Birmingham, Alabama - The Southeastern Conference (SEC) will soon become a 16-team super conference as both the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma have formally accepted invitations to join the most popular athletic conference in the NCAA.

On Friday, both the Texas and Oklahoma boards of regents approved the process to transition out of the Big 12, and into the SEC, making the Southeastern Conference the biggest collegiate athletic conference in the nation.

During the course of the week, all signs pointed to the inevitable move. Starting on Monday, both schools chose not to renew their media contracts that are set to expire in mid-June of 2025.

The very next day, both schools made the SEC aware in a joint statement that they were seeking formal invitations for inclusion effective three years from now.

On Thursday, 14 SEC presidents and chancellors voted unanimously to extend invitations to both schools, with accepting confirmations from both institutions being handed over within hours of each other on Friday.

"This is an important moment for the long-term future of the Southeastern Conference and our member universities," SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement on Friday.

The specific date of the move isn’t known yet, though it’s believed that both schools will indeed stick things out until the last date of the media rights agreement, which is June 30, 2025.

"We told the Big 12 that we intend to honor our current agreement while knowing that notice now is the fairest way to allow the conference to plan for its future beyond 2025," said Texas president Jay Hartzell, in a statement to ESPN.

The unprecedented move means that every sports program for these schools will change conferences, with the biggest sports program affected being college football – each school’s biggest money-maker.

And while the move will make for lots of potential successes for those attached to the SEC, those who are involved in the Big 12 aren’t so enthusiastic about the change.

From a statement to the Associated Press earlier in the week, Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby went so far as issuing a cease and desist letter and even accused ESPN, who is also behind both the SEC and Big 12 television networks, of "manipulating other conferences to go after our members."

He was confident in his stance against the move, adding that "these plans have been in the works with ongoing discussions between the parties and television partner for some time."

His remarks reinforced the fact that such a big deal had to have been going on behind the scenes for an extended period of time.

ESPN responded to Bowlsby's allegations on Thursday, by saying that it "engaged in no wrongful conduct."