Big Ten Buzz: The Week that Was
By Dave Matter
Posted May 2, 2010 at 11:37 a.m.
This might have to become a weekly feature on the blog, a roundup of the latest coverage on the biggest storyline in college sports, Big Ten expansion. After some links I’ll share some of my thoughts on the expansion buzz.
● We start with our own Joe Walljasper, who touched on the topic last Sunday.
Walljasper writes …
The Big Ten gets 70 cents a month per subscriber within the conference’s footprint. So, 70 cents x 12 months x 2.2 million homes = $18,480,000. That’s how much the conference would make per year from the Big Ten Network alone if Missouri were to join the league.
Whether that, along with the school’s academic credentials, is enough to merit an invite is the question that will linger until the holidays, but I believe Missouri would be more than happy to join the club if asked. It would be foolish to refuse the offer.
● Austin Murphy, one of my favorite people in the biz, has a thorough sketch of three different realignment scenarios in this week’s Sports Illustrated. In all three, Murphy has Missouri joining the Big Ten.
Murphy writes …
Like many of their conference brethren, the Tigers are irked by what they perceive as the Big 12's Longhorn-centrism and how it distributes (or, more accurately, fails to distribute) its football TV revenue. Where the Big Ten and SEC dispense equal shares, the Big 12 has a weighted formula favoring its strongest teams. While the gentry rakes in $10 million, bottom-feeding Baylor must settle for $7 million — well shy of the $22 mil that its Big Ten analogue, Indiana, is pulling down.
● The Chicago Tribune’s Teddy Greenstein has been all over this developing story for months and shared some thoughts on expansion with the guys at Lake The Posts, a Northwestern blog. He raises an excellent point about revenue sharing in an expanded Big Ten.
Greenstein writes …
Keep in mind that these invitations probably won't be cut-and-dried. Let's say the Big Ten wants Missouri but doesn't think Missouri should get a 1/12th (or 1/14th) split of the revenue pie in its first few years. Then a negotiation ensues.
● Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez has some words of wisdom for anyone falling for the latest expansion "report" that cites anonymous speculation: "Anything said right now is anyone's imagination."
● Tom Shatel of the Omaha World-Herald addresses expansion from the Cornhuskers' perspective.
Shatel writes ...
Don't assume that (Tom) Osborne is sleeping on this and don't assume that he's Big 12 loyal. The former coach never liked the idea of the Big Eight/Southwest Conference shotgun marriage and all of his predictions about the power shift to Texas have come to fruition. While he's in the A.D. chair, it's Osborne's job to set up Husker football for the future. A move to the Big Ten does that. If he could send a seismic shift through Austin, Texas, on his way out the door, that's called a bonus.
● David Jones of The Patriot-News makes an important point regarding possible Big East targets, Rutgers and Syracuse.
Jones writes …
The Big Ten is hardly interested in the game-to-game ratings Rutgers or Syracuse would bring – which, by the way, are historically comparable to several Big Ten schools. It's the new cable footprint and prospect of a deal with NYC metro provider Cablevision, one similar to the pact arduously hacked out by the BTN with Time-Warner in the Midwest and Comcast in Pennsylvania. That's where the big money is these days in TV sports.
● Dave Sittler of the Tulsa World puts the pressure on Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe, who is "the second coming of either Nero or Teddy Roosevelt."
● Finally, my quick thoughts. And, yes, they include the world's greatest archeologist.
IndianaJones.com
Reporters are on a mission to uncover something grand.
I was skeptical of the initial Big Ten buzz only because I doubted the Big Ten’s sincerity about adding teams. For years the Big Ten has wondered aloud about expansion only to table the idea. This time, though, Commissioner Jim Delany is serious about adding schools, and for the first time since Penn State joined the league 20 years ago, there appears to be a groundswell of support for expansion within the conference.
Will Delany ask Missouri to the dance? Seems likely. He might have already picked up the corsage. That said, be wary of any unconfirmed reports from anonymous sources, like the ones that popped up last week and will predictably pop up for weeks, maybe months, to come. There’s a lot of guesswork going on right now and very little, if any, hard news to report. The person who will ultimately break the news of who’s been invited and who’s been accepted into the Big Ten is Delany. No one else. Expansion is his baby to conceive and deliver.
Meanwhile, for sportswriters chasing the expansion story, we get to play Indiana Jones this summer and beyond, trying to uncover a priceless relic/enormous scoop. If so, and if the list of Big Ten additions is the Lost Ark, then we’re just escaping the boulder in Peru — still a while away from all those snakes in the Well of Souls. (That doesn't mean we have to wave our torches at every rumor that slithers on the Internet and out from under other outlets.)
Delany said he's sticking with the 12-18 month timetable he originally laid out in December. I'm with Greenstein in guessing the job gets done sooner than that but no earlier than August or September. The Big Ten’s annual athletic director meetings take place later this month, followed by the Big 12’s annual meetings the first week of June. I can't imagine landmark decisions being made before these meetings commence.
So, when this week's inevitable batch of unsubstantiated "done deal" reports surface on the Internet and elsewhere, remind yourself that before a school can join a new conference it has to be contacted first, then invited. Then again, if negotiations are taking place behind the scenes, the parties involved are surely working under strict confidentiality agreements. Some lies will be told to protect the process.
At this point, we're building stories based on little more than our own conjecture. But unless it’s coming straight from Delany, I’d advise to take any unconfirmed report cum grano salis. (It's Latin, look it up.)
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