Report: Oregon has 'Preliminary' Talks With Big Ten About Conference Realignment

The Big Ten is on the heels of signing a massive multi-billion dollar media rights deal that runs through June of 2030.

Ever since the USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins announced that they would be joining the Big Ten in 2024, the future of college athletics has looked quite murky. For some schools the future looks more daunting than others. 

The future of Oregon football may be looking a bit brighter after a new development on Monday.

Brett McMurphy of the Action Network reported that Oregon has initiated preliminary discussions with the Big Ten to see if the Ducks are compatible with the conference.

Oregon has initiated preliminary discussions in Chicago w/Big Ten to determine if Ducks are compatible in the Big Ten, source told @ActionNetworkHQ. Big Ten “not done expanding,” sources told @ActionNetworkHQ last week. https://t.co/DYMZADm17v

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) August 22, 2022

McMurphy writes that former University of Oregon President Michael Shill, who was recently named to the same position at Northwestern, as well as Oregon Athletic Director Rob Mullens and Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren, were not involved in the discussions that took place in Chicago.

This is a significant development for the Big Ten, seeing that the conference just signed a seven-year, $7 billion media rights deal with Fox, CBS, NBC, Peacock and FS1 last week to distribute football games in addition to other sports. That media rights deal is a huge move for the conference as it shows they're serious about contending with the Southeastern Conference for the top spot in college athletics.

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It's been known that the Big Ten has made Notre Dame its top priority since securing a massive portion of the Los Angeles sports media market in USC and UCLA. Following that news, conference commissioner Kevin Warren has made it known that he could see the league expanding to as many as 20 teams.

In addition to Notre Dame and Oregon, it's also been reported that the Big Ten is targeting Cal, Washington and Stanford as future members to ease travel concerns stemming from UCLA and USC. 

What makes this even more interesting is that the Pac-12 is in the midst of searching for a new media rights deal that would begin in 2024 and likely feature a major streaming service in efforts to generate as much revenue as possible.

Monday's report my not be groundbreaking, but if nothing else it's a sign that things appear to be moving in the right direction for Oregon to become one of the next schools to join the Big Ten.

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