[NU Sports] The Big Ten's delusion of self-importance

[Beamsley, Jeff]

I really don't care about the divisional names or the new logo and very few are likely to care about them next year when this whole thing gets going.

The bottom line is whether this divisional move will produce more interesting football than the previous structure.

Nebraska is a good football team.  That combined with the novelty of new matchups will bring more viewers to every Nebraska game on the BT network next year.  That should translate into more money for NU.  As far as I'm concerned, NU revenue should be the measure we use to evaluate the wisdom of this expansion and re-alignment.

As far as national competitiveness, the BT gets to play in a lot of bowl games which again generate a lot of money for the conference.  Nebraska is only going to add to the pot.  They also easily have a national championship tradition which rivals OSU and Michigan.

Whether this ends up with more BT representation in national championship games, I don't know.  It should result in continued BT dominance of the BCS and bowl landscape in terms of money flowing into the conference.  As long as we can suck more money out of this structure than any other conference, NU wins.

Jeff



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From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On Behalf Of Jim Bendat
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 10:29 PM
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: [NU Sports] The Big Ten's delusion of self-importance

All of us love NU, and we probably generally love the Big Ten, too. I can't get enough of watching Big Ten games every Saturday, and the Big Ten Network has been fantastic.

That being said, let's consider what the Big Ten really is. Sure, it's a collection of generally outstanding universities, and the traditions that encompass the conference are as good as it gets. But, let's face it, Big Ten football isn't as important nationally as it wishes. Sure, we had three nationally ranked teams this year. But how many Rose Bowls have we won since 2000? Exactly one - last year, when Ohio State beat Oregon. How well has the Big Ten done in national title games? Ohio State was fortunate to beat Miami, and they got slaughtered by both Florida and LSU in recent years. 

I have to believe that the conference's delusion of self-importance was a major contribution in the ridiculous decision to name the divisions "Leaders" and "Legends." You don't think that there are leaders and legends in every single conference in the country? Of course there are. 

I can think of a couple of other L words: lame and laughingstock. 

Jim B.

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