Big Ten Conference | History & Members (2024)

Big Ten Conference, one of the oldest college athletic conferences in the United States, formed in 1896 by the Universities of Chicago, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and Purdue and Northwestern universities. The University of Iowa and Indiana University were added in 1899 and Ohio State in 1912. Chicago terminated its football program in 1939 and officially withdrew from the conference in 1946. The conference did not again include 10 teams until Michigan State was added in 1949. Pennsylvania State University joined the Big Ten in 1990, and the University of Nebraska became the conference’s 12th member in 2011. The conference expanded to 14 schools in 2014 with the addition of the University of Maryland and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

The Big Ten traditionally has been one of the strongest gridiron football conferences in the country. It resisted the overcommercialization of college football by allowing only one member team to compete in a bowl game each year, a policy that stood until 1975. From 1947 to 2001, the Big Ten sent a representative team, usually its conference champion, to the Rose Bowl, oldest of the postseason invitational events. This exclusive arrangement ended when the Rose Bowl, which became part of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, hosted its first national championship game in January 2002. Beginning with the 2011 season, the Big Ten realigned into two football divisions, Leaders and Legends, with the winner of each playing in a championship game. With the 2014 conference expansion, the divisions were realigned and renamed East and West. The East features Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, and Rutgers, while the West comprises Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, and Wisconsin.