Nexus Posted July 21, 2010 Share Posted July 21, 2010 Steve Glenn remembers when bus trips to Big Eight Conference contests meant card games and backgammon duels between him and his fellow Husker football players. Glenn, an NU offensive lineman in the late 1970s, said those days are over, especially with Nebraska moving to the Big Ten Conference next year. The founder and president of Executive Travel in Lincoln, Glenn said Husker teams may fly more frequently once NU joins the Big Ten. But that might not increase Nebraska's travel expenses. Even though NU will have to travel farther, Glenn said air travel will be much more convenient and cost-efficient. "These venues are generally much easier to get to," he said. "It's an east-west travel pattern, and Nebraska is better suited for east-west travel than north-south travel." Glenn said airplane hubs in Big Ten country, such as Chicago and Detroit, will allow Nebraska to find cheaper fares because there are more flights to choose from. He used the example of how the Nebraska football team currently travels to Lubbock, Texas, home of the Texas Tech Red Raiders. A charter flight originates in Chicago, picks up the Huskers in Lincoln and flies them to Texas. But the plane flies back to Chicago empty. It returns to Lubbock after the game, empty, and brings the Huskers back to Lincoln. Then it flies back to Chicago, again without any passengers. "Four out of the six flights are empty," Glenn said. "That's expensive travel. You're paying for those empty flights." But in the Big Ten, those empty planes will only have to travel a short distance back to their point of origin, reducing costs for NU. "If you had to say, 'Which one would you rather be with?' — it's obvious from a travel perspective. It's the Big Ten all the way," Glenn said. "The Big Ten wins, wins, wins." Glenn, however, was cautious to say that, overall, travel in the Big Ten will be cheaper. Although air travel will improve, bus trips may be all but eliminated, Glenn said. The closest Big Ten school to Nebraska is Iowa, about a five-hour drive. In football, Glenn said travel by motorcoach costs Nebraska about $30,000 per trip, whereas air travel can be up to $100,000. The Nebraska football program has budgeted $339,321 for travel to four Big 12 games this season, while the men's basketball program budgeted $161,210 to travel to eight league games, according to the NU athletic department. Iowa spent an average of $69,000 per flight to Big Ten football games last year, and an average of $30,500 on flights to men's basketball games, according to the Hawkeye athletic department. Lindsay Peterson, the director of operations for the Husker volleyball team, said Big Ten travel costs will depend on what division Nebraska is in and how the schedule is set up. Currently, the Big Ten plays matches on Fridays and Saturdays, not Wednesdays and Saturdays like the Big 12. As a result, Nebraska might be able to fly to play one Big Ten school, then bus to a nearby campus for the next night's match. "But there won't be any hop on the bus on Thursday night and drive somewhere to play on Friday and drive to the other place on Saturday, because that's just not an option," Peterson said. "It's too spread out." Peterson added that travel costs will also depend on the needs of each specific Husker team. For instance, she said the volleyball team takes more-expensive charter flights for Wednesday night matches in the Big 12 so that student-athletes can be back to Lincoln in time for classes on Thursday. With the Huskers set to play on weekends, Peterson said NU might be more open to cheaper commercial flights. The only thing that appears to be certain about Nebraska's move to the Big Ten is that Husker fans who are accustomed to driving to away games will have to pony up more gas money. In the Big 12, the average distance to an away game is 485 miles. In the Big Ten, it's 629 miles. But Glenn sees a silver lining in that, and not just because it could mean more business. He said he's currently working with the NU Alumni Association to organize packages for fans to travel to Big Ten games by train. Perhaps the days of card games and backgammon on the road aren't completely in the past. "That'd kind of bring back some nostalgia, tie it back into the newness of the Big Ten," Glenn said. "You can almost build a tradition off of that." LINK Compared with life in the Big 12, for Nebraska fans to travel by car to and from each Big Ten city will mean an extra 3,168 miles on the odometer — the equivalent of driving from Seattle to Orlando. It adds up to about $425 in gas and an extra 51 hours, 8 minutes -- two days -- on the road. Here's the one-way breakdown, with estimated travel times (in hours and minutes) and distances from Lincoln: Big Ten One-way travel to: Ann Arbor, Mich. 12:09 745 Bloomington, Ind. 11:05 637 Champaign, Ill. 8:33 518 Columbus, Ohio 13:24 815 East Lansing, Mich. 11:49 725 Evanston, Ill. 8:57 547 Iowa City, Iowa 4:58 301 Madison, Wis. 8:03 495 Minneapolis 6:56 431 State College, Pa. 18:06 1,088 West Lafayette, Ind. 10:07 621 Totals: 114:07 6,923 Average: 10:22 629 Big 12 One-way travel to: Ames, Iowa 3:39 223 Austin, Texas 13:27 826 Boulder, Colo. 7:38 505 College Station, Texas 13:25 811 Columbia, Mo. 5:21 324 Lawrence, Kan. 3:39 195 Lubbock, Texas 12:39 730 Manhattan, Kan. 2:39 135 Norman, Okla. 7:36 459 Stillwater, Okla. 6:43 406 Waco, Texas 11:47 725 Totals: 88:33 5,339 Average: 8:03 485 LINK Quote Link to comment
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