Big Ten looking to add 12th team

I'd hope the Big Ten would look for a school that fits the mold of 10 of the 11 institutions already there: large public land-grant institution with solid academics and competitive teams in several areas, and contiguous to their Midwestern base. Missouri seems like the best fit, but the market might be more powerful in reaching for something that doesn't fit as well.

I'm guessing a big part of this is wanting to make the nascent Big Ten Network a success. They are having no luck at all getting the big cable companies to get on board with it. The vast majority of Big Ten markets will not be able to see it on cable when the football season starts. I imagine they are trying to sweeten the deal and expand markets so the cable companies will play ball.

Rather than add another team, why not consider dumping Northwestern (perhaps an ideal fit for the Ivy League?) and then it could actually be the Big TEN again.

This is interesting.

If they go, they will want access to a big TV market. The Big 11 network is trying to get into a basic cable package as opposed to being a premium package. However, comcast, et al do not want to pay the fee (based on homes served) and have to pass that cost along to consumers who may not want the channel. The network wants it to be on basic cable packages so that it can go to sponsors and say "Look we are in 1 million homes" as opposed to premium where they know excellent how many homes they are in.

I cannot think of a logical team that brings in a large market except Missouri (that brings in St. Louis). However, I do not see Mizzou wanting to make that jump. They struggle in the Big 12 North (what has been a weak division) and I cannot see them doing any better in a Big 10 West (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Michigan or Purdue?).

Louisville is a growing city and pulls in the whole state of Kentucky. However, they just jumped ship and I wonder if they would be willing to do that again--there is probably a cost involved if not just in changing letterhead.

I wonder if Kentucky would be interested in jumping ship. That would create another ACC-Big East-Conference USA type shuffling as the SEC would then need to find a replacement or stay at 11 teams and lose the conference championship game (something it would not want).

Pitt does not seem like an appealing prospect as it probably does not add a lot of TV homes.

Rutgers might be appealing as that gets the Big 10 into the New York market. Of course Rutgers might find it tough going in the Big 10 year in, year out. It just got competitive in the Big East. Also, they might not want even more Big 10 schools recruiting NJ. Penn State learned this when it joined the Big 10. All of the sudden PA kids started getting recruited by Michigan and Ohio State and Ann Arbor and Columbus are far more appealing places to live than State College for a lot of people.

The idea of two divisions with a conference champion might not be so appealing if the BCS adopts the plus one format. It really would eliminate almost any possibility of the Big 10 getting 2 teams in the final 4. I am thinking about 2006, it would all depend on how the divisions are drawn. If OSU and UM are in the same division (I cannot imagine that being the case), the OSU would have played Wisconsin in the championship game. Only one would end up in the final 4. Michigan might have been able to stay in the top 4, but it would be hard for me to take a team that did not even win its division much less conference playing for the national title. (Who remembers the Nebraska fiasco a few years back where they did not win the Big 12 title, but they played in the BCS championship game?).

I also do not think that going to 2 divisions is a must even with 12 teams. The Big 10 in football plays 9 teams in the conference. I think each school has a set number of traditional rivals that never rotate off and the other schools rotate so that in some years some schools do not play 2 schools. They could just change that rotation.

There has been talk in the SEC that the championship game hurts the league. It is widely accepted that the SEC in most years can get 2 BCS bowl bids, but with a championship game one of those teams is often eliminated.

It really impacts basketball more where teams then would have to drop 2 out of conference games. This has been an issue in the ACC where they do not play everyone twice as they used to in order to keep out of conference games.

If the Big Ten expands to 12 teams, do you think there's any realistic possibility that a league name-change would be in order? (Something like the "Midwest 12" or similar.) Or is the Big Ten brand too big to consider such a move?

Rutgers? I remember reading a SI article many moons ago making this suggestion.

A few things. First, the Big Ten name will stay no matter how many teams are in there. The name has been around since 1950. Not to mention they aren't the only league with a number in the name different than the number of teams, Atlantic 10.

Second, Northwestern will always be in the conference. They are one of the co-founders, which began in 1896. Their academics nothing but help the way the whole conference is viewed (same reason Duke is in the ACC). Most importantly though, they are a second team that plays well within Chicago, along with Illinois. The Big Ten wants to make sure it has a lock down on Chicago. With Depaul now in the Big East, the Big Ten's hold on the city has weakened some and dropping Northwestern would only hurt the cause.

Third, yes each school has two other teams they play every year in football, the rest rotate.

As for the next member, my hope is that Notre Dame will finally join, but that's extremely unlikely. Thus, my second choice would be Missouri. Geographically (St. Louis give the conference another big markert) and traditionally they fit. Plus, they're rivals, Illinois, are already in the Conference. However, since they're already in the Big 12, it's unlikely they'll move. Personally, I really hope it's not West Virginia. They'll only bring down our academic standing and they don't bring a marketable team (if this is about marketing the channel, WVA has no major city and won't make much of a difference in terms of revenue).

Sorry for all the spelling and grammar mistakes, I wrote this quickly.

HRE wrote:

They've wanted Notre Dame for ages but had no luck getting them interested. Whenever this has come up in the past Missouri and Texas have been mentioned. Paterno has pushed for Pitt as a 12th member which would be a good fit in basketball and possibly in football.

Texas can't be a member of the Big Ten. Expansion of the conference must be within the current states or in a state next to the current boundaries. It's a requirement.

Huh? wrote:

What about the Pac-10? Every school resides within the Pacific time zone, so I really don't understand your unique brand of logic.

Who said anything about time zones? It's about distance. The Big 10 schools traditionally have been pretty close together (driving distance as the UW alum mentioned above). Texas would seem to be quite a geographical stretch for the Big 10 (as I mentioned) since it's so far away from the other Big 10 schools.

I mentioned the Pac-10 and ACC simply because they are examples of conferences that are more spread out geographically. It's 1500 miles from Washington to Arizona. It's 1200 miles from USF to UConn.

I don't see what's so difficult to understand about that logic. Please don't mention your alma mater (if you have one) or you'll embarrass your school to death.

luv2run wrote:

I wonder if Kentucky would be interested in jumping ship.

We don't want to lose UK. We need at least one easy football game in our schedules besides Vandy.

JoePa wrote:

If the Big Ten expands to 12 teams, do you think there's any realistic possibility that a league name-change would be in order?

Yes. They can call it the "Little 12."

EminenceFront wrote:

Missouri State or Creighton can go to the Big 12.

Both of these teams have decent basketball, but would never move to the Big 12. Missouri State's football team is div I-AA and plays in a 16,000 seat stadium. Creighton doesn't even have a football team (and Nebraska-Lincoln fans will never allow another D-I team in the state).

My vote would be TCU. They have the teams, facilities and big-name conference experience (as a former Southwest Conference team). There are already 4 Big 12 teams in Texas, but the state has 23 million people and would probably like a DFW presence. The tricky thing would be that this throws off the Big 12's north/south balance.

notre dame would be ideal

but since they have a huge ego and tiny package....

then I will take Pitt for sure.

discusstu wrote:

EminenceFront wrote:

Missouri State or Creighton can go to the Big 12.

Both of these teams have decent basketball, but would never move to the Big 12. Missouri State's football team is div I-AA and plays in a 16,000 seat stadium. Creighton doesn't even have a football team (and Nebraska-Lincoln fans will never allow another D-I team in the state).

My vote would be TCU. They have the teams, facilities and big-name conference experience (as a former Southwest Conference team). There are already 4 Big 12 teams in Texas, but the state has 23 million people and would probably like a DFW presence. The tricky thing would be that this throws off the Big 12's north/south balance.

TCU sounds like the best bet. If Mizzou left and TCU jumped in, you could have a Big 12 south with:

Texas

Texas Tech

Texas A&M

Baylor

TCU

Oklahoma St

Big 12 North

Colorado

Oklahoma

Nebraska

Iowa St

Kansas

Kansas St

One thing I think peopel are forgetting about Mizzou is that it's geographically equidistant between St. Louis AND Kansas City. So not only do you have the Columbia/Jefferson City market (150,000+ homes), you have the St. Louis and Kansas City markets (millions of homes).

I'm pretty sure Mizzou just signed a big rivalry deal with Kansas to play eachother the next two years at Arrowhead. I can't see them backing out of the Big 12 & their biggest rivalry to join a conference in which they would likely be worse in. Also Oklahoma is quite a ways south of Oklahoma St. So based on geography, Oklahoma would stay in the South if this happened.

Wyco Loco wrote:

I'm pretty sure Mizzou just signed a big rivalry deal with Kansas to play eachother the next two years at Arrowhead. I can't see them backing out of the Big 12 & their biggest rivalry to join a conference in which they would likely be worse in.

Mizzou plays Illinois each year in both basketball (the Braggin' Rights game which started in 1980) and football (typically the first game of the season and now called the State Farm Arch Rivalry) both played in St Louis. Thus, I'm thinking Kansas isn't there biggest rivalry.

Northwestern is either the founding member or at least a charter member, which would make them very difficult to kick out.

Also when the Big ten is looking for TV rating they are not thinking about the new markets of the new school. Instead they are thinking about the TV ratings of the possible Big Ten championship game, which would be a huge game.

Off topic:

My idea to fix the BCS is to make every conference have a championship game, and make that the first round of a national championship tournament. Then the 4 teams whose seasons proved to be the best would play in a play to determine the national championship. It would still suck for the conferences/teams that didn't prove to be the top four, but nothing is perfect.

TV wrote:

Also when the Big ten is looking for TV rating they are not thinking about the new markets of the new school. Instead they are thinking about the TV ratings of the possible Big Ten championship game, which would be a huge game.

And while they obviously care about the football championship game, the channel is 24 hours a day/7 days a week. The channel is having trouble getting providers to carry it. A larger market school with ties to a major city would help the channel get carried by more providers. Seeing as the conference has dumped a large sum of money into the channel, this is about far more than one game now. If the channel doesn't get picked up by cable providers the conference as a whole will be in a world of hurt.

It's still not nearly as big as the KU-Mizzou rivalry, which dates back to 1891. It's the oldest college football rilvarly west of the Mississippi. The two most important matches of the year for Kansas in any sport are against Kansas State & Mizzou. I would venture to say the most important for Mizzou is also against Kansas.

http://www.mizzou.com/homecoming/history.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Showdown