Formation The conference was founded as the
Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (
MVIAA) at a meeting on January 12, 1907, of five charter member institutions: the
University of Kansas, the
University of Missouri, the
University of Nebraska,
Washington University in St. Louis, and the
University of Iowa, which also maintained its concurrent membership in the
Western Conference (now the Big Ten Conference). However, Iowa only participated in football and outdoor men's track and field for a brief period before leaving the conference in 1911.
Early membership changes In 1908,
Drake University and
Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) joined the MVIAA, increasing the conference's membership to seven. Iowa, which was a joint member, departed the conference in 1911 to return to sole competition in the Western Conference, but
Kansas State University joined the conference in 1913. Nebraska left in 1918 to play as an independent for two seasons before returning in 1920. In 1919, the
University of Oklahoma and
Saint Louis University applied for membership but were not approved due to deficient management of their athletic programs. The conference then added
Grinnell College in 1919, with the
University of Oklahoma applying again and being approved in 1920.
Oklahoma A&M University (now Oklahoma State University) joined in 1925, bringing conference membership to ten, an all-time high.
Split into Big Six Conference At a meeting in
Lincoln, Nebraska, on May 19, 1928, the conference split up. Six of the seven state schools (all except Oklahoma A&M) formed a conference that was initially known as the
Big Six Conference. The old MVIAA's administrative staff transferred to the MVC. The similarity of the two conferences' official names, as well as the competing claims of the two conferences, led to considerable debate over which conference was the original and which was the spin-off, though the MVIAA went on to become the more prestigious of the two. For the remainder of the Big Eight's run, both conferences claimed 1907 as their founding date, as well as the same history through 1927. To this day, it has never been definitively established which conference was the original.
Big Seven adds Colorado Conference membership grew with the addition of the
University of Colorado on December 1, 1947, from the
Mountain States Conference. Later that month, Reaves E. Peters was hired as "Commissioner of Officials and Assistant Secretary" and set up the first conference offices in Kansas City, Missouri. With the addition of Colorado, the conference's unofficial name became the
Big Seven Conference, coincidentally, the former unofficial name of the MSC.
Big Eight adds Oklahoma State The final membership change happened ten years later, when Oklahoma A&M, newly renamed
Oklahoma State, joined (or rejoined, depending on the source) the conference on June 1, 1957, and the conference became known as the
Big Eight. However, Oklahoma State did not begin conference play until the 1958–59 season for basketball and the 1960 season for football. Peters' title was changed to "Executive Secretary" of the conference in 1957. He retired in June 1963 and was replaced by Wayne Duke, whose title was later changed to "Commissioner". In 1964, the conference legally assumed the name
Big Eight Conference. In 1968 the conference began a long association with the
Orange Bowl, sending its champion annually to play in the prestigious
bowl game in
Miami, Florida, all except the
1974 Orange Bowl and the
1975 Orange Bowl. Instead, Big Eight representative
Nebraska Cornhuskers played in the
1974 Cotton Bowl Classic and the
1974 Sugar Bowl (Oklahoma, which won the conference championship in
1973 and
1974, was banned from bowl games in those seasons as part of NCAA probation).
Formation of the Big 12 Conference In the early 1990s, most of the colleges in
Division I-A (now known as the
Football Bowl Subdivision) were members of the
College Football Association; this included members of the Big Eight and Southwest Conferences. Following a
Supreme Court decision in 1984, the primary function of the CFA was to negotiate television broadcast rights for its member conferences and independent colleges. In February 1994, the
Southeastern Conference announced that they, like the
Big Ten,
Pac-10, and
Notre Dame before them, would be leaving the CFA and negotiating independently for a television deal that covered SEC schools only. This led
The Dallas Morning News to proclaim that "the College Football Association as a television entity is dead". More significantly, this change in television contracts ultimately would lead to significant realignment of college conferences, with the biggest change being the dissolution of the Big Eight and Southwest Conferences and the formation of the Big 12. After the SEC's abandonment of the CFA, the
Southwest Conference and the Big Eight Conference saw potential financial benefits from an alliance to negotiate television deals, and quickly began negotiations to that end, with
ABC and
ESPN. On February 25, 1994, it was announced that a new conference would be formed from the members of the Big Eight and four of the Texas member colleges of the Southwest Conference. Though the name would not be made official for several months, newspaper accounts immediately dubbed the new entity the "Big 12". Charter members of the Big 12 included the members of the Big Eight plus
Baylor,
Texas,
Texas A&M and
Texas Tech.
Dissolution Following the formation of the Big 12 Conference in 1994, the Big Eight continued operations until August 30, 1996, when the conference was formally dissolved and its members officially began competition in the Big 12 Conference. Although the Big 12 was essentially the Big Eight plus the four Texas schools, the Big 12 regards itself as a separate conference and does not claim the Big Eight's history as its own. ==Members==