Big 12 and UConn in Serious Talks to Join Forces
The University of Connecticut (UConn) is in advanced negotiations with the Big 12 Conference to join the league as its newest expansion member, according to multiple sources. The potential partnership would bring together the country’s strongest basketball conference and one of the nation’s top basketball programs.
UConn officials recently met with Big 12 athletic administrators in Dallas, a sign of the serious nature of the discussions. Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark is set to make a similar presentation to the league’s presidents next week, which requires a three-fourths vote, or 12 of the 16 members, to approve the expansion.
Under the latest deal, UConn would join the conference in all sports except football, starting at the latest in 2026. The school would need to meet certain investment thresholds in football before joining the Big 12 in 2031. While the Huskies are not expected to receive a full distribution share from the league, the move would increase their financial situation and pair their elite basketball program with a power conference brand.
The move would be a significant blow to the Big East, as UConn was an original member of the old Big East before competing in the American Athletic Conference and then moving back into the new Big East in 2020. The Big 12 and UConn is an unusual geographic match, with the New England-based school being 1,700 miles from the Big 12’s Dallas headquarters and 500 miles from the closest Big 12 school, West Virginia. However, the league’s basketball prowess, with heavyweights Kansas and Houston, sets up an ideal home for the Huskies as college athletics launches into a new revenue-sharing world with athletes.
Football will have to wait, as the UConn football program has not eclipsed the eight-win mark in more than a decade. As part of any agreement with the conference, the school would need to increase its investment in the football program to a certain degree before joining the Big 12, at earliest, when the league’s new television deal begins in 2031. A football move is imperative for the school, as it is the last remaining independent football program in the country, excluding outlier Notre Dame.
The pursuit of the Huskies aligns with the aggressive nature of Yormark, who is leading the league’s latest expansion campaign. The Big 12 has added eight teams over the last two years after the departure of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC. The conference is also pursuing a new naming rights sponsor, Allstate Insurance, and discussing a private equity deal with multiple potential partners, offering them a percentage stake in the conference for an immediate cash infusion of as much as $50 million to each school.
The UConn deal would be the latest summer realignment move over the last four years, joining the Pac-12 collapse last August, USC and UCLA’s announcement to the Big Ten in 2022, and Oklahoma and Texas in 2021.
