Oklahoma concluded its final steps to enter the Southeastern Conference during OU’s Board of Regents meeting on Friday.
“Today is the documentation of what was announced in February on the agreement with the Big 12 commissioner, the Big 12, the University of Texas and for our departure from the Big 12 one year early,” OU President Joseph Harroz Jr. said Friday. “This brings together all of those things and approves the agreements that will document that.”
#Sooners AD Joe Castiglione on the importance of OU’s early 2024 move to the SEC: pic.twitter.com/p0iCb1Oh3z
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The meeting was announced unexpectedly on Wednesday, as the university finalized and considered documents for OU’s early exit to the SEC from the Big 12. Texas separately discussed "legal issues concerning terms of contracts associated with U.T. Austin's membership in the Southeastern Conference,” in a regularly scheduled regents meeting on Thursday.
OU’s regents weren’t regularly scheduled to meet until June. The meeting, according to Harroz, officially finalized the decision for the early-exit agreement agreed upon by all parties on Feb. 9, but didn’t change any official decisions regarding OU’s future SEC move.
“It just formally documents it,” Harroz said. “It allows for those formal agreements to make sure that all issues are resolved, that all issues are handled and that there are no legal issues out there that are all tied up in this, so that our departure and our entry will be seamless.”
The Big 12 announced an early-exit agreement with Oklahoma and Texas on Feb. 9, a year earlier than the once-expected departure for the SEC on July 1, 2025. Both programs will owe the Big 12 a combined $100 million in early-exit fees according to the conference.
Harroz noted Oklahoma, by itself, will be foregoing close to $40 million in the distributable revenue share it holds with the Big 12 due to the early move.
“By leaving a year early we're leaving behind that conference share,” Harroz said. “So, we'll participate exactly as the other existing eight schools with Oklahoma and Texas this coming year. But then by leaving a year earlier, that's a full share left behind for the rest of the members.
“It depends on how you count money, but yeah that 40-ish million stays behind.”
Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione says the early move was in the ‘best interest’ for all parties involved. Now, he wants to focus on preparing the program before the SEC, while also planning for other areas of development in the early years as a new, SEC-member institution.
“It just accelerates a few things,” Castiglione said on Friday. “We've been working on this for the last, say a year and a half since we announced our move. We've done a lot of work on campus. A lot of our staff members have come together and done work in various subcommittees on a myriad of topics.
"... So with all of those kinds of things, you'd just try to be as comprehensive as possible. And, knowing that, some of the things that we need to do and before July 1, 2024 will be ready and there are other areas that we will need to continue to develop in the early part of our membership.”
