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) by its charter member schools: the University of Kansas, University of Missouri, 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's 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's headquarters were located in Kansas City, Missouri.
In February 1994, all eight members of the Big Eight Conference and four of the members of the Southwest Conference announced that the 12 schools had reached an agreement to form the Big 12 Conference. From a conventional standpoint, the Big 12 was a renamed and expanded version of the Big Eight, but from a legal standpoint, the Big Eight ceased operations in 1996, and its members joined with the four SWC schools (Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, and Texas Tech) to form the Big 12 the following year.
History
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. 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). 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
Final members Institution Location Founded Joined Type Enrollment Endowment Nickname Colors Varsity Sports National Titles University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado 1876 1947Public 30,128 $665,000,000 Buffaloes * 14 28 Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 1858 1908 28,682 $452,200,000 Cyclones 16 18 University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas 1865 1907 30,004 $1,005,000,000 Jayhawks 16 13 Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas 1863 1913 23,588 $277,600,000 Wildcats 14 0 University of Missouri Columbia, Missouri 18391907 33,318 $974,900,000 Tigers 18 2 University of Nebraska Lincoln, Nebraska 1869 24,100 $1,140,000,000 Cornhuskers 21 23 University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma1890 1919 29,721 $968,400,000 Sooners 19 27 Oklahoma State University Stillwater, Oklahoma 1958 23,307 $311,000,000Oklahoma stateUS News Cowboys 16 55
(*In the early 1980s, Colorado's colors were sky blue and gold.)
Previous members Institution Location Founded Type Enrollment Endowment Nickname Colors Varsity Sports NCAA Titles Drake University Des Moines, Iowa 1881 Private 3,164 $135,000,000 Bulldogs 18 3 Grinnell College Grinnell, Iowa 1846 Private 1,688 $1,260,000,000 Pioneers 18 0 University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa 1847 Public 30,825 $1,580,000,000 Hawkeyes 24 25 Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, Missouri 1853 Private 13,995 $4,600,000,000 Bears 17 19 (Div. III)
Membership timeline
Subsequent conference affiliations Team Left for Current home Colorado Big 12 Conference Drake Missouri Valley Conference Pioneer Football LeagueMissouri Valley Conference Grinnell Missouri Valley Conference Midwest Conference Iowa Big Ten Conference Iowa State Big 12 Conference Kansas Kansas State Missouri Big 12 Conference Southeastern Conference Nebraska Big 12 Conference Big Ten Conference Oklahoma Big 12 Conference Southeastern Conference Oklahoma State Big 12 Conference Washington University in St. Louis Missouri Valley Conference University Athletic AssociationCollege Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin
Colorado left the Big 12 for the Pac-12 beginning with the 2011–12 season. It rejoined the Big 12 in 2024. Drake withdrew from the Missouri Valley Conference from 1951 to 1956. The MVC stopped sponsoring football in 1985; Drake remains a member for all non-football sports. The football program dropped to Division III in 1987, playing as an independent until a change in NCAA rules forced the program to play in Division I. When the new rule took effect in 1993, Drake joined the newly formed Pioneer League, a football-only league playing at the FCS level that prohibits the awarding of football scholarships. Grinnell joined the Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference beginning with the 1939–40 season; their affiliation from 1928 to 1939 is unclear.http://www.grinnell.edu/files/downloads/Grinnell%20College%20Football%20Season-by-Season%20Records_0.pdf The MCAC merged with the Midwest Athletic Conference for Women to form the Midwest Conference beginning with the 1994–95 season. Missouri left the Big 12 for the SEC beginning with the 2012–13 season. Nebraska left the Big 12 for the Big Ten beginning with the 2011–12 season. Oklahoma left the Big 12 for the SEC beginning with the 2024–25 season. Washington University left the MVC in 1946; it joined the College Athletic Conference from 1962 through 1971, and became a charter member of the University Athletic Association, which began play with the 1986–87 season. It was independent in all other years. Washington University is now a football-only affiliate member of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin.
Commissioners Reaves Peters (1947–1963) as Executive Secretary Wayne Duke (1963–1971) Chuck Neinas (1971–1980) Carl C. James (1980–1996)
Conference champions
Men's basketball
Following are the MVIAA/Big Eight regular-season conference champions from 1908 to 1996 (showing shared championships in italics):