Now that Mizzou is good, and they have 2 top 25 markets KC, and St. Louis. What are the chances that the Big 10 gives up on Notre Dame and adds Missouri?

firmbizzle Wrote:Now that Mizzou is good, and they have 2 top 25 markets KC, and St. Louis. What are the chances that the Big 10 gives up on Notre Dame and adds Missouri?

As a Big Ten guy, I repeat that there is almost no chance. To summarize what I've stated elsewhere, if the Big Ten were to choose anyone other than Notre Dame (and I lean toward the notion that the Big Ten is willing to wait forever for the Irish), then it will be Syracuse or Rutgers (in that order or preference) in order to become arguably the major East Coast conference as well as the top Midwest conference. Anyone who thinks that the Big Ten has some conservative old quaint notion of being a Midwestern conference is absolutely wrong - with the Big Ten Network, it's exactly the opposite where they want to be the closest thing to a national player that they can be. Geographic purity will be thrown out the window in any further expansion plans (just like the ACC's expansion a few years ago). The Big Ten knows that pairing up Penn State with a northeastern team is whole lot more valuable than covering more Midwestern ground that they largely have already (unless they can get the ultimate national team in Notre Dame). Couple that with the much tougher task of getting a team to leave the relatively stable Big 12 versus the "low hanging fruit" of the Big East, and you'll see that Mizzou is much less of a possibility than Syracuse or Rutgers.

The Big Ten knows that pairing up Penn State with a northeastern team is whole lot more valuable than covering more Midwestern ground that they largely have already (unless they can get the ultimate national team in Notre Dame). Couple that with the much tougher task of getting a team to leave the relatively stable Big 12 versus the "low hanging fruit" of the Big East, and you'll see that Mizzou is much less of a possibility than Syracuse or Rutgers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is exactly why if the BE wants to get respect it needs to get aggressive. Go after BC, Penn St and Maryland. Keep after them put the other conf on notice that the BE is not going to lay back and wait for another raid. Its an uphill battle to win these 3 over thats for sure, but they need to try. Create a eastern conference where all the major players in 1a are members. I know its not likely to happen, but the dream of an eastern confernce survived the deliberate attempt by swofford and the acc to destroy it. Its still alive.

With Syracuse and Rutgets being so bad, what are the chances that the Big 10 still wants them?

firmbizzle Wrote:With Syracuse and Rutgets being so bad, what are the chances that the Big 10 still wants them?

No matter what the Big Ten does, it's going to be an evaluation over a very long period of time as opposed to a short time frame. There will absolutely never be a knee-jerk flavor-of-the-month expansion pick by the Big Ten. Before Penn State, the last time the Big Ten expanded was with Michigan State in 1953, which was the same year that the supposedly tradition-rich ACC was founded. That's why I was saying two years ago when everyone was jumping on the Rutgers bandwagon that Syracuse was still more attractive to the Big Ten because one or two good seasons means nothing to that conference - it is going to want to see at least a decade or more of sustained success both on the field in terms of competition and off the field in terms of finances before it's going to consider anyone other than the obvious fit of Notre Dame. I don't necessarily believe that the Big Ten would want Syracuse or Rutgers even if they were to show that type of long-term success - the only thing that I do believe is that either of those schools are more financially attractive and fit into the overall national plans of the conference as opposed to Missouri.

gosports1 Wrote:The Big Ten knows that pairing up Penn State with a northeastern team is whole lot more valuable than covering more Midwestern ground that they largely have already (unless they can get the ultimate national team in Notre Dame). Couple that with the much tougher task of getting a team to leave the relatively stable Big 12 versus the "low hanging fruit" of the Big East, and you'll see that Mizzou is much less of a possibility than Syracuse or Rutgers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is exactly why if the BE wants to get respect it needs to get aggressive. Go after BC, Penn St and Maryland. Keep after them put the other conf on notice that the BE is not going to lay back and wait for another raid. Its an uphill battle to win these 3 over thats for sure, but they need to try. Create a eastern conference where all the major players in 1a are members. I know its not likely to happen, but the dream of an eastern confernce survived the deliberate attempt by swofford and the acc to destroy it. Its still alive.

A quick look at the dollar figures will re-confirm why everyone should not even think about Penn State. The Big East television contracts combined for both basketball and football is about $35 million per year (with the top football schools getting around $2 million since it isn't distributed equally). Meanwhile, the Big Ten ABC/ESPN contract alone is about $100 million per year and its CBS basketball contract brings in another $2-3 million per year, with each school receiving about $9.3 million each year from those national contracts. On top of that are the revenues from the Big Ten Network, which have started out at $6 million per year per school and will escalate to over $10 million per year per school (not to mention that each of the schools have valuable equity interests in that network that could be valued in the tens to hundreds of millions per school when all is said and done). So, Penn State would essentially be giving up nearly $20 million per year (which is essentially guaranteed since conference revenue is equally distributed among members) along with its equity interest in the Big Ten Network in order to go to a conference where it would make around $2 million per year in the best case scenario (since revenues are unequally distributed). If your school president decided to leave a league where it made $20 million per year in TV revenue guaranteed to join a conference where it might max out at $2 million in the best of circumstances, I think that the school president wouldn't have a job for very long. Even assuming that the Big East would garner larger TV rights with Penn State included (and for that matter for discussion purposes, BC and Maryland), anyone would be hard-pressed to reasonably envision a scenario that the BE schools would each somehow make close to the $20 million per year that the schools in the Big Ten make (not to mention replacing the equity interest in the Big Ten Network on top of that). A CPA isn't required to see what choice is going to be made there.

Also, keep in mind that offering unequal distributions is considered to be a bad thing in the college sports world - Miami itself stated that even though it got a lot of benefits from the unequal financial distributions in the Big East, it wanted the financial stability of being in the ACC where everyone got equal distributions. Therefore, offering Penn State or anyone else a huge payment compared to the other Big East members would not be persuasive and, in fact, would be a huge turn-off. One of the best lines that I have ever heard about NFL owners is that it's a group of the most hard-core capitalists in the world that have gotten rich in a socialist league (alluding to how the NFL distributes so much revenue equally compared to the MLB and NBA). This is the same way with the power football schools - they want to be in conferences that make the most money at the top level and then have those revenues distributed equally.

I'd bet a lot of people in NYC don't care about the majority of Big 10 teams, aka nobody will be watching Minnesota/Iowa or Illinois/Indiana. The Big 10 network will not have anything on interesting to the people of NYC most of the time. It would be a waste, where as people in Missouri may actually care about most of the sports on the Big 10 network.

esayem Wrote:Nobody in NYC cares about the majority of Big 10 teams, aka nobody will be watching Minnesota/Iowa or Illinois/Indiana. The Big 10 network will not have anything on interesting to the people of NYC most of the time. It would be a waste, where as people in Missouri may actually care about most of the sports on the Big 10 network.

I agree to the extent that NYC doesn't care about college football in general (not just most of the Big Ten). By that same token, no one in NYC cares about Louisville vs. South Florida outside of people that have direct connections to those schools. The only school that has any long-term non-fair-weather traction in NYC is Notre Dame, with maybe Penn State behind it. Whether the Big Ten Network is able to draw significant ratings in NYC is secondary to whether the network is able to get carriage on the cable systems in that area (and/or New Jersey and Upstate New York), which is where the real money is for any cable network. The sheer number of households available in New Jersey alone (much less the whole Tri-State area) dwarfs what's available in the entire state of Missouri (where the St. Louis market is already covered by Illinois, anyway). Once again, I'm not saying that I truly think that the Big Ten is going to after Syracuse or Rutgers, but only that they are the ones that are going to be on the radar as opposed to Mizzou.

You're right, they would be making money just for being there, good point. I think Rutgers would be a better fit in the Big 10 all around, then Northwestern hoops would look better. Seriously though, I wouldn't want Syracuse hoops to do that to themselves. They need to get it together and flagship the Big East in all sports.

The most likely thing to happen would be for the ACC to trade Boston College to the Big 10 for Penn State.
The only way Notre Dame will ever join the Big 10 is with another private school partner in the East. Boston College is much more desirable for Notre Dame than Syracuse and Penn State has never really fit in in the Big 10. It's a win-win for everybody and does not impact the current Big East

I'll always think that if the Big ten can't have Notre Dame then they would go after a Big State U team
1. Nebraska
2. Kentucky
3. Syracuse
4. Mizzou
5. West Virginia
6. B.C
7.Iowa st.
8.Go really crazy and add Iowa st.,kansas,kansas st.,mizzou,and nebraska becoming the Big 16. I hope this happens.

XLance Wrote:The most likely thing to happen would be for the ACC to trade Boston College to the Big 10 for Penn State.
The only way Notre Dame will ever join the Big 10 is with another private school partner in the East. Boston College is much more desirable for Notre Dame than Syracuse and Penn State has never really fit in in the Big 10. It's a win-win for everybody and does not impact the current Big East

Exactly how doesn't Penn State fit into the Big Ten? It's a top tier public university with a huge fan base (which describes every Big Ten school except for Northwestern) and fills a 100,000-seat stadium every week (like Michigan and Ohio State). While the school is on the eastern end of the conference footprint, you can say the same thing about Minnesota on the western end. As I've stated before, the size of the state of Pennsylvania means that Penn State brings as many households to the table as Nebraska, Missouri, and Iowa State combined (and households are what matters for the Big Ten Network). At the same time, BC isn't going to have any bearing at all on Notre Dame's decision - they're going to make their decision strictly on their terms (and besides, they have much longer-standing rivalries with Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, and even Penn State than they do with BC). It drives me nuts when people say that Penn State "doesn't fit" in to the Big Ten - it's a perfect fit demographic-wise and the conference will never ever give that school up (especially for a comparatively niche school like Boston College with a much smaller fan base), no matter what wishful fans of an eastern football league might want. Penn State is the third most valuable school to the conference - it's ludicrous to ever suggest that the SEC would give up Georgia or Tennessee, or that the Big 12 would give up Texas A&M. Those scenarios are the equivalent of what so many people seem intent on irrationally thinking that the Big Ten would ever even give two seconds of considering to do on its own even though it goes completely against every single unbiased rational interest for the conference. Geographic purity means nothing in today's college football paradigm, especially for the Big Ten which has set itself up to be the conference with the most widespread national fan base.

Syracuse seems like it would fit the Big Ten well, and may revive their football program. It seems like they have a better following than Rutgers. It just seems like their football team would really water down an already suspect league. I really think a Big Ten championship game at Lucas Oil Field in Indy or Ford Field in Detroit would be as big as the SEC. The championship games keep teams in league competition longer which helps recruiting. Here's what the league would look like with Syracuse, and a Big Ten Championship.

Big Ten East:
Penn State (3) 3-0 7-0
Michigan State (20) 3-0 6-1
Ohio State (12) 3-0 6-1
Purdue 0-2 2-4
Indiana 0-3 2-4
Syracuse 0-2 1-5

Big Ten West:
Minnesota 2-1 6-1
Northwestern 1-1 5-1
Michigan 1-1 2-4
Iowa 1-2 4-3
Illinois 1-2 3-3
Wisconsin 0-3 3-3

Compare that to this:
Big Ten Conf All
Penn State (3) 3-0 7-0
Michigan State (20) 3-0 6-1
Ohio State (12) 3-0 6-1
Minnesota 2-1 6-1
Northwestern 1-1 5-1
Michigan 1-1 2-4
Iowa 1-2 4-3
Illinois 1-2 3-3
Purdue 0-2 2-4
Wisconsin 0-3 3-3
Indiana 0-3 2-4

All of a sudden Michigan, Northwestern, and Minnesota have a chance to win the title.

Syracuse is weak in a very important area for consideration into the Big 10. They don't do a huge amount of research. All of the Big 10 schools are huge research universities.

Shannon Panther Wrote:Syracuse is weak in a very important area for consideration into the Big 10. They don't do a huge amount of research. All of the Big 10 schools are huge research universities.

I think that Syracuse would meet the base research requirements for the Big Ten. Syracuse is a member of the American Association of Universities, which is essentially the "stamp of approval" of being a top tier research university. The Big Ten is the only conference, including non-BCS conferences such as the Ivy League, where all of its members are AAU schools. Rutgers, Syracuse, and Pitt are AAU members from the Big East, while Notre Dame is not (although the Big Ten would certainly make an exception for ND).

For all of those that seem to believe that Syracuse basketball would take a "hit" by going to the Big Ten, guess which conference has led the nation in basketball attendance for 32 straight seasons? It isn't the ACC or Big East, folks - it's the Big Ten. I'm not saying that the quality of Big Ten basketball is at the level of the ACC or Big East at this point in time (although all of these things are very cyclical, as the Big Ten had very good depth for the first half of this decade), but there's a very long history of fan and financial support that is every bit as strong for basketball relative to its peer conferences as it is for football (and the Big Ten's basketball TV contract is as good or better than any of the other BCS conferences).

It may not take a hit, but I could see some upset fans when Syracuse travels to Minnestota or Wisconsin instead of NYC or Connecticut. It just doesn't seem right.

esayem Wrote:It may not take a hit, but I could see some upset fans when Syracuse travels to Minnestota or Wisconsin instead of NYC or Connecticut. It just doesn't seem right.

Oh, I certainly understand that - I'm sure that SU basketball wouldn't take lightly terminating its rivalries with UConn, St. John's, Georgetown, etc. However, the Orange seemed to be ready to do that to go to the ACC when they were originally invited, which would have presented the same or worse geographic challenges as moving to the Big Ten. The trade-off is getting the Penn States, Michigans, and Ohio States of the world to come in on the football end - even if we were to assume that Syracuse basketball would be slightly worse off (and I don't believe that), the football side of the ledger is a completely different world in terms of fan bases and revenue.

So what do you think the BE would do if Syracuse left? I think the conference would split. If Rutgers left, they would have a better chance at patching it up again, but not if Syracuse wasn't there.

If the Big Ten does expand, it has to be someone huge, someone that is nationally recognized. That's why they added Penn State in the first place, they were too good to pass up.

I think Nebraska is a strong possibility, if they improve their academics. Yeah, Penn State wants an eastern partner, but I don't think there is one out there that meets the Big Ten criteria. Maryland would be interesting, but I think that's a long shot.

If the ACC ever goes to 14, though, then I could see Syracuse and Rutgers leaving. They should have taken Rutgers over BC to begin with.

If Notre Dame joined the Big 10, which I don't believe will happen, this would be a great alignment:

Michigan - - - - -Ohio State
Michigan State - Minnesota
Notre Dame - - - Penn State
Purdue - - - - - -Indiana
Northwestern - - Illinois
Iowa - - - - - - -Wisconsin