The Big Ten Conference (formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives in 1896, it predates the founding of its regulating organization, the NCAA; it is the oldest NCAA Division I conference. It is based in Rosemont, Illinois. For many decades the conference consisted of ten prominent universities, which accounts for its name. On August 2, 2024, the conference expanded to 18 member institutions and two affiliate institutions. The conference competes in the NCAA Division I and its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level of NCAA competition in that sport.
Big Ten member institutions are major research universities with large financial endowments and strong academic reputations. A large student body is a hallmark of its universities, as 15 members enroll more than 30,000 students. They are all public universities except Northwestern University and the University of Southern California, both private universities. Collectively, Big Ten universities educate more than 520,000 total students and have 5.7 million living alumni. The members engage in $9.3 billion in funded research each year; 17 are members of the Association of American Universities (except Nebraska) and the Universities Research Association (except USC). All Big Ten universities are also members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, formerly the Committee on Institutional Cooperation.
Although the Big Ten was primarily a Midwestern conference for nearly a century, the conference's geographic footprint has extended from the Mid-Atlantic to the Great Plains since 2014. In 2024, the conference gained a presence in the West Coast with the addition of four former Pac-12 Conference schools.
Member universities Full members Institution Location Founded Type Enrollment(fall 2024) Median earnings Endowment Nickname Joined Colors Champaign-Urbana, Illinois 1867 Public 59,238 $79,628 $3.689(system-wide) Fighting Illini 1896 Indiana University Bloomington Bloomington, Indiana 1820 Public 48,424 $74,511 $3.821(system-wide) Hoosiers 1899 Iowa City, Iowa 1847 Public 30,779 $69,866 $3.502 Hawkeyes 1899 College Park, Maryland 1856 Public 41,725 $84,365 $2.291(system-wide) Terrapins 2014 Ann Arbor, Michigan 1817 Public 52,855 $96,159 $21.201 Wolverines 1896 1917 Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan 1855 Public 52,089 $74,093 $4.419 Spartans 1950 Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota 1851 Public 56,666 $71,941 $5.935 Golden Gophers 1896 Lincoln, Nebraska 1869 Public 24,393 $62,769 $2.527(system-wide) Cornhuskers 2011 Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois 1851 Nonsectarian 23,856 $109,275 $14.210 Wildcats 1896 Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 1870 Public 61,443 $70,682 $7.932 Buckeyes 1912 University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon 1876 Public 24,404 $62,174 $1.651 Ducks 2024 Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania 1855 Public 50,737 $76,659 $4.769 Nittany Lions 1990 Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana 1869 Public 58,658 $81,751 $4.106(system-wide) Boilermakers 1896 Rutgers University New Brunswick-Piscataway, New Jersey 1766 Public 52,269 $77,933 $2.180(system-wide) Scarlet Knights 2014 Los Angeles, California 1919 Public 47,335 $77,677 $4.299As of June 30, 2024. Bruins 2024 Los Angeles, California 1880 Nonsectarian 46,566 $95,739 $8.744As of June 30, 2025. Trojans 2024 Seattle, Washington 1861 Public 56,997 $82,515 $5.457As of June 30, 2024. Huskies 2024 Madison, Wisconsin 1848 Public 51,044 $78,974 $4.305 Badgers 1896
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Membership map
Affiliate members +Overview of affiliate members of the Big Ten Conference Institution Location Founded Type Enrollment Nickname Joined Colors Big Tensport(s) Primaryconference Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland 1876 Nonsectarian 30,362 Blue Jays 2014 Men's lacrosse Centennial 2016 Women's lacrosse University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 1842 Catholic 13,174 Fighting Irish 2017 Men's ice hockey ACC
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Former member The University of Chicago is the only full member to have permanently left the Big Ten Conference.
+Overview of former member of the Big Ten Conference Institution Location Founded Type Enrollment(fall 2023) Nickname Joined Left Colors Currentconference University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois 1890 Nonsectarian 18,339 Maroons 1896 1946 UAA
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Membership timeline
History
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 following the admission of Iowa and Indiana.
1900s: Becoming the Big Ten Nebraska first petitioned to join the league in 1900 and again in 1911, but was turned away both times. Notre Dame applied twice as well, first at the conference's founding and again in 1908, but like Nebraska was rejected both times. In 1905, the conference was officially incorporated as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives.
In 1906, Michigan president James Burrill Angell called for a series of conference meetings to further regulate football, leading to new rules such as limiting football teams to no more than five games and players to three years of eligibility. 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.
In 1926, Notre Dame was again rejected for admittance to the conference.
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. The Big Ten's membership would remain unchanged for the next 40 years. The conference's official name throughout this period remained the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives. It did not formally adopt the name Big Ten until 1987, when it was incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation.
1990s: Penn State joins, Notre Dame declines
In 1990, the Big Ten universities voted to expand the conference to 11 teams and extended an invitation to Atlantic 10 Conference member and football independent Pennsylvania State University, which accepted. 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 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."