I'm selfishly hoping that ND pulling away from the BIG helps Kansas someday moving in.
I've said for a while now that Kansas would make an excellent bookend for B1G expansion if paired with a football powerhouse. You're right that football doesn't stir the drink in Lawrence--it's easily basketball, and I think that would carry weight with Delaney, an ex-college basketball man himself.
Plus, as stated before, the B1G is running out of viable football expansion targets. And while basketball ad revenues are half of what football ad revenues are, the B1G is still putting its basketball inventory on television. Adding Kansas to what is arguably the toughest or second-toughest basketball conference in the nation would help the B1G generate much more basketball ad revenue for their network...especially when the B1G holds back more basketball inventory for itself.
But again, because basketball ad revenue isn't what football ad revenue is, it would have to be paired with an excellent football expansion target to make it work.
You're looking at this from only a football stand point and the power brokers are not.
Yes, but football is driving the ad revenue and expanding the footprint/base eyeballs. Football isn't the *only* thing they're looking at for B1G expansion, but I promise you football carries almost as much weight as all other intangibles combined. That's why any viable candidate that *doesn't* have a strong football program *must* have all of the other intangibles locked down.
That's why Nebraska was so easy to swallow for the B1G--at the time, we had all of the intangibles, *and* we had football. That's why getting a school from the east coast, like Rutgers, Maryland, Syracuse, won't work--their football ineptitude can't be carried by the weight of their other revenue sports (read: Men's Basketball), academics, or footprint.
And this is why Kansas hits that sweet spot--it is an AAU member, it can draw from the KC market (very small plus), and it's Basketball program is a national draw, not unlike now Nebraska football is a national draw. Plus, for all the ineptitude that surrounds Kansas football, let's remember that they made a BCS bowl more recently than Mizzery (a former B1G expansion candidate).
Why so much talk about Texas jumping conferences? What did I miss? The Big 12 seems to be doing fine. Is the Big 10 even thinking about more expansion?
Define 'fine'? Just because all of the schools, sans Texas, tied themselves to the mast of the Titanic doesn't mean the boat's going to float now. It just means they'll all share equally in the misery when the boat sinks (save for Texass, who will have their ESPN deal to fall back on).
Plus, any revenue that the Big XII can crow about will be easily surpassed when the SEC puts their CBS contract up for bid, as well as when the B1G television deal goes up for bid in 2014-2015. So the Big XII will be the fourth-best conference in terms of revenue, and with their 20 year deal, they won't get a re-up until the SEC, B1G (likely) and Pac-12 get yet another round of bidding to drive those prices higher.