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Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

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


In the hours after USC and UCLA defected to the Big Ten Conference, most of us wondered what would happen to what was left of the Pac-12 Conference.

Not Bob Thompson.

The former president of Fox Sports Networks found himself thinking about the Pac-12’s media rights negotiations. It’s a world he worked in for 25 years. Thompson, a University of Oregon graduate, started penciling out what losing the Los Angeles designated-market area (DMA) did to the Pac-12’s media value.

“They just lost their largest TV market in LA and ostensibly lost San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Palm Springs DMA’s as well,” Thompson said.

Prior to the desertion, Thompson anticipated the Pac-12 would land a deal in the neighborhood of $500 million per-year average over the course of the contract. That assumed an offering of games similar to what the Pac-12 sold Fox and ESPN in their current agreement.

“I guess you could take a run at adding San Diego State, UNLV, Air Force, Boise State, San Jose State or Fresno State to the Pac-12,” he said, “but none of those markets really move the meter from a television standpoint.”

The new estimated valuation: ~$300 million per year.

Essentially, a fiscal gut punch.
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The Big Ten will expand to 16 teams when the addition of USC and UCLA becomes official in 2024. The conference’s $1 billion-a year television deal will presumably be shared equally among the members.

Thompson said the Big Ten’s decision to add two Los Angeles-based universities was rooted in a simple math equation. The 14 existing conference members know they’ll receive approximately $71.4 million per university under the new Fox deal. Adding two more partners only made sense if they could generate a minimum of $143 million in additional distributable revenue.

“To get there you could assume that the bulk of the 5.2 million pay TV homes in LA, San Diego, Palm Springs and Santa Barbara become inner-market Big Ten Network subscribers,” he said. “That will add significant affiliate revenue for the network.”

Adding Southern California to the portfolio increases the Big Ten’s core TV households by 25 percent. The result is additional advertising revenue for the Big Ten Network, Fox Broadcast Network and FS1 as well.

Said Thompson: “That should all be enough to convince Fox that the additional rights fees are worthwhile.”
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The Big Ten appears focused on trying to lure Notre Dame into the fold right now. After that, Oregon and Washington may be of interest to the Big Ten. However, Thompson estimated that those two Pac-12 universities, along with the Oregon and Washington television markets, would only generate an additional $60 million in combined additional revenues.

It’s good money, but well shy of the $143 million breakeven for the Big Ten.
 
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There's nothing in LA proper for them to add, but adding SDSU and UNLV would still give them a presence in LA. The problem is will the snobs in NoCal be willing to hold their noses and do it, particularly Cal vis-a-vis a lowly Cal State school.
 
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Going to 24 really kills the Big 12, ACC, and PAC, and puts an end to all the speculation. 4 divisions of 6 teams 4 team playoff to win league and then match up with SEC champ. Like nuking the whole thing from orbit, it's the only way.
 
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If it’s me…get to 24. Berkeley, Stanford, Washington, Oregon shore up San Francisco and PNW. UVA, UNC, Duke shore up the Mid Atlantic/DC. Then it’s ND by our rules or VPI.

This boxes in SEC to a largely regional entity with their options to add with diploma mills and already SEC owned markets, while maintaining B1G academic profile.

I’m sure someone else prob has better scenario with more $$$ per school…but this I think limits long term SEC potential by maximizing B1G.
24 just doesn’t work. You’d have to go to 11 conference games, leaving only one local cupcake. Plus schools like Oregon and Iowa want to play their OOC rival. The regular season would have to be 14 games. 24 may be a 10+ year plan once it seems certain that we have an nfc/afc situation. But it’s not in the cards right now.
 
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Going to 24 really kills the Big 12, ACC, and PAC, and puts an end to all the speculation. 4 divisions of 6 teams 4 team playoff to win league and then match up with SEC champ. Like nuking the whole thing from orbit, it's the only way.
I am OK with going to 24. Work out the pods later.

Any of these 8 would work for me: UNC, UVA, GTech, Boston College, Syracuse, Washington, Oregon, Cal, Colorado, and/or 1 of the Arizonas (I know ASU is shaky on academics, but they have a huge student body and are in a major market, plus they pass the cheerleader test!).

The ACC would quickly lose Clemson, FSU, and Miami to the SEC. Teams like VTech, Louisville, Pitt, and Duke would be in panic mode to stay in something like a Power Conference. Same with Oregon St, Utah, Washington State, Kansas, Okie St, Baylor, and the remainder of the former P-5s.

I couldn’t care less what happens to the Domers, Cincy, BYU, and the rest.
 
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24 just doesn’t work. You’d have to go to 11 conference games, leaving only one local cupcake. Plus schools like Oregon and Iowa want to play their OOC rival. The regular season would have to be 14 games. 24 may be a 10+ year plan once it seems certain that we have an nfc/afc situation. But it’s not in the cards right now.
Why would you need 11 conference games? 5 divisional games + 3 or 4 interdivisional games + 2 or 3 OOC games.
 
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Why would you need 11 conference games? 5 divisional games + 3 or 4 interdivisional games + 2 or 3 OOC games.

4 pods of 5 allows us to have 2 pods play each other every year with a 9 game round robin, producing 1 winner of each 2 pod pair each year that can play for the title. It's clean, doesn't increase conference games, and every team will play the other pods every 3 years. Allowing every 3 year player to be able to play the entire conference.

If we have 4 pods of 6, it would take 11 games to do the same thing, which won't happen. At 10 conference games we could hit every team in 4 years. At 9 conference games, which is the most likely, it would take 5 years to play everyone. We'd see USC in the horseshoe once a decade, yay. I'd like to see us actually play ALL of the teams in the conference regularly and I think a selling point of bringing on other big names schools like ND and USC is our recruits will actually be able to play them. Not to mention the power brokers in this (FOX), don't make $$$$$ from USC/OSU once every 5 years. They want to sell those big matchups as much as they can.

Plus with the 9 or 10 game options, then you wouldn't have a round robin setting us up for a big ten championship, we'd need to have a 4 team playoff. With the ncaa playoffs expanding to 8 or 16 soon, that would be 17-18 games if you want to win the big ten and the national championships. That's basically the NFL.
 
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4 pods of 5 allows us to have 2 pods play each other every year with a 9 game round robin, producing 1 winner of each 2 pod pair each year that can play for the title. It's clean, doesn't increase conference games, and every team will play the other pods every 3 years. Allowing every 3 year player to be able to play the entire conference.

If we have 4 pods of 6, it would take 11 games to do the same thing, which won't happen. At 10 conference games we could hit every team in 4 years. At 9 conference games, which is the most likely, it would take 5 years to play everyone. We'd see USC in the horseshoe once a decade, yay. I'd like to see us actually play ALL of the teams in the conference regularly and I think a selling point of bringing on other big names schools like ND and USC is our recruits will actually be able to play them. Not to mention the power brokers in this (FOX), don't make $$$$$ from USC/OSU once every 5 years. They want to sell those big matchups as much as they can.

Plus with the 9 or 10 game options, then you wouldn't have a round robin setting us up for a big ten championship, we'd need to have a 4 team playoff. With the ncaa playoffs expanding to 8 or 16 soon, that would be 17-18 games if you want to win the big ten and the national championships. That's basically the NFL.

Yes, I expect the future of College football will not resemble what we think of when we think of the current and past NCAA.
 
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Someone on the MWC board says he has a journalist contact who says the Domers have come up with their "non-negotiable" demands. Take it for what it's worth, but it's certainly consistent with their history, arrogance and MO.


They demand a California game every year (giving them an unfair advantage in access and exposure to California recruiting).
They demand to be in a pod with tsun, Sparty and Purdue (attempting to undermine and lessen The Game)
They demand that none of their home games be on the BTN (creating the perception that they are superior to the rest of the conference)

Hard pass. The Game is not to be upstaged by anyone. This ain’t the Big XII and they ain’t Tejas.
 
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B1G Thoughts: A 3-6-6 scheduling model for a 16-team Big Ten

Scrap what we previous thought about the future of Big Ten scheduling. The conference will soon be at 16 teams, and the future is bright.

College Football is a giant that refuses to sleep. In the last few months, rumors have swirled that the Power Five was going to get rid of divisions, allowing teams to create scheduling pods that would allow the two best teams to play in the conference title game while allowing everyone to play each other more frequently.
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The expectation is the powers that be will ultimately win out, and the SEC will announce a nine-conference game schedule with a 3-6-6 model that will allow them to play every SEC opponent at least twice every four years.

That leaves the Big Ten. Speculation was that they would get rid of divisions but stay at nine conference games. That math was hard to understand, but becomes much easier with the addition of USC and UCLA. The Big Ten, for the time being, now has the perfect conference for a 3-6-6 model similar to that of the SEC.

Getting rid of divisions was always going to come with tough decisions, especially in a conference like the Big Ten with so much history and rivalries that span a hundred years. The addition of USC and UCLA make it even harder to keep rivalries intact. Big Ten decision-makers must determine again how they want to select permanent opponents. Do they protect rivalries? If so, how many? What are the travel requirements? Should they give us the best games? Do the power teams deserve a cupcake opponent, or do you risk your top teams feasting on each other?
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B1G Thoughts 16 Team Proposed Protected Opponents
Team Protected #1 Protected #2 Protected #3
Illinois: Norwestern Purdue Ohio State
Indiana: Purdue Penn State Northwestern
Iowa: Nebraska Wisconsin Minnesota
Maryland: Rutgers Minnesota Purdue
Michigan: OSU Michigan State UCLA
Michigan State: Penn State Michigan Rutgers
Minnesota: Wisconsin Maryland Iowa
Nebraska: Iowa UCLA Wisconsin
Northwestern: Illinois Rutgers Indiana
Ohio State: Michigan USC Illinois
Penn State: Michigan State Indiana USC
Purdue: Indiana Illinois Maryland
Rutgers: Maryland Northwestern Michigan State
UCLA: USC Nebraska Michigan
USC: UCLA Ohio State Penn State
Wisconsin: Minnesota Iowa Nebraska

Entire article: https://www.landgrantholyland.com/2...n-usc-ohio-state-michigan-ucla-michigan-state
 
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