The Big 12's presidents pledged to grant their television rights to the conference for six years, Oklahoma president David Boren said at a news conference on Thursday.

No contracts had been signed yet in part because some schools must get the approval of their governing boards, league spokesman Bob Burda said.

The Big 12 splits revenue from its Fox Sports contract evenly, but only half of the money from its top-tier deal with ABC/ESPN goes into equal shares. The rest is weighted toward the programs that play on the network more frequently.

Boren said all nine remaining schools -- except for Texas A&M -- "agreed" to give a six-year grant of their first- and second-tier television rights to the Big 12. That means that all revenue from the top television games -- shown currently on networks owned by ABC/ESPN and Fox -- would continue to go to the Big 12 even if a school bolts to another league.

The six-year term runs past the next negotiating period for the top-tier contract, currently with ABC/ESPN, in a bid to keep the nine schools together for the next contract.

"We felt that we needed a lot more than an expression of solidarity," Boren said, referencing "unequivocal commitments" that held the Big 12 together in 2010, when the Big 12 last faced near extinction. "It was a very important item to show we mean business about staying together."