Established in 1896, the Big Ten Conference is known as the country’s oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference. While initially there were 10 members (hence the name), the current conference consists of 14 member institutions.
The Big Ten Conference, a distinguished collegiate athletic conference in the United States, was founded by Purdue University President James H. Smart in 1896. It was initially established as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives. This formation was a pioneering step in regulating intercollegiate athletics in the Midwest. The conference’s founding members were Purdue, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, and the University of Wisconsin.
Throughout its history, the Big Ten Conference has been a trailblazer in both academic and athletic excellence. It has a rich heritage of significant achievements, including being the first conference to adopt a student-athlete re-admission policy and the creation of the Big Ten Network in 2007, a milestone in college sports broadcasting. Athletically, the conference has excelled across various sports, consistently producing championship-winning teams and Olympic athletes. It has been influential in shaping the landscape of college sports in the United States, with its members regularly competing at the highest levels in NCAA championships.
In its current position, the Big Ten Conference remains a powerhouse in collegiate athletics, comprising 14 member institutions as of 2023, with the inclusion of schools like Maryland and Rutgers. It continues to maintain its reputation for academic and athletic prowess, playing a significant role in the NCAA landscape. The conference is renowned not only for its competitive sports teams but also for its commitment to academic integrity and student-athlete welfare, setting a high standard for collegiate athletic programs nationwide.
What is Big Ten Conference?
Big Ten Conference is the name of the sports conference, which was established in the United States in 1897 for athletic teams from various American Universities to compete in various sports disciplines, such as Softball, Basketball, Swimming, Baseball, and many more.
The logo, used by the Big Ten Conference in the 1970s — 1980s featured a distinctive and clean composition, based on simple shapes and a traditional black, red, and white color palette. It was an outlined roundel with the contours of the states in the center, the bold red name of the conference arched above and below the image, and the names of all state members inscribed into softened frames and set around the perimeter of the medallion.
The redesign of 1986 has significantly simplified the concept of the Big Ten Conference logo. Now it was a black-and-white composition with the enlarged digit “10” crossed by a two-leveled lettering, where the “Big Ten” part was set in bold large capitals, and the “Conference” — in smaller and thinner ones.
The logo, designed for the Big Ten Conference in 1990, featured a very interesting minimalist badge in dark blue and white. It was a text-based composition of an uppercase “Big Ten” inscription on the upper line, written in a thick geometric and slightly narrowed sans-serif typeface, and set above the “Conference” in a smaller size with its letters extended. Both lines were drawn in the same color. As for the most eye-catching element of the Conference’s visual identity, it was a white “11”, set on the sides of the letter “T”, in “BigTen”.
While there are only three glyphs in the current Big Ten Conference logo, the last two of them carry a double meaning. On the one hand, they represent the “I” and “G” in the word “Big.” On the other hand, they are the “1” and “0” forming the second part of the name of the conference. The similarity between the “I” and “1” and between the “G” and “O” make it possible to create such a structure.