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Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

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Which Teams Should the Big Ten Add? (please limit to four selections)

  • Boston College

    Votes: 32 10.2%

  • Cincinnati

    Votes: 19 6.1%

  • Connecticut

    Votes: 6 1.9%

  • Duke

    Votes: 21 6.7%

  • Georgia Tech

    Votes: 55 17.6%

  • Kansas

    Votes: 46 14.7%

  • Maryland

    Votes: 67 21.4%

  • Missouri

    Votes: 90 28.8%

  • North Carolina

    Votes: 39 12.5%

  • Notre Dame

    Votes: 209 66.8%

  • Oklahoma

    Votes: 78 24.9%

  • Pittsburgh

    Votes: 45 14.4%

  • Rutgers

    Votes: 40 12.8%

  • Syracuse

    Votes: 18 5.8%

  • Texas

    Votes: 121 38.7%

  • Vanderbilt

    Votes: 15 4.8%

  • Virginia

    Votes: 47 15.0%

  • Virginia Tech

    Votes: 62 19.8%

  • Stay at 12 teams and don't expand

    Votes: 27 8.6%

  • Add some other school(s) not listed

    Votes: 25 8.0%
  • Total voters
    313
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matcar;1995722; said:
You said

I have no idea how that could relate back to the statement about UT and ND being the prize catches...so it seems you continue to create strawmen. And for the record, you don't have to have intimate knowledge of backroom conversations to know that those two programs are the pick of the litter out there and are the programs that could bring huge $$$ to a conference.
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But...but...The Great and All-Knowing Oracle PBC said they are in talks with the B1G and the talks are going well...and PBC is connected to the B1G offices...I know, b/c he posted it on the internet...
 
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I know I'm breaking all kinds of rules, but this is a great column... Haven't seen this yet, but sorry if already posted:

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ootball-fans-and-realignment-chaos/?src=twrhp

September 19, 2011, 2:24 pm
The Geography of College Football Fans (and Realignment Chaos)

By NATE SILVERSurveys find that about one-quarter of the United States population, or between 75 and 80 million people, follow college football regularly. But which teams do they align themselves with?

This question is not easy to answer, but we're going to make an effort to resolve it, and then use the results to shine a light on college football's increasingly complicated realignment picture.

The premise of the study is this: take the 210 television media markets in the United States, figure out how many college football fans they have, and then allocate them between the 120 current Football Bowl Subdivision programs.
The first part of the problem isn't as easy as you might think, because enthusiasm for college football varies radically across different parts of the country - far more than for other sports.

One way to estimate the regional variances is to look at Google search traffic. For instance, according to Google Insights for Search, the term "college football" is searched for about 5 times as often in Birmingham, Alabama as it is in New York City, relative to overall search traffic.

fivethirtyeight-0919-geocolfootball1-blog480.png


In other words, on a per-capita basis, there are probably about 5 times as many football fans in Birmingham as there are in New York. So although the New York media market is about 10 times larger, it has fewer than twice as many college football fans as Birmingham.

New York, because of its very large population, is still the largest market in the country for college football. But only barely: Atlanta has nearly as many college football fans, for instance, based on an extrapolation from the Google data, while Dallas (and even Birmingham) aren't far behind.

fivethirtyeight-0919-geocolfootball-topTV-blog480.png

The second part of the challenge is dividing the fans in each market between the 120 F.B.S. schools.

Cont'd ...

If you add up these results across all 210 markets, the three most popular teams are the three that also usually have the largest home attendance: Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State. (Ohio State is ranked first in the country with about 3.1 million fans.)

fivethirtyeight-0919-geocolfootball-fans-blog480.png

These teams get to have their cake and eat it too, dominating a series of smaller markets while also scoring points in some relatively large ones like Philadelphia and Detroit - and having large enough alumni bases that they even have some reach in places like New York.

...

The only two conferences that can feel completely secure right now are the Big Ten and the S.E.C..

They're the two that have taken the most conservative attitude toward expansion over the past decade or two, waiting for programs of the caliber of Penn State, Nebraska and Texas A&M to become interested before increasing their ranks. They've been rewarded with extreme loyalty among their fan bases. In a sport where rooting interests are so highly localized, that goes a long way toward explaining their success.
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Got it from here: http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/conference-realignment-chaos-its-on-like-donkey-kong/
 
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Ahem...

kinch;1995751; said:
I read it at the NYTimes, I believe. Wherever it was, we should always link to the source and give them their just reward for their work.
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BusNative;1995742; said:
I know I'm breaking all kinds of rules, but this is a great column... Haven't seen this yet, but sorry if already posted:

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ootball-fans-and-realignment-chaos/?src=twrhp


Got it from here: http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/conference-realignment-chaos-its-on-like-donkey-kong/
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Based on the article above, I'd say the line is drawn at Missouri. Anything less is a non-starter. Even Missouri seems unlikely. You have to look at the top of that list to see the only things Delaney sees, and that is fine by me. We should only add a team if it is Texas or Notre Dame. We should only add two if it is both. The rest water the league down.
 
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Forgive the source. I saw this linked at shaggy.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/33548/tranghese-big-ten-could-be-big-winner

Former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese is one of the nation's most respected voices on college sports. He's also extremely sharp and not afraid to speak his mind.

Tranghese sounded off Monday with WFAN Radio in New York. He lit into the ACC for poaching the Big East again, and he also ripped college presidents for being greedy and disloyal as realignment fever hits again.

The entire interview definitely is worth a listen, but Tranghese had some very interesting thoughts about the Big Ten and its position when the realignment dust settles.

I think you'll like what he says.

"You know who's going to be the winner in all this when it's all is said and done if you want to talk about conference? Big Ten. The Big Ten is sitting there, they took Nebraska, they're on the sidelines, they're watching all this chaos, everybody's going to be taking people. And you know you could be standing there all alone at the end? Notre Dame and Texas. And the Big Ten would not be accused of raiding because they're just going to be sitting there."​
Commissioner Jim Delany's patience might pay off, according to Tranghese.

Tranghese also discussed whether the Big Ten would pursue Rutgers and Connecticut.

"I don't think so. ... Before the Big Ten took Nebraska, knowing Jim Delany as well as I do ... Jim did a lot of work. He did a lot of analysis, and I believe that Rutgers was looked at, and Pittsburgh was looked at, and Syracuse was looked at, and Connecticut was looked at. And a lot of schools were looked at. And I think the Big Ten came to the conclusion that the addition of any one of those schools wasn't going to deliver them the New York market. ... So that's why I think that ultimately led them to Nebraska. Now they sit there and they ask themselves the same question: Can they get the New York market with Rutgers or Connecticut? You can do it with Notre Dame."​
Tranghese also said the Big Ten doesn't have to be reactive to other conferences.

"Why can't they stay at 12? In fact, I would argue you're better off at 12 than you are at 16. You have less mouths to feed, easier to run. You add people when you add value. You just don't add numbers."​
I agree 100 percent. I wish more people in powerful positions took the same approach.

Will the Big Ten's patient approach pay off? Will the Big Ten once again be a big winner in realignment?

Stay tuned.
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