According to a report from Orangebloods.com, a member of the Rivals.com network, six schools are expected to accept invitations to join the Pacific-10 Conference. Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado will combine with current Pac-10 teams, including Stanford, to form a 16-team “superconference” that will begin play in 2012.

The six new schools–all of which currently compete in the Big 12 Conference–will form an eight-team division with Arizona and Arizona State, with the original Pac-8 schools (Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, California, Southern California and UCLA) forming another eight-team division.

Though there has been speculation concerning such expansion over the past two weeks, the Big 12 schools were prompted to make the jump to the Pac-10 after reports emerged that a fellow Big 12 member, Nebraska, will move to the Big Ten Conference. That announcement prompted Texas to move towards the Pac-10, with the other five schools following the Longhorns’ lead.

For the Pac-10, Texas is the key prize, as the school commands huge television markets across the state of Texas and has one of the country’s largest athletic programs,measured by revenue.

The new structure will allow the new Pac-16 to stage an annual championship game in football between the champion of each division. Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott has also announced several possibilities for new media distribution channels, including setting up the conference’s own cable network. The network would be modeled after the Big Ten Network, which has become a huge revenue source for the Big Ten.

The conference’s current television agreements for football and men’s basketball expire at the end of the year, and the Pac-16 should wield significant clout in negotiations for a new deal that would pay out a great deal more to the conference’s member schools. Current Pac-10 members receive between $8 and $10 million annually from the conference’s TV and bowl deals, while Big Ten members received approximately $22 million each from the conference last year.