1890s: The conference's founding On January 11, 1895,
Purdue University president
James Henry Smart invited the presidents of the
University of Chicago,
University of Illinois,
Lake Forest College,
University of Minnesota,
Northwestern University, and
University of Wisconsin to a meeting in
Chicago, to create policies aimed at regulating intercollegiate athletics. The eligibility of student-athletes was one of the main topics of discussion, with it being decided that student-athletes must be full-time students in good standing. The conference was officially founded at a second meeting on February 8, 1896. Lake Forest was not at the 1896 meeting and was replaced by the
University of Michigan. Henceforth the seven attendees of this second meeting would be the founding members of the organization more commonly known as the
Western Conference. The conference is one of the nation's oldest, predating the founding of the NCAA by a decade and was one of the first collegiate conferences to sponsor men's basketball. The first reference to the conference as the
Big Nine was in 1899 after
Iowa and
Indiana had joined.
1900s: Becoming the Big Ten Nebraska first petitioned to join the league in 1900 and again in 1911, but was turned away both times. In 1905, the conference was officially incorporated as the
Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives. One of the new rules would require the football coach to be a full-time employee of the university, leading to Michigan's football head coach,
Fielding Yost, to oppose the changes. Ultimately Yost won out and convinced Michigan's board to support him over Angell and against the conference. In April 1907, Michigan was voted out of the conference for refusing to adhere to the new league rules.
Ohio State joined in 1912, and as a result could no longer play Michigan until the school rejoined the conference after a nine-year absence. The first known references to the conference as the
Big Ten were then made in December 1916 as a result.
1940s: Chicago leaves and Michigan State joins The conference was again known as the Big Nine after the University of Chicago decided to de-emphasize varsity athletics just after World War II. In 1939, UChicago President
Robert Maynard Hutchins made the decision to abolish the football program, based on his negative views of big-time college football's excesses and associated problems of the time. Chicago completely withdrew from the conference in 1946 after struggling to obtain victories in many conference matchups. Several schools sought to replace Chicago and obtained support from current members:
Michigan State with support from Minnesota,
Nebraska with support from Iowa, and
Pittsburgh with support from Ohio State. Ultimately, on December 12, 1948, it was announced that the conference had voted 9–0 to approve Michigan State's joining the conference, which would again be known as the Big Ten. The school's non-football sports commenced conference play in 1950, with football joining three years later. When Penn State joined in 1990, it was decided the conference would continue to be called the Big Ten, but its
logo was modified to reflect the change; the number 11 was disguised in the
negative space of the traditionally blue "Big Ten" lettering. Missouri showed interest in Big Ten membership after Penn State joined. Around 1993, the league explored adding
Kansas,
Missouri and Rutgers or other potential schools, to create a 14-team league with two football divisions. These talks died when the
Big Eight Conference merged with former
Southwest Conference members to create the
Big 12. Following the addition of Penn State, efforts were made to encourage the
University of Notre Dame, at that time the last remaining non-
service academy independent, to join the league. In 1999, Notre Dame, then a member of the
Big East Conference and football independent, and the Big Ten entered into private negotiations concerning a possible membership that would include Notre Dame. Although Notre Dame's faculty senate endorsed the idea, the school's board of trustees decided against joining the conference. Notre Dame subsequently joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports except football (and hockey), in which Notre Dame maintains its independent status as long as it plays at least five games per season against ACC opponents. This was believed to be the major stumbling block to Notre Dame joining the Big Ten, as Notre Dame wanted to retain its independent
home game broadcasting contract with
NBC Sports, while the Big Ten insisted upon a full membership with no special exemptions.
2010s: From 11 to 14 Nebraska joins In December 2009, Big Ten Conference commissioner
Jim Delany announced that the league was looking to expand in what would later be part of a nationwide trend as part of the
2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment. On June 11, 2010, the
University of Nebraska applied for membership in the Big Ten and was unanimously approved as the conference's 12th school, which became effective July 1, 2011. The conference retained the name "Big Ten". This briefly led to the interesting and ironic result of the Big Ten consisting of twelve teams, and the Big 12 consisting of ten teams (with fellow former Big 12 member
Colorado's move to the
Pac-12 Conference). As part of the agreement to join the Big Ten, Nebraska would not receive a full share of the media revenue for the first six years of its membership, until fall 2017.
Legends and Leaders divisions On September 1, 2010, Delany revealed the conference's football divisional split, but noted that the division names would be announced later. Those division names, as well as the conference's new logo, were made public on December 13, 2010. For its new logo, the conference replaced the "hidden 11" logo with one that uses the "B1G" character combination in its branding. Delany did not comment on the logo that day, but it was immediately evident that the new logo would "allow fans to see 'BIG' and '10' in a single word." For the new football division names, the Big Ten was unable to use geographic names, because they had rejected a geographic arrangement. Delany announced that the new divisions would be known as the "Legends Division" and "Leaders Division". In the Legends division were Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska and Northwestern. The Leaders division was composed of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin. Conference officials stated they had focused on creating competitive fairness rather than splitting by geographical location. However, the new "Legends" and "Leaders" divisions were not met with enthusiasm. Some traditional rivals, including Ohio State and Michigan, were placed in separate divisions. For the football season, each team played the others in its division, one "cross-over" rivalry game, and two rotating cross-divisional games. At the end of the regular season the two division winners met in a new
Big Ten Football Championship Game. The Legends and Leaders divisional alignment was in effect for the
2011,
2012 and
2013 football seasons.
Maryland and Rutgers join On November 19, 2012, the University of Maryland's Board of Regents voted to withdraw from the
ACC and join the Big Ten as its 13th member effective on July 1, 2014. The Big Ten's Council of Presidents approved the move later that day. One day later, Rutgers University of the
Big East also accepted an offer for membership from the Big Ten as its 14th member school. Like Nebraska, both schools would not receive full shares of the media revenue until six years after they joined. However, both schools took loans from the conference, thus pushing back the date they would receive full shares. Under the new plan, the Legends and Leaders divisions were replaced with geographic divisions. The divisional alignment permanently protected the cross-divisional football rivalry
Indiana–Purdue. In men's lacrosse, Ohio State and Penn State were the only existing participants. Coincident with the addition of Maryland and Rutgers, Michigan agreed to upgrade its successful club team to varsity status, giving the Big Ten five sponsoring schools, one short of the minimum six for an automatic bid.
Johns Hopkins University opted to join the conference as its first affiliate member beginning in 2014. Johns Hopkins had been independent in men's lacrosse for 130 years, claiming 44 national championships. As long-time independents joined conferences (for example, Syracuse joining the Atlantic Coast Conference), other schools competing as independents in some cases concluded that the inability to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament was becoming a more serious competitive disadvantage in scheduling and recruiting. On March 23, 2016, the Big Ten Conference and Notre Dame announced the
Fighting Irish would become a men's ice hockey affiliate beginning with the 2017–18 season. Notre Dame had been a member of
Hockey East, and the move would save travel time and renew rivalries with former
CCHA and
WCHA members. In 2013, the conference moved its headquarters from its location in
Park Ridge, Illinois to neighboring
Rosemont. The office building is situated within Rosemont's Parkway Bank Park Entertainment District (then named
MB Financial Park Entertainment District), alongside
Interstate 294.
2020s: Pacific expansion On June 30, 2022,
UCLA and
USC announced that they would be joining the Big Ten Conference effective August 2, 2024, enabling both schools to remain in the
Pac-12 Conference for the duration of the Pac-12's existing media rights agreements. Unlike the prior expansion with Nebraska, Rutgers, and Maryland, USC and UCLA would join with a full share of the media revenue from the start of their Big Ten tenure. Unlike UCLA and USC, the two schools would receive a reduced media revenue share of $30 million each, with the share increasing by $1 million for each school each year, through the 2029–30 season. Rather than reducing the other conference members' revenue shares, Fox would contribute the necessary money. The schools will receive a full share with the next media deal.
Football: the return of no divisions In June 2023 – after UCLA and USC were confirmed as incoming members but before Oregon and Washington were added – the conference announced that starting in 2024, the East and West divisions for football would be eliminated. Each team would play nine conference games and three non-conference games, as before. Within a four-year period, each team would play at least two games against every other team – one at home and one away. This plan called for 11
protected matchups to take place every year; these included
Michigan–Ohio State and ten other regional rivalries. At the end of each season, the top two teams in the conference standings would oppose each other in the
Big Ten Football Championship Game. The addition of Oregon and Washington added one more protected matchup to this count, bringing the total to 12 protected matchups:
Illinois–Northwestern,
Illinois–Purdue,
Indiana–Purdue,
Iowa–Minnesota,
Iowa–Nebraska,
Iowa–Wisconsin, Maryland–Rutgers,
Michigan–Michigan State,
Michigan–Ohio State,
Minnesota–Wisconsin,
Oregon–Washington and
UCLA–USC, leaving Penn State as the lone school with no protected matchups. The schedule was also updated so that teams will play every other conference opponent at least twice – once home and once away – and will play rotating opponents no more than three times in a five-year period. ==Academics==