coogs (new) house
University of Houston Cougars set to roar into Big 12 Conference with start date set
The University of Houston is set to join the Big 12 Conference. The school, which already has the greenlight to join the Power Five collegiate sports conference, has set a July 1, 2023 date to end its membership with its current league, the American Athletic Conference.
This date is a year earlier than the July 1, 2024 date, which is UH's expiration date on its current agreement with the AAC.
It's not immediately known what price the school paid to leave early, but the reported exit fee is $10 million. UH's move, announced Friday, June 10, comes almost a year after University of Texas and University of Oklahoma, both Big 12 members at the moment, set off a seismic shift across college sports. Both UT and OU pursued and were granted future membership into the powerful Southeastern Conference.
This change means the Cougars men's basketball and football programs, as well as the women's basketball, baseball, and softball programs, among others, can begin competing in a major conference, something the school has sought since the middle of the last decade.
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