B1G Expansion and more Conference Realignment

strigori said:
They might be waiting for the O'Bannon vs NCAA too.
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If anything, it may accelerate this realignment, as your smaller schools now have to pay players with money they don't have.

But yes, we're in a holding pattern because of the Maryland/ACC case. $50 million exit fees are a far cry from the ~$11.5 million ($8.5 in actuality, IIRC) that we had to pay to leave the cesspool known as the Big XII.

Still love that Beebe failed to get anywhere close to the $60-80 million he promised the conference when we told Texass where they could go.

 
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mrandyk said:
Why would anyone want an 18 team conference? Even with a 9 game schedule you'd barely play half of the other teams. It is like dissolving the conference, subtraction by addition. Hard to forge any kind of rivalries when you only play certain teams once every 6 years. Rutgers, One of the greatest things about college football is the rivalries, and I just hate seeing the classic ones die. With all these teams the original Big Ten will have a conference slate full of Rutgers, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Florida State, and another East Coast team instead of all of their traditional rivals. I hate it.
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I mentioned that I disliked the idea of going to 18 teams when I posted the 16 team pod idea over on the 'New Divisions' topic. However I had an idea the other night I kind of liked. One which would allow a team to play every other Big Ten team every two years with 18 teams and a 10 game conference schedule. I am sure there might be issues with this, but wondered what you guys thought. My motivation is to play other Big ten teams more often, keep traditional rivalries, create marquee matchups every year and have some guaranteed regional games every year.

The simple idea.....no divisions. Each team has 3 protected games on a schedule each year and plays 7 of the 14 remaining teams in year one. Then plays the other 7 of 14 unprotected teams in the second year. CCG participants are the best two teams given a certain criteria; conf record, overall record, head to head, etc.

Example: Assume GT,NC,FSU (soon to be AAU) and Virginia join to make 18 teams (interesting that with these additions the Big Ten would be in contiguous states from Nebraska to Florida in a jerrymander sort of way).

NUs protected teams: Iowa, Wisc. FSU (or keep PSU if you like). Iowa and Wisc make for good road trips and FSU is a marquee matchup every year.

Year One Schedule: Iowa, Wisc,FSU,NW, Indy, MSU, Mich, Virginia, NC,Rutgers

Year Two Schedule: Iowa, Wisc,FSU,Minn, Illini, Purdue, OSU, PSU, Maryland,GT

(alternate home-away over 4 years and you hit every stadium in 4 years)

Three protected games work well for keeping rivalries/tradition. For example, Michigan would always play OSU, MSU and Minn (Little Brown Jug). Wisconsin would have NU, Minn, and Iowa. PSU: OSU, Rutgers, Maryland(I guess they have a history). FSU: GT, NC, and NU. Maybe GT could play FSU, NC and Purdue (the Nerd Trophy), to try and integrate some of the new teams with older Big Ten teams.

One flaw could be that selecting the two best teams might lead to some controversy, unless the selection criteria is well thought out and well known. But you'll notice I tried to balance out NUs SOS between the two years. That would have to happen for everyone.

So, any thoughts?

 
Two pieces of information a friend forwarded to me:

The first is someone's blog that suggests that Texass to the B1G is inevitable. I personally think they'll join the Pac-12 or go Indy before they join the B1G, but stranger things have happened.

Second, is that the SEC Network, the SEC's answer to the BTN, will be announced next Tuesday. From the article:

SEC commissioner Mike Slive, university presidents and athletic directors, and ESPN executives will all be on hand for the presser. According to The SportsBusiness Daily, the two parties have already begun calling “key constituents” and inviting the SEC’s corporate sponsors to the event.
The new channel is expected to be based in Charlotte at ESPN’s regional television hub.
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That's Charlotte, NC. I don't think this is a coincidence, and probably why there are reports of North Carolina being on the fence between the SEC and B1G--if you had the conference's own network in your backyard, you'd probably consider a fiscally weaker deal in exchange for the potential of skewing conference network coverage in your direction.

 
I read something about A&M trying to block Texas from the SEC (similar to Florida with FSU, SC with Clemson) and then the Big10 would be next in line.

Doubt it, but anything is possible I guess. Even though Texas and ND are the big prizes out there, not sure I want Texas in the Big10 (disclosure, Michigan fan).

Seems like they would be a pain. ND can always put their non-football teams in the New Big East. Still a good hoops conference and lots of Catholic

schools. I think Virginia and GT are a given unless Maryland has to pay the 52M. FSU is possbile especially if they get AAU status. Something has me doubting NC will

come aboard. Wouldn't it be nice if OU was an AAU school, to get that rivalry going again.

 
I can imagine the smirking if Texas moved in next door to you in the BUG10. But somehow I doubt they would enter a conference where they are not the Big Boss. Besides how would they split the Longhorn Network with the BTN?

 
Notre Dame Joe said:
I can imagine the smirking if Texas moved in next door to you in the BUG10. But somehow I doubt they would enter a conference where they are not the Big Boss. Besides how would they split the Longhorn Network with the BTN?
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Other than swallowing their pride - no small feat - I'm not sure the Longhorn Network would be a big loss at this point.

 
The LHN could turn into an off channel for BTN and run "other" sports on that channel...Not sure if ESPN would go for it though.

If a confrence has a chance to add Texas, you do it. Besides ND, they are the cowbell that can bring more to a confrence then anyone else. I can't stand Texas but would gladly take them in a heartbeat just to make the B1G that much better.

 
Fox Sports 1 & Fox Sports 2 need programming badly.

Since the big money maker is the NFL(but that's going away from NBC,FOX and CBS anytime soon) then the next best thing to invest in is College Football(ESPN's biggest money maker)

Fox Sports getting involved in the Big Ten discussions with Texas and some of the ACC schools has probably already happened.

 
Yea, I know this would never happen but just imagine if the BIG dropped Northwestern and Purdue, replaced them with Kansas and Mizzou, then added Oklahoma and Texas to get to 16. The western half of the BIG would be Texas, OU, KU, Mizzou, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisky. Sometimes it's fun to dream.

 
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Big Ten's in an interesting situation - culturally going Southwest into Big 12 country will be a better fit but none of the schools except for Texas is an academic match (both Kansas and Mizzou are middling AAU schools). Going Southeast to ACC country is more appealing from an academic perspective but there is a bigger cultural divide...not to mention the on-field product is much less exciting.

There's also the fact that Texas is the only fertile recruiting ground in the Big 12 (albeit a very a large one) while most of the Southern states in question churn out quite a few players...but with a lot of poaching from other conferences as well.

 
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