Omaha World Herald suggests Big Ten targeting UNC and Kansas

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BleedGopher

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per the column:

The speculation is rampant — ironic, since Delany said the reason the Big Ten went secret this time after going very public with its search for a 12th member two years ago was the turmoil caused by prolonged rumor-mongering.

That's no comfort to league commissioners and member schools who hear that ACC school North Carolina (where Delany played basketball) and the Big 12's Kansas are high on the list of possible targets.

Is this corner barstool chatter?

Doesn't sound like it. Four BCS conference coaches and administrators I talked to Tuesday said they think the Big Ten is actively hunting for members 15 and 16, and mentioned the Tar Heels and Jayhawks.

http://www.omaha.com/article/201211...arfknecht-16-members-sounds-sweet-for-big-ten

Go Gophers!!
 

Horrible thing to split up traditional conferences in this mad rush for TV money. Just sitting through those interminable TV commercial breaks of Big Ten Network games tells you that the game and any momentum on the field is secondary to making ever more money. Don't be surprised if they kill the goose eventually. OUR Big Ten is disappearing.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
Horrible thing to split up traditional conferences in this mad rush for TV money. Just sitting through those interminable TV commercial breaks of Big Ten Network games tells you that the game and any momentum on the field is secondary to making ever more money. Don't be surprised if they kill the goose eventually. OUR Big Ten disappeared.
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FIFY
 

Hell, I say start a 64 team conference and just have our own march madness.
 

ski-u-mah said:
Hell, I say start a 64 team conference and just have our own march madness.
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Which might be close where this thing is heading to, four 16 teams Conferences outside of the NCAA. The big schools could not only control their football money but keep the March Madness money as well. There would be many hurdles to jump over and many more reasons it SHOULDN'T be done but after this week? Many people have stated that it certainly looks like that's where the Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC want to head. The Big East and maybe the MWC might have to beg to get in.
 


I prefer tradition too, but college athletics run on money. If this keeps the Big Ten ahead of the others, I guess we have to deal with it. We can always watch the NSIC of the MIAC if we want to watch college sports where money isn't such a major factor.

With expansion to 16 teams, we have division of 8 teams, and that looks like a conference in itself. The teams in your division that you play every year get to be like family that you see on a regular basis. The teams in the other division get to be like cousins that you don't know well and have to hang out with uncomfortably at family reunions.

With the protected crossover game, you will play teams in the other division (except your crossover opponent) only once every 7 years. Once you've played them at home, you won't see them again at home for 14 years. It gets to be almost like a non-conference game. And that's with expanding the conference schedule to 9 games. Adding a 10th game would mean that you would play teams once every 4 years instead of once every 7 years, so at least players could play every school at least once during their 4 years of playing.
 

RodentRampage said:
I prefer tradition too, but college athletics run on money. If this keeps the Big Ten ahead of the others, I guess we have to deal with it. We can always watch the NSIC of the MIAC if we want to watch college sports where money isn't such a major factor.

With expansion to 16 teams, we have division of 8 teams, and that looks like a conference in itself. The teams in your division that you play every year get to be like family that you see on a regular basis. The teams in the other division get to be like cousins that you don't know well and have to hang out with uncomfortably at family reunions.

With the protected crossover game, you will play teams in the other division (except your crossover opponent) only once every 7 years. Once you've played them at home, you won't see them again at home for 14 years. It gets to be almost like a non-conference game. And that's with expanding the conference schedule to 9 games. Adding a 10th game would mean that you would play teams once every 4 years instead of once every 7 years, so at least players could play every school at least once during their 4 years of playing.
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That extended absesnse that a larger conference will create will probably be the hardest concept for fans to get used to. Right now the longest you have to wait is two years to play teams but as you laid out in a 16 team conference there will be some long layoffs between meetings. The reality is that this is the way things are headed and I wouldn't be shocked to see the Big Ten as large as 20 schools at some point here in the relatively near future.
 

Let's think this through. BiG goes to 16 for a decade or so. Television starts agitating for a Superconference off go tOSU, Mich, PSU, Neb, UNC and possibly Wisconsin or MSU.

Back to the Big Ten but as a much less prestigous conference.
 

Winnipegopher said:
Let's think this through. BiG goes to 16 for a decade or so. Television starts agitating for a Superconference off go tOSU, Mich, PSU, Neb, UNC and possibly Wisconsin or MSU.

Back to the Big Ten but as a much less prestigous conference.
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Won't happen. The conference is more than one sport. There is more money to be made by the super-conference idea. That is what is going to happen. There likely will be 4 super conferences, but I assumed the ACC would be one of them. I can't see UNC leaving the ACC with so many rivals a bus ride away, but who knows. I just wonder if we'll go back to the Texas and Notre Dame idea that was thrown about a couple years back. I do think we'll stop at 16 team though.
 



Nick Saban has been quoted as talking about 60-70 teams being in the top tier of CFB and there being a massive dropoff from to the next 50 or so. 16 teams X 4 super conferences = 64+1 ND +3 service academies and you are at 68. The ACC looks to be the odd man out with this, mainly because the Pac-12 is so isolated from everyone else and the SEC/B1G are the dominant powers in the eastern half of the country. The BigXII is secure as long as Texas is around.

If things consolidate like they look like they might, and the B1G has 16 teams at least we will know we'll have a seat at the table. If this move to 16 is a preemptive move to cement our place in the future I support it. Better to have a bigger conference that might take a little getting used to than being on the outside looking in.
 

When the new "B1G" logo was introduced, I thought, the "G" looked a lot like a "6." Which would make a lot more sense for when the Big 10 became the Big 16 and would eliminate the need to re-brand the logo when 4 more teams joined after Nebraska.
 

It is folly to think tOSU, and maybe Michigan will stick it out in the B1G forever. They are the super teams in this conference. Wisconsin is so full of hubris that I could easily see the same. These teams plus Texas, Alabama, Florida, etc. will likely set up the SuperConference in the near future.
 

highwayman said:
It is folly to think tOSU, and maybe Michigan will stick it out in the B1G forever. They are the super teams in this conference. Wisconsin is so full of hubris that I could easily see the same. These teams plus Texas, Alabama, Florida, etc. will likely set up the SuperConference in the near future.
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Again, you are thinking about just one sport. Could be football does something like that (which in essence makes everyone an independent), but it makes no sense in any of the other sports. Collegiate sports needs conferences.
 



Maybe we are thinking too small. How about one giant conference and maybe call it the NCAA conference.


(ok, I'm done now)
 


If UNC becomes a member can the "U" get their money back? Just sayin.
 


highwayman said:
It is folly to think tOSU, and maybe Michigan will stick it out in the B1G forever. They are the super teams in this conference. Wisconsin is so full of hubris that I could easily see the same. These teams plus Texas, Alabama, Florida, etc. will likely set up the SuperConference in the near future.
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I think Minnesota, along with the Twin Cities as the 14th largest media market in the US, which happens to be dominated by the only D1 program around... will be just fine. Don't quote me on 14th... I know I'm close but too lazy to go look it up. I do think the B1G is currently getting watered down, but I do not see its demise in my lifetime.
 

I think adding Kansas and NC makes sense competitively, obviously more of a basketball move. But I don't think they make sense in terms of adding cable television fees. These additions are all about tv sets, I can see Boston College or UConn over Kansas.
 

4four4 said:
If UNC becomes a member can the "U" get their money back? Just sayin.
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That is Kill showing he is prescient. Why play them now, when we're going to be playing them every year? Or every 8 years with that much cross-over.
 


Unregistered User said:
That is Kill showing he is prescient. Why play them now, when we're going to be playing them every year? Or every 8 years with that much cross-over.
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Or 2 times every 6 years, if you go to a pod system.

In a 4 pod system, you would play your 4-team pod every, and rotate the other 3 pods home & home. You would end up playing the other 12teams home & home over 6 years.
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
Or 2 times every 6 years, if you go to a pod system.

In a 4 pod system, you would play your 4-team pod every, and rotate the other 3 pods home & home. You would end up playing the other 12teams home & home over 6 years.
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If I understand this correctly that would only be 7 conference games a year. I doubt that would be the way it goes.
 

scools12 said:
If I understand this correctly that would only be 7 conference games a year. I doubt that would be the way it goes.
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My system would be 9 games, with a single game vs one team in the other 2 pods. That would allow Michigan & OSU to be in separate pods, but still play every year.
 

During the proceedings when the NCAA was mulling over how and how much to punish Penn State last summer, I mentioned that the NCAA operates in such a gray area that what's to prevent the big programs from just dropping their association with the NCAA and starting their own conference (system is perhaps the better word). There was polite disagreement with my statement. ski-u-mah, Iceland12, and highwayman have all chimed in with variations on that theme and I still think the theme is relevant.

sparlimb, I get what you are saying, but football is by far the biggest revenue sport and the larger programs may be in a position to do whatever they want vis-a-vis the NCAA. Football could set up its own thing and leave the other sports under the auspices of the NCAA. Don't tell the folks south of the Mason-Dixon line, but the United States is an increasingly national market with regional differences no longer as relevant as they were a half century ago. The product is football and that doesn't need to be delivered to consumers through a set of regionally-based conferences based on geography and tradition. Where chances for big-time paydays exist, people will work overtime trying to find a way to get to that payday.

As someone who trends toward the traditional when it comes to my athletic preferences, it somewhat pains me to write this, but there is going to be a showdown between the NCAA and the more prominent college football programs and the programs are going to win.

I'm a traditionalist
 

Rutgers entering the Big Ten reminds me that the first intercollegiate football game was between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869. 2019 will be the 150th anniversary, and I thought it would be interesting if they played again that year. They stopped playing around 1980, I believe.
 

Just going to point out that I predicted Kansas yesterday. This was the response I got


supadupafly said:
and other than basketball, kansas brings near nothing. the economic purpose of adding nebraska for football is much different and makes far more sense than adding kansas for basketball. the economies of scale for football vs. basketball are significantly different, with far more weight going to football.
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I read somewhere that Kansas is kind of like Texas when it comes to 3rd tier rights and probably wouldn't want to go someplace where it's shared.
 

drinks at Northpoint said:
I think adding Kansas and NC makes sense competitively, obviously more of a basketball move. But I don't think they make sense in terms of adding cable television fees. These additions are all about tv sets, I can see Boston College or UConn over Kansas.
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It may well be about tv sets and money but you have to have a product to sell hence:

Football - PSU/Nebraska
TV sets - Maryland/Rutgers
Basketball - UNC/Kansas

Top-flight football, basketball and TV sets.
 


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