Big Ten expansion Q&A

[Nexus]

Hello, college football fans. We posted the "Ask Teddy" item Sunday evening and received more than 70 questions in 48 hours.

 

Good to see that a dearth of actual news (commissioner Jim Delany spoke to us for 30 minutes at the BCS meetings last month without revealing a thing) has not hurt interest in Big Ten expansion talk. ESPN's "Outside the Lines" will be delving into conference realignment at 2 p.m. Thursday.

 

A scheduling conflict will prevent me from contributing to that show, but nothing will stop me from answering a sample of your questions. Thanks for participating.

 

After it's all said and done, what is your best guess at how the Big Ten will look like regarding teams and divisions? Bob, Bolingbrook

 

I figured we might as well start with THE question. If you'd asked me 24 hours ago, I would have said the Big Ten would add three teams: Rutgers, Missouri and Nebraska. Then I spoke to someone involved in the expansion talks, and he told me: 16 is more likely than 14 and 14 is more likely than 12.

 

We know that Delany wants to make a huge splash. And we know that TV revenue is driving expansion. If the Big Ten really wants to make an impact on the New York market, it will add Syracuse and UConn to go along with Rutgers. So I'll go with 16 teams. More on divisions later.

 

As a Syracuse alum, I'm wondering if the Orange will move to the Big Ten. Matt, Las Vegas

 

The 'Cuse never made a ton of sense to me because of its smallish enrollment, tiny media market (excluding New York City, of course), subpar football facilities and mopey comments from Jim Boeheim. ("I just don't see how Syracuse or Rutgers fits in with Iowa and Illinois," he told the New York Times.)

 

On the plus side, Syracuse's chancellor, Nancy Cantor, is said to be pushing to join the Big Ten. She previously served as chancellor for the University of Illinois and provost at Michigan. And if Delany, a basketball guy at his core (he played for Dean Smith at North Carolina), also wants to make the Big Ten a hoops megapower, Syracuse is the way to go.

 

At the BCS meetings, Delany gently chided a Boston reporter by saying of the Big East: "Don't they have the most powerful basketball conference? I hear that on ESPN and the Boston papers."

 

Teddy, Do you think that Notre Dame will join Big Ten or stay with the Big East and help build a stronger conference there? Dave Boettjer, Indiana

 

I'll say there's a 15 percent chance that Notre Dame (finally) caves and joins the Big Ten. The Irish would probably add $5 million a year in TV revenue and save a ton on travel expenses (it's just a bit easier for its volleyball team to travel to Purdue than to Georgetown). But I wonder if Notre Dame would take a hit in donations if it loses its independence. We know that joining a conference would be wildly unpopular with the majority of ND alums.

 

Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick has said that only a "seismic" change would prompt ND to consider joining a league. If three schools leave and the Big East dissolves, that would be seismic. But my sense is that Swarbrick does not want to be the AD who pulls the trigger on the move, no matter how fiscally responsible it would be. No AD does.

 

Teddy, is this Notre Dame's last chance to get in or get out? If ND declines an invitation, and the Big Ten decides to mortally wound the existing Big East by taking two, three or four existing Big East members, what would ND's options be at that point? Would another "BCS" conference agree to the same set up as the current agreement between the Big East and Notre Dame? Matt, Chicago

 

That's what the Notre Dame needs to figure out. Its hockey team calls the CCHA (Central Collegiate Hockey Association) home, but what do you do about ND's 15 teams that play in the Big East? How do you go about making those schedules? What a potential headache.

 

Is Randy Edsall's recent comment suggesting the Big East may have to issue an ultimatum to Notre Dame music to Jim Delany's ears? Frank, Cleveland

 

Edsall said that some Big East football coaches have asked the Big East to give ND an ultimatum: Either join us or say good-bye. No chance the Irish join the Big East for football, so that would prompt them to pack their bags. Notre Dame actually could save the Big East by doing so, if you go with the theory that the Big Ten would halt expansion at 12 if Notre Dame were that 12th team.

 

I don't see Edsall's ultimatum scenario as realistic. People I've spoken to say that Notre Dame won't get the boot because the Irish add cache to the league and have helped boost its bowl tie-ins.

 

This week in Sports Illustrated they had a story on the three most likely scenarios for conference expansion in the next 12 to 18 months. All revolved around what the Big Ten did (i.e. take one club, three clubs, five clubs...) Have you read it and if so, what did you think? Mark Liptak, Chubbuck, Idaho

 

Nice to see that White Sox devotees are into this topic, Lip. SI writer Austin Murphy, who was in Scottsdale for the BCS meetings, laid out three interesting scenarios and snagged a jewel of a quote from Mountain West commish Craig Thompson: "We have known each other for 30 years, but now it feels like one of those cocktail parties where everyone's watching whom everyone else is talking to."

 

Austin also pointed out one of the top reasons Missouri would love to join the Big Ten: It continually gets shafted in the bowl selection process. After the 2008 regular season, the Gator Bowl passed on Mizzou for a Nebraska team the Tigers beat by five touchdowns.

 

Has there been any discussion about adding Boston College? They fit academically and add a major TV market however, I do not know if the ACC exit fee would be excessive. Let me know your thoughts. Nicholas, Chicago

 

BC is an excellent school located in a primo city. But as one person told me recently: "BC is about eighth on the list of what Boston sports fans care about. Much higher would be hating the Yankees."

 

A more intriguing school along similar lines is Maryland, which would make the Big Ten Network must-see viewing (for some) in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. And, hey, Maryland borders Pennsylvania. Delany said this in February: "I think the conference will continue to have a pretty significant geographic connectivity to it."

 

The Big Ten has had the most BCS at-large berths of any conference. I attribute this to the fact that the absence of a conference championship game means there's one less obstacle facing the Big Ten's best teams each year. It seems expansion is largely about revenue and creating a football title game. But why would the conference want to institute a football title game and thereby surely lose out on some BCS at-large berths and the accompanying payouts? The estimates I've seen for a conference title game would not cover the loss of payouts of the at-large spots the Big Ten enjoys. Matt Ciesielski, Crystal Lake.

 

It would be a bit harder to land two teams in the BCS, assuming the loser of the conference title game falls out of the top 14 in the final BCS standings. But with a 14- or 16-team league, it's hard to imagine that the third-best team would not finish in the top 14, and the upside of a league title game ($12-$15 million) outweighs the $4.5 million the league shares when it gets a second squad in the BCS.

 

What are the chances of Nebraska joining the Big Ten in the near future? Steve Cornelius, Elgin.

 

I'd say they're very good. Sure, the state's entire population (1.8 million) could fit into Manhattan (and what an odd fit that would be), but Nebraska fans devour Huskers football. One of the truest ways to measure that is in the attendance of their 2010 spring game. Nebraska drew 77,936 fans, second only to Alabama's 91,312. And Nebraska ranked 20th nationally in a recent survey of athletic department revenue, eclipsing Big Ten schools Minnesota, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois and Northwestern.

 

Some knock Nebraska's academics, but the school ranked a bit higher (96th vs. 102nd) than Missouri in the most recent US News & World Report rankings. And Nebraska is a member of the Association of American Universities, and that means a lot to some Big Ten eggheads.

 

The state doesn't have many eyeballs, but almost all of them watch the Big Red. And Nebraska could likely double its annual TV revenue by heading to the Big Ten.

 

Has anyone confirmed the annual TV revenue figure of $22 million per Big Ten school being floated through the media? I believe the ABC and CBS deal figures are known and amount to a little less than $10 million per school annually. I believe that the Big Ten Network's distribution to member schools has not been made public, but I have seen estimates ranging from $4 to 7 million per year. Unless the BTN estimates are very low, something is not adding up. Might the $22 million figure include additional streams of revenue, and not just TV revenue, which would mean a lot of apples have been compared to a lot of oranges through this process? Also, might this be a bit of puffery to build up support for a move to the Big Ten among schools being targeted among those schools' alumni and fan bases? Tommy, Pittsburgh

 

I think you're onto something, Tommy. Sports Illustrated referred to the $22 million as football TV revenue, but I don't think that is right. The Big Ten's ABC/ESPN deal that began in 2007 is worth a reported $1 billion over 10 years. So that's $9 million per school if you go on the (probably faulty) assumption that the deal will not appreciate as years go by (unlike Kosuke Fukudome's contract). The Big Ten Network is believed to have distributed between $7 million-$8 million per school last year. So that total is shy of $17 million.

 

The Big Ten has declined to confirm the $22 million. What it has released is a figure of $220 million ($20 million per school) for 2010 that covers revenue from national television contracts, bowl games, the NCAA basketball tournament, licensing and the Big Ten Network.

 

Whatever the numbers are, it's clear that the Big Ten and SEC are playing at a different level than the other four BCS conferences. No conference commissioner disputes that.

 

Doesn't anyone remember the expansion fiasco with the "old" Western Athletic Conference? That conference went from 10 to 16 teams overnight, and within two or three years imploded. Most of the schools being named in the potential Big Ten expansion do not appear to fit the Big Ten any better that San Jose State fit the WAC. Dana Krabbe, Mesa, Ariz.

 

That's a great point. WAC commissioner Karl Benson was reminding us of that at the BCS meetings. He called the 16-team WAC a "hodge-podge" of public and private schools that stretched across five time zones and included schools from Hawaii to Wyoming to Houston. The Big Ten has to be wary of making that same mistake, and that's why it's not trying to stretch across more than two time zones.

 

I'm a big Northwestern fan. They seem to be on the cusp of becoming more than a perennial Big Ten cellar-dweller in basketball. I don't see expansion helping NU in basketball, or football either for that matter. NU is already a bit of a fish out of water in the Big Ten, sports-wise. Isn't expansion to 14 or 16 teams going to push them further down the ladder? Steve, West Dundee

 

I'm open to hearing your theories as to why you think it would hurt Northwestern. (Email me at tgreenstein@tribune.com, Steve.) But I don't see it. In terms of basketball, expansion could help. If Rutgers joins, New Jersey becomes a prime recruiting state for Bill Carmody, who grew up in Spring Lake., N.J., and flourished as a coach at Princeton.

 

As for football, I think it's a plus as long as Ohio State is in a different division. And don't forget the main motivation to do this – more cash. Wouldn't you like to pour that added revenue into Welsh-Ryan Arena?

 

In a Big Ten expansion, how will the divisions play out? Geographically and historically, Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State are the best teams. Could they possibly be split up? Jack, Chicago

 

That is so tough to predict. A 14-team league with Mizzou, Nebraska and Rutgers could look like this … EAST: Rutgers, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue. WEST: Northwestern, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Mizzou, Nebraska. The division winners would play for the Big Ten title. Rather tidy.

 

If the Big Ten splits into four, there would seemingly be no way to maintain all the rivalries. Best guess would have EAST: Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn and Penn State; WEST: Nebraska, Mizzou, Illinois, Iowa' NORTH: Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan State; SOUTH: Ohio State, Purdue, Indiana and Michigan. Ann Arbor is not exactly tropical, I know, but you'd have to assure a Wolverines- Buckeyes matchup every year.

 

Bottom line, I would not project a split into four divisions because what, then, do you do with the four champions? Delany is as anti-playoff as anyone in America, so it's not as if he'll want to create a potential scenario with semifinal AND championship conference games.

 

Teddy, It's clear that expanding BTN revenue will be a key driver for conference expansion; with metro NYC cable systems being the #1 target. What's the math on getting the BTN onto basic cable packages in metro NYC? (e.g. XX cents per subscriber per month?) How does it all add it up? What's the incremental take per school for a 14 or 16 school conference? William Dunlevy, Columbus, Ohio.

 

Check back to chicagotribune.com next week, William. I'm working on a TV-related piece that will address those questions.

 

I am an Ohio State alumnus and host the Buckeye Gamewatch in Lake county. I hate to see expansion, because it means a Big Ten championship game. That equates to a loss in significance to the Ohio State vs. Michigan game. Are the benefits of expansion worth the loss of significance to the regular season? Scott Biersteker, Third Lake, Ill.

 

Your premise is right on, Scott. Any time you create a playoff or championship game, it's almost guaranteed to take away from the regular season. (That's one reason why a playoff system would wreck college football … but that's for another mailbag.) The majority of Big Ten coaches, though, want a league title game to extend the season and, in theory, keep their teams sharper for bowl games.

 

What the Big Ten is? Moo New, China

 

Now there's a healthy perspective. (And, yes, that was an actual question.)

 

LINK

[Nexus]

Austin also pointed out one of the top reasons Missouri would love to join the Big Ten: It continually gets shafted in the bowl selection process. After the 2008 regular season, the Gator Bowl passed on Mizzou for a Nebraska team the Tigers beat by five touchdowns.

 

While I agree that Mizzou should've gotten a better bowl than us that year, I'm curious how being in the Big 12 is their downfall for not getting into a better bowl? The above quote makes it sound as if Beebe told the Gator Bowl to take Nebraska instead of Mizzou. Was that the case? Anyone care to enlighten me on this?

[Caven]

Austin also pointed out one of the top reasons Missouri would love to join the Big Ten: It continually gets shafted in the bowl selection process. After the 2008 regular season, the Gator Bowl passed on Mizzou for a Nebraska team the Tigers beat by five touchdowns.

 

While I agree that Mizzou should've gotten a better bowl than us that year, I'm curious how being in the Big 12 is their downfall for not getting into a better bowl? The above quote makes it sound as if Beebe told the Gator Bowl to take Nebraska instead of Mizzou. Was that the case? Anyone care to enlighten me on this?

 

The Big 10 has much tighter rules on their bowl selection than the Big 12 does - however in most years they would still not have helped Missouri. The biggest difference is that a team taken over another team must have no more than 1 game difference between them in record (thus Missouri would not have been able to be passed over for Iowa State last year). I believe that they must also be within 1 place of each other in the final B10 standings although I am not positive on that point.

[HuskerGBR]

Austin also pointed out one of the top reasons Missouri would love to join the Big Ten: It continually gets shafted in the bowl selection process. After the 2008 regular season, the Gator Bowl passed on Mizzou for a Nebraska team the Tigers beat by five touchdowns.

 

While I agree that Mizzou should've gotten a better bowl than us that year, I'm curious how being in the Big 12 is their downfall for not getting into a better bowl? The above quote makes it sound as if Beebe told the Gator Bowl to take Nebraska instead of Mizzou. Was that the case? Anyone care to enlighten me on this?

 

Nah, it is the bowl committee that decides who they take. The Gator Bowl thought they would do better by having Nebraska come, because we travel well...at least that is what they said anyways.

 

Maybe what is meant by that comment is that when it comes down to it Mizzou will always get passed over for some of the other programs in the Big XII? Although, I fail to see how that wouldn't be the case in the Big 10 as well.

[Nexus]

Austin also pointed out one of the top reasons Missouri would love to join the Big Ten: It continually gets shafted in the bowl selection process. After the 2008 regular season, the Gator Bowl passed on Mizzou for a Nebraska team the Tigers beat by five touchdowns.

 

While I agree that Mizzou should've gotten a better bowl than us that year, I'm curious how being in the Big 12 is their downfall for not getting into a better bowl? The above quote makes it sound as if Beebe told the Gator Bowl to take Nebraska instead of Mizzou. Was that the case? Anyone care to enlighten me on this?

 

The Big 10 has much tighter rules on their bowl selection than the Big 12 does - however in most years they would still not have helped Missouri. The biggest difference is that a team taken over another team must have no more than 1 game difference between them in record (thus Missouri would not have been able to be passed over for Iowa State last year). I believe that they must also be within 1 place of each other in the final B10 standings although I am not positive on that point.

 

Thanks for sharing this from a Big 10 perspective. That makes sense.

 

 

Austin also pointed out one of the top reasons Missouri would love to join the Big Ten: It continually gets shafted in the bowl selection process. After the 2008 regular season, the Gator Bowl passed on Mizzou for a Nebraska team the Tigers beat by five touchdowns.

 

While I agree that Mizzou should've gotten a better bowl than us that year, I'm curious how being in the Big 12 is their downfall for not getting into a better bowl? The above quote makes it sound as if Beebe told the Gator Bowl to take Nebraska instead of Mizzou. Was that the case? Anyone care to enlighten me on this?

Nah, it is the bowl committee that decides who they take. The Gator Bowl thought they would do better by having Nebraska come, because we travel well...at least that is what they said anyways.

 

Maybe what is meant by that comment is that when it comes down to it Mizzou will always get passed over for some of the other programs in the Big XII? Although, I fail to see how that wouldn't be the case in the Big 10 as well.

 

This is what I thought too. I was under the impression that if a team has the same record at the end of the regular season, then the team who is historically the better travelling fanbase will more likely end up going to the better bowl since bowl committees see it from a fiscal perspective.

[Nexus]

Speaking of bowl games:

 

 

[Nexus]

For the past 15 years, the Alamo Bowl hosted Big 12 vs Big 10 match-ups with the Big 10 leading the series 8-7. Starting in 2010-11, the Alamo Bowl will change the conference match-ups to showcase Pac-10 vs Big 12.

 

Another thing I found interesting. Nebraska played in three Alamo Bowls this past decade. Note the TV ratings in those Alamo Bowl appearances compared to the other bowls (minus the National Championship game in 2002). It appears that whenever we played a Big 10 team, we fared better in TV ratings than when we competed against SEC and Pac-10 teams.

 

4.1 Alamo vs Big 10 (Northwestern) = 2000

13.9 Rose vs Big East (Miami) = 2002

3.6 Independence vs SEC (Ole Miss) = 2002

4.2 Alamo vs Big 10 (Mich. St.) = 2003

5.4 Alamo vs Big 10 (Michigan) = 2005

3.7 Cotton vs SEC (Auburn) = 2007

4.1 Gator vs ACC (Clemson) = 2009

3.7 Holiday vs Pac-10 (Arizona) = 2009

 

2002-2010 Bowl TV Ratings

2000 Alamo Bowl TV Rating

 

BTW, the first link above shows that the Holiday bowl posted a 4.3 rating, but this reflects a 3.7 with its source being Nielsen. I'm inclined to believe the Nielsen rating. The other one must be a typo?