[NU Sports] Big 10 Expansion

[Jonathan Hodges]

After being fairly sure, even recently, that the Big Ten would stick to its
12-18 month timeline (set last December when they announced that they were
exploring expansion), I think it's clear that the timeline will be
accelerated, as noted following the meeting of Big Ten Presidents this past
weekend.

It's clear that this is due to the Pac 10 being very serious about bringing
in expansion candidates as early as this week (with some strong sources
pointing to that actually happening).  Credit the Pac 10 to jumping onto
this quickly to shake things up and make it interesting - it's clear they
are sick of their poor TV arrangements and relatively low level of revenue
and aren't sitting around to see what others do.  And thankfully the Big Ten
seems willing to move things up to not get lost in the shuffle.

It's also clear that they are sticking to their academic guns, so the
likelihood of any non-AAU member of getting an invite is very slim (except
ND, who has the academic standing despite not being an AAU member).  AAU
membership: http://www.aau.edu/about/article.aspx?id=5476  - so this would
limit the proposed field to Syracuse, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Kansas, Missouri,
Nebraska, Texas, Texas A&M, Colorado (and Notre Dame).

If any of the state schools are going to try to force "bundling" or package
deals (i.e. Baylor and Texas Tech have to be included wherever Texas and
Texas A&M go), don't expect the Big Ten to buy into that.  This may move
some of the candidates off the table (the Texas schools and Kansas).


Anyway, I think the key is how many schools the Big Ten wants to add.  And
that may depend on what ND wants to do (you can't live with 'em but you
can't live without 'em).  I expect the fallout to begin this month, if not
this week, so stay tuned.

Jonathan

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 1:48 PM, Sportsbiz <sportsbiz at gmail.com> wrote:

> Supposedly, the Council of Presidents/Chancellors reaffirmed their desire
> for AAU members but who knows if they will deal with Texas' "Tech problem"
> as OSU President Gee so artfully put it in his email to Delaney.  I think
> the question is now who, not when, and it all comes down to Texas just as
> the UT president thought it would last week.  Both the Pac-10 and the Big
> Ten are essentially just sitting around waiting for UT to make up its mind
> which way it wants to go.  Once it decides, all the rest of the dominoes
> fall into place.
> Mark
>
> http://www.freep.com/article/20100607/COL08/6070329/1089/rss18
>
> Mark S. Ament
> sportsbiz at gmail.com
> SportsBiz - The Business of Sports
> Illuminated<http://thesportsbizblog.blogspot.com>
> When it comes to sports, you know it's all about the money
> Contact Me [image: Twitter] <twitter:%20msament>
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Tom Maycock <tkmaycock at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Latest from Teddy Greenstein in the Trib:
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-0607-big-ten-meeting--20100606,0,1908510.story
> >
> > Among items of interest are the indications that things are indeed afoot
> > with the Big 12, which may force the B10 to make their moves soon. Also,
> a
> > further assertion that the role of academics has been underplayed in
> media
> > coverage of the potential candidates. Unfortunately, that assertion
> didn't
> > come with any specifics on what schools the media (and we) might be
> missing.
> >
> > Tom
> >
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