Texas and Oklahoma are on their way to the SEC.
Just eight days after the news broke that Oklahoma and Texas could leave the Big 12 to join the Southeastern Conference, the SEC officially invited the Longhorns and Sooners to join the conference on Thursday afternoon. Texas and Oklahoma are expected to formally accept the invitations on Friday after formally requesting those invitations on Tuesday, though talks between the two schools and the SEC had been in the works for months.
NEWS | The @SEC Presidents & Chancellors voted unanimously Thursday to extend membership invitations to the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas to join the SEC effective July 1, 2025, with competition to begin in all sports for the 2025-26 academic year.
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) July 29, 2021
Despite public opposition from Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork after last week's initial report that Oklahoma and Texas could join the SEC, the 14 existing SEC schools voted unanimously in favor of inviting the two schools on Thursday, setting up the conference to expand to 16 teams.
As of now, Texas and Oklahoma are slated to join the SEC in 2025, when their grants of media rights with the Big 12 will expire. It's still possible that Oklahoma and Texas could reach a settlement with the Big 12 to allow them to join the SEC sooner, but if not, they would have to pay the Big 12 at least $75 million each to leave the conference before their media rights agreement expires, according to ESPN.
