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 to the Big Ten in 1899, and Ohio State joined 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. It grew to 18 members in 2024 with the addition of former Pac-12 schools the University of Oregon, the University of Southern California, the University of Washington, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
The Big Ten traditionally has been one of the strongest football conferences in the United States. 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, the 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 (Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, and Rutgers) and West (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, and Wisconsin). The Big Ten eliminated these divisions in 2024 and made its championship game a contest between the two teams with the best conference records.