The Comprehensive Guide to NCAA Big 12 Teams

The Big 12 Conference, stylized as "XII," stands as a prominent collegiate athletic conference in the United States. As a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), it encompasses 16 full-member universities, including 3 private and 13 public institutions, spanning across Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. The Big 12 is a member of the Power Four conferences, the four highest-earning and most historically successful FBS football conferences.

Historical Overview and Formation

Founded in February 1994, the Big 12 Conference began athletic play in the fall of 1996, with the inaugural football game being Texas Tech vs. From its inception until 2011, the conference comprised 12 members competing in two divisions across most sports.

Conference Realignment

The landscape of the Big 12 has undergone significant changes over the years:

2011 Departures: Colorado and Nebraska left the conference to join the Pac-12 and Big Ten, respectively.
2012 Additions: TCU and West Virginia joined the conference from the Mountain West and Big East, respectively.
2021 Announcements: Oklahoma and Texas announced their departure to the Southeastern Conference (SEC).
2023 Expansion: BYU, Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston joined the Big 12, increasing the membership to twelve schools once again.
2023 Return: Colorado announced its return to the Big 12 from the Pac-12, effective in the 2024-25 academic year.

Member Universities

The Big 12 Conference currently consists of the following universities:

Arizona (Public)
Arizona State University (Public): Tempe hosts the main campus and university administration.
Baylor University (Private)
Brigham Young University (Private)
University of Central Florida (Public)
University of Cincinnati (Public)
University of Colorado Boulder (Public): Colorado was a founding member of the Big 12 in 1996.
University of Houston (Public)
Iowa State University (Public)
University of Kansas (Public)
Kansas State University (Public)
Oklahoma State University (Public)
Texas Christian University (Private)
Texas Tech University (Public)
University of Utah (Public)
West Virginia University (Public)

Sports Sponsorship

The Big 12 Conference sponsors a variety of men's and women's sports.

Men's Sports

The only men's sports with full participation by the entire conference are basketball, football, and golf. The Big 12 fields 14 teams for wrestling. Before the conference's 2023 expansion, it had the most competing schools of any Big 12 sport, with 13 members at that time. Rifle is often categorized as a men's sport because the NCAA bylaws that establish scholarship limits for each sport list rifle as a men's sport. Nonetheless, it is an open coed sport in NCAA college athletics, with men's, women's, and coed teams in all NCAA divisions competing against each other. TCU and West Virginia both field coed teams. Through 2017, West Virginia with 19 national titles and TCU with two, together have won over half of the NCAA titles awarded since the inaugural NCAA championship in 1980.

Women's Sports

The only women's sports with full participation by the entire conference are basketball, cross country, soccer, tennis, indoor track and outdoor track. Beach volleyball (4 full members) and equestrian (3 full members, 1 affiliate) have the lowest participation, each with 4 total members. With Utah dropping beach volleyball after the spring 2025 season, future Big 12 sponsorship of beach volleyball is uncertain. Lacrosse (3 full members, 3 affiliates) and rowing (4 full members, 2 affiliates) follow with 6 total members. Rifle is often categorized as a men's sport because the NCAA bylaws that establish scholarship limits for each sport list rifle as a men's sport. Nonetheless, it is an open coed sport in NCAA college athletics, with men's, women's, and coed teams in all NCAA divisions competing against each other. TCU and West Virginia both field coed teams. Through 2018, West Virginia with 19 national titles and TCU with two, together have won over half of the NCAA titles awarded since the inaugural NCAA championship in 1980.

Discontinued Sports

Iowa State discontinued its participation in baseball as an NCAA-recognized activity following the 2001 season. It participates in club baseball as a member of the National Club Baseball Association.

Conference Revenue and Media Rights

Conference revenue stems from various sources, including media rights contracts, bowl games, the NCAA, merchandise, licensing, and conference-hosted sporting events. Media rights contracts are a significant revenue source.

Media Rights Agreements

2012 Agreement: The Big 12 announced a media rights agreement with Fox and ESPN, replacing an ABC/ESPN deal, estimated to be worth $2.6 billion through the 2025 expiration. This agreement pushed the conference per-university payout to approximately $20 million per year, while separating third-tier media rights into separate deals for each university, securing an additional $6 million to $20 million per university annually.
2022 Renewal: The conference renewed its media rights with ESPN and Fox Sports for six seasons starting in 2025-26, with an estimated US$380 million average annual fee, equating to about $31.7 million per school. The contract included a pro-rata clause that increased the conference's fee proportionately if Power conference schools were added.
Tier 3 Rights: Historically, the Big 12 allowed members to monetize TV rights for everything not broadcast on national or regional TV channels (tier 3 rights). Currently, the conference's tier 3 broadcast rights are bundled as part of the television deal extension starting in the 2025-26 school year, with all of the Big 12's tier 3 rights held by ESPN. As such, schools no longer need to find their own broadcast partners for these events; they are all handled by ESPN.

Postseason Revenue

Significant additional revenue is generated from postseason play by Big 12 teams, including the college football playoff, football bowl games, and NCAA basketball tournament revenue. For the 2023-24 football season, the Big 12 received $79.4 million for participating in the college football playoff. Bowl game revenues vary yearly with team selections; the 2024 Alamo Bowl between BYU, representing the Big 12, and Colorado, who took a Pac-12's spot, paid the conference $9.8 million.

Read also: Sweet Sixteen SEC Representation

Conference Championships

The Big 12 Conference awards championships in various sports.

Football Championship

From 1996 to 2010, divisional titles were awarded based on regular-season conference results, with the teams with the best conference records from the North and South playing in the Big 12 Championship Game. Baseball, basketball, softball, tennis and women's soccer titles are awarded in both regular-season and tournament play. Cross country, golf, gymnastics, swimming and diving, track and field, and wrestling titles are awarded during an annual meet of participating teams.

Big 12 Championship Game

The Big 12 Championship Game was first held by the Big 12 Conference each year from 1996 until 2010 and again starting with the 2017 season. The original championship game pitted the Big 12 North Division champion against the Big 12 South Division champion in a game held after the regular season has been completed. The first championship game was held during the 1996 season in St. Louis. The 2009 and 2010 games were played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Following the departures of Nebraska and Colorado to the Big Ten and Pac-12 respectively, the Big 12 Championship Game was discontinued.

Following an NCAA rule change in 2015 which allows conferences with fewer than 12 members to hold a championship game, the Big 12 elected to return to a postseason championship game to determine the conference champion. Following the completion of the round-robin regular season, the conference's top two teams compete in the championship game.

Bowl Game Selection

†The Big 12 champion will go to the Sugar Bowl unless selected for the College Football Playoff. In the event that the conference champion is selected for the playoff, the conference runner-up will go to the Sugar Bowl.

Read also: Best College Football Teams

Conference Governance and Leadership

The Big 12 announced on September 9, 2022, that it appointed WME Sports and IMG Media, Endeavor companies, to facilitate its global content and commercial strategy. Commissioner Brett Yormark stated "We have aligned with a best-in-class team to build a best-in-class business strategy for the Conference".

November 14, 2022 Big 12 formed a comprehensive business advisor board composed of over three dozen entrepreneurial icons and respective industry leaders. Soon after Big 12 Conference made a deal with A Bathing Ape (BAPE) for Championship games.

Corporate Partners

The Big 12 has 11 official corporate partners: Allstate, Children’s Health, Dr Pepper, Gatorade, Grand Caliber, Old Trapper, On Location, Phillips 66, Sonic Hard Seltzer, Sprouts Farmers Market, and Tickets For Less.

Pro Day

On March 15, 2023, before the NFL Draft, the Big 12 announced the first of its kind across all college conferences, being a conference-wide Pro Day. Instead of schools hosting separate pro days for their football players, there will be only one conference-wide scouting event before the 2024 NFL draft. The event will be held at the Dallas Cowboys training complex, Ford Center at The Star.

Community Engagement

In March, the Big 12 Conference announced a partnership with the legendary Rucker Park for a community engagement event. In June the event was officially announced as "Big 12 Hoops in the Park", to host men's and women's summer exhibition games. Throughout the event, the Big 12 is also preparing a number of entertainment activities and community engagements.

Football

The Big 12 Conference is a conference of 16 universities which participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision football. The conference formed in 1994 and begin conference play in the fall of 1996. The schools that compose the Big 12 Conference, except for Arizona, Arizona State, Brigham Young, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Utah, and West Virginia, were members of either the Big Eight Conference or the Southwest Conference. Current Big 12 football teams claim a total of 6 national titles, while previous members of the conference claim an additional 19 titles. The current conference champion is Arizona State, the school's first Big 12 title.

Football Scheduling

From 1996 to 2010, Big 12 Conference teams played eight conference games a season. Each team faced all five opponents within its own division and three teams from the opposite division. Due to the departure of Nebraska and Colorado in 2011, the Big 12 eliminated the divisions (and championship game) and instituted a nine-game round-robin format. With the advent of the College Football Playoff committee looking at teams' strength of schedule for picking the four playoff teams, on December 8, 2015, the Big 12 announced an annual requirement for all Big 12 teams to schedule a non-conference game against a team from the four other Power Five conferences (plus Notre Dame). The Big 12 has made it to the Playoffs 6 times from 2014 to 2023.

Basketball

As of the end of the 2023-2024 season, nine current Big 12 members are among the teams with the most wins and/or the highest win percentage in NCAA Division 1 men's basketball: Kansas (#2 in wins, #3 in percentage), Cincinnati (#12 wins, #19 percentage), Utah (#15 wins, #22 percentage), BYU (#17 wins, #31 percentage), Arizona (#19 wins, #10 percentage), West Virginia (#20 wins, #36 percentage), Houston (#37 percentage), Oklahoma State (#39 wins), and Kansas State (#42 wins). From 1996 to 2011, standings in conference play were not split among divisions, although the schedule was structured as if they were. Teams played a home-and-home against teams within their divisions and a single game against teams from the opposite division for a total of 16 conference games. Kansas has the most Big 12 titles, winning or sharing the regular-season title 20 times in the league's 25 seasons, including 13 straight from 2004-05 to 2016-17. The 2002 Jayhawks became the first, and so far only, team to complete an undefeated Big 12 regular season, going 16-0.

Rivalries

Conference rivalries (primarily in football) mostly predate the conference. The Kansas-Missouri rivalry was the longest running, the longest west of the Mississippi and the second-longest in college football. It was played 119 times before Missouri left the Big 12. The rivalry between TCU and Baylor, known as the Revivalry is also one of the longest running in college football, with the two universities having played each other - largely as Southwest Conference members - 120 times since 1899.

NCAA Championships

The following is a list of all NCAA, equestrian, and college football championships won by teams that were representing the Big 12 Conference in NCAA-recognized sports at the time of their championship. The most recent Big 12 team to win a national title is Oklahoma State men's golf in 2025. Only two years of the Big 12's existence has the conference not won at least one team National Title, 2007 and 2020. One former member of the conference did not win a National Championship while a member of the Big 12, Missouri. Original members Kansas State and Iowa State have not won a championship while representing the Big 12. The only national championships won by 2012 arrival West Virginia since joining the Big 12 have been in rifle, a sport that the conference has never sponsored.

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