Big Eight Conference

This article is about the dissolved NCAA Division I-A conference. For other uses, see Big Eight Conference (disambiguation).

Big Eight Conference
Established	1907
Dissolved	1996
Association	NCAA
Division	Division I
Members	8 (final), 12 (total)
Sports fielded	21[1] men's: 11 women's: 10
Region	Midwestern United States, Mountain States, West South Central States
Former names	Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (1907–1964) Big Six Conference (1928–1948, unofficial) Big Seven Conference (1948–1957, unofficial) Big Eight Conference (1957–1964, unofficial)
Headquarters	Kansas City, Missouri
Commissioner	Carl C. James (final) 1980–1996
Website	http://bigeightsports.com
Locations

The Big Eight Conference was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football. It was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MVIAA)^[2] by its charter member schools: the University of Kansas, University of Missouri,^[2]University of Nebraska, and Washington University in St. Louis. Additionally, the University of Iowa was an original member of the MVIAA, while maintaining joint membership in the Western Conference (now the Big Ten Conference).

The conference was dissolved in 1996. Its membership at its dissolution consisted of the University of Nebraska, Iowa State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, the University of Missouri, the University of Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State University. The Big Eight kept its headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri.

In February 1994, the Big Eight and the Southwest Conference announced that the two leagues had reached an agreement to form a new conference.^[3] The eight members of the Big Eight joined with SWC schools Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, and Texas Tech to form the Big 12 Conference the following year. A vote was conducted on whether to keep the new conference's headquarters in Kansas City, and by a vote of 7–5 the conference members voted to move to the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving. The two Oklahoma schools, all four Texas schools, and Colorado voted for the move while both Kansas schools, Nebraska, Missouri, and Iowa State voted for Kansas City.^[4]

Contents

• 
  1 History
  
  • 
    1.1 Formation
    
  
  
  • 
    1.2 Early membership changes
    
  
  
  • 
    1.3 Conference split
    
  
  
  • 
    1.4 Formation of the Big 12 Conference
    
  
  
  • 
    1.5 Dissolution
    
  
  


• 
  2 Members
  
  • 
    2.1 Final members
    
  
  
  • 
    2.2 Previous members
    
  
  
  • 
    2.3 Membership timeline
    
  
  
  • 
    2.4 Subsequent conference affiliations
    
  
  


• 
  3 Commissioners
  


• 
  4 Conference champions
  
  • 
    4.1 Men's basketball
    
  
  
  • 
    4.2 Football
    
  
  


• 
  5 National championships won by MVIAA/Big Eight members
  
  • 
    5.1 National team titles by institution
    
  
  


• 
  6 Racial integration
  
  • 
    6.1 Modern era
    
  
  


• 
  7 Conference facilities
  


• 
  8 See also
  


• 
  9 References
  


• 
  10 External links
  

History

Formation

The conference was founded as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MVIAA) at a meeting on January 12, 1907, by five charter members: the University of Kansas, the University of Missouri, the University of Nebraska, Washington University in St. Louis. The University of Iowa who was also a member of the Western Conference (now the Big Ten Conference) was also a joint member of the conference. Iowa only participated in football and outdoor men's track and field.^[5]

Early membership changes

In 1908, Drake University and Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) joined the MVIAA, increasing the conferences membership to seven. Iowa who was a joint member departed in 1911 to only compete 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 disapproved due to deficient management of their athletic programs.^[6] 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.^[7]

Conference split

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.^[2] Just before the start of fall practice, the six schools announced they would retain the MVIAA name for formal purposes. However, fans and media continued to call it the Big Six. The three private schools – Drake, Grinnell, and Washington University – joined with Oklahoma A&M to form the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC).^[8] 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.

Locations of final Big Eight Conference full member institutions, 1957–1995

Conference membership grew with the addition of the University of Colorado on December 1, 1947, from the Mountain States Conference.^[9] 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.

The final membership change happened ten years later, when Oklahoma A&M joined (or rejoined, depending on the source) the conference on June 1, 1957,^[10] and the conference became known as the Big Eight. That same year, Peters' title was changed to "Executive Secretary" of the conference. 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.

Formation of the Big 12 Conference

Main article: 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 negotiate 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".^[11] 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 the 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. Though there were complications over the next several weeks (some of which are detailed below), 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.^[12][13][14] Though the name would not be made official for several months, newspaper accounts immediately dubbed the new entity the "Big 12".^[15] 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 till 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

Final members

Institution	Location (population)	Founded	Type	Enrollment	Endowment	Nickname	Mascot	Varsity sports	National titles(See chart below)
University of Colorado	Boulder, Colorado (83,312)	1876	Public	30,128	$665,000,000[16]	Buffaloes	Ralphie the Buffalo / Chip	14	28
Iowa State University	Ames, Iowa (47,198)	1858	Public	28,682[17]	$452,200,000[18]	Cyclones	Cy the Cardinal	16	18
University of Kansas	Lawrence, Kansas (65,608)	1865	Public	30,004[19]	$1,005,000,000[16]	Jayhawks	Big Jay / Baby Jay	16	13
Kansas State University	Manhattan, Kansas (37,712)	1863	Public	23,588[20]	$277,600,000[16]	Wildcats	Willie the Wildcat	14	0
University of Missouri	Columbia, Missouri (69,101)	1839	Public	33,318[21]	$974,900,000[16]	Tigers	Truman the Tiger	18	2
University of Nebraska	Lincoln, Nebraska (191,972)	1869	Public	24,100[22]	$1,140,000,000[16]	Cornhuskers	Herbie Husker / Lil' Red	21	23
University of Oklahoma	Norman, Oklahoma (80,071)	1890	Public	29,721	$968,400,000[16]	Sooners	Sooner Schooner / Boomer and Sooner	19	27
Oklahoma State University	Stillwater, Oklahoma (36,676)	1890	Public	23,307	$311,000,000[23]	Cowboys	Pistol Pete / Bullet	16	55

Previous members

Institution	Location (population)	Founded	Type	Enrollment	Endowment	Nickname	Varsity sports	NCAA titles[24]
Drake University	Des Moines, Iowa (193,187)	1881	Private	3,164	$135,000,000[16]	Bulldogs	18	3
Grinnell College	Grinnell, Iowa (8,902)	1846	Private	1,688	$1,260,000,000[25]	Pioneers	18	0
University of Iowa	Iowa City, Iowa (59,735)	1847	Public	30,825	$791,231,000[16]	Hawkeyes	24	25
Washington University in St. Louis	St. Louis, Missouri (396,685)	1853	Private	13,995	$4,600,000,000[26]	Bears[27]	17	19 (Div. III)

Membership timeline