year to air their sporting events (Pac-12 Website). This was a much lower amount than what the schools wanted, and they eventually rejected the offer..
- July 27th 2023 – University of Colorado decided to go back to the Big-12
- August 4th 2023 – University of Oregon and University of Washington announced that they would be heading to the Big-10 Conference. Immediately after, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and University of Utah joined the Big-12 Conference
- September 1st 2023 – University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford decided to leave for the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
- The Pac-12 Conference became the Pac-2 Conference with only two remaining schools; Oregon State University and Washington State University.
The Pac-12 will remain for the 2023-2024 athletic and academic season before conference changes go in place next year.
(Disclaimer: The information in this article is up to date as of October 11, 2023 and could have changed.)
