[NU Sports] Big Ten Expansion this week?

[Jonathan Hodges]

Peter: agreed, Pitt would be a good fit (academically solid - in the AAU and
athletics are competitive) but it wouldn't add anything in terms of
footprint or revenue - PSU is the heavy hitter in that state.

Regarding Nebraska: IF the Big Ten takes them in, I am confident that the
conference will make money on the deal.  Delany and the presidents are not
stupid - they have been very deliberate during the entire process (sticking
to specific criteria for expansion candidates and doing their homework in
terms of the true value in adding schools - which is why the original
timeline was 12-18 months).  They won't be adding any schools if it means
that the current membership will see their share of the revenue cut at all
(and one could argue it's only worth going through the trouble of expansion
if you get additional revenue for all involved).

I think Nebraska has the potential to draw in enough revenue to make up the
difference because it has a strong regional following, has the state all to
itself (like Wisconsin), and as the 12th member would allow the Big Ten to
stage that conference championship game which would bring in at least $15M
alone.  (I'm not going to get into competitive reasons why/why not a
conference championship game is a good idea - just on the financial side it
is).

We'll see what happens, especially since the Nebraska board of regents is
apparently meeting right now to discuss this issue.

Jontahan

On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Peter Warner <pcw at warnerpatents.com> wrote:

> Pittsburgh doesn't add to the "footprint."  Pennsylvania is already in the
> footprint because of PSU.  $0.88 per month per cable/satellite subscriber
> to
> the BTN from footprint states; $0.05 per month from outside the footprint.
>
> You are dead-on with Nebraska.  It's a sparsely populated farm state.  It
> will cost the other Big Ten schools loss of revenue in the end because the
> pot with the additional revenue divided 12 ways will be less per school
> that
> the current pot divided 11 ways.
>
> Peter Warner
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
> Behalf Of Arthur Miller
> Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 12:46 PM
> To: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Big Ten Expansion this week?
>
> I'm sorry, I just don't understand what offering membership to Nebraska
> does
> for the Big Ten.  Sure, they have a great football tradition, but that's
> it--no new major metro area, and no bump in academic status.  Plus, by only
> bringing us to 12 members, it certainly wouldn't close the door on Notre
> Dame joining in the future--not in the way that getting to 16 teams would.
> Am I missing something?
>
> Now, if Nebraska came over as part of a Great Plains "package deal" that
> included Missouri and Kansas...well, that would be a very different
> situation.
>
> It's funny how Pittsburgh seems to have dropped off the radar screen
> completely as of late.  Any ideas out there as to why?
>
>
>
>
>
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