Big Ten Expansion: The Next Frontier

By Nick Leach | 4/9/10 | Email

In newfangled pop culture it has become in vogue to mock and ridicule the old school playing tactics of the Big Ten conference. Three yards and a cloud of dust, the stylish swagger of sweater vests, old man Joe Pa and his exquisitely modern glasses, epic bowl failures, and team speeds that are reminiscent of old ladies in some of those Hoveround Power Chair commercials.

Alright, all of that may be slightly exaggerated (except the sweater vest) but the reputation of the Big Ten has taken quite a beating lately and that’s no secret. You want to know a secret though? The Big Ten is on the precipice of being the envy of all other conference directors. No longer will they be considered old school bordering ancient; goodbye Christopher Wren, hello Frank Lloyd Wright! But what exactly could the Big Ten do to differentiate itself so severely in a day and age when it’s so hard to do exactly that?

Answer? Become college football’s very first super conference. Yes, the mythical super conference brainstorm that has been floated around on internet boards and minds alike for years is on the verge of becoming a very real reality.

There are a plethora of reasons why such a move would make sense, but we will focus on the two reasons why it will happen.

1. Market expansion – This was made known as the key reasoning for looking into expansion. While the Big Ten dominates the Midwest (sorry Notre Dame), it borders the East coast and the Midlands and is more powerful than any of the conferences that subside in those regions. They don’t want to settle in though as other conferences make moves around them in a land grab, a pre-emptive move is what market leaders do in this day in age. A move to the East coast would be simple with numerous schools practically begging for admission, forget the practically, they are begging! From Syracuse to Connecticut to Boston College to Pittsburgh to Rutgers, you can go on and on about the possibilities. An attempt to have a chunk of the NYC and Boston markets is something the conference would love to do and seems like a natural fit.

Let’s back it up a little and discuss why those schools are begging to be a part of the Big Ten. Again, two main reasons are at the core of this. The first is the academic prestige of the Big Ten. Per the university rankings provided by the prestigious U.S. News, no Big 6 conference is remotely close. All 11 schools are ranked in the top 71, and that’s a ranking based off of all the universities in the country, not just FBS schools.

The Big Ten can also make the claim as being the only conference where all the schools hold AAU membership. Being a member of the AAU means that they have donned your school as being one of the 62 leading research universities, private or public, located in the United States or Canada. A look at their members is a who’s who of academia; Cal-Berkeley, Virginia, Stanford, Yale, Duke, MIT, NYU, Princeton, Penn, Harvard, etc.

“Membership in AAU is by invitation and is based on the high quality of programs of academic research and scholarship and undergraduate, graduate, and professional education in a number of fields, as well as general recognition that a university is outstanding by reason of the excellence of its research and education programs. “ (www.adu.edu)

Now, the second reason schools want to join the Big Ten and why the Big Ten will expand is simple, but gets plenty complicated……

2. Money – The almighty dollar! Expansion by just one school allows for a conference championship but why stop there when there is more money to be had? Why expand into just one of those new areas (East coast and Midlands) when you can do both? The opportunity to move into New York City, Boston, Houston, Dallas, etc. is an intoxicating thought to the big wigs that make the decisions that stuff their pockets.

What brings in the big bucks for these conferences? Television contracts. In that discussion, two conferences are way out and beyond the reach of anyone else; the SEC and the Big Ten. Those two conferences more than double their closest competitors in this category. The SEC had a set of 15 year contracts, one with CBS for $825 million and a recent $2.25 billion deal with ESPN. The Big Ten has a 10 year contract with ABC/ESPN for $1 billion, but the kicker is controlling the Big Ten Network which projects to bring in at least $2.8 billion in the next 25 years. Overall, the SEC and Big Ten pull in about 17 and 16 million dollars per team per year respectively due to these contracts. Notre Dame only pulls in $11 million with theirs; yes, that means that Indiana tops those Domers. As far as the next closest? The Big 12 at $6.6 million per team. Quite the gap, eh?


Now this talk of a super conference isn’t just a rabbit pulled out of a hat for the sake of an interesting article (gasp!). It has many of the most knowledgeable and respected sources pointing to it. The one I will bring up and focus on is the most recent and one of the most trusted. Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal Constitution has spoken with numerous AD’s and commissioners who believe the Big Ten will make that move to 16.

A conference that is tops academically and one of the top two money monsters can practically pick and choose who they want to join the party, that is unless you are Notre Dame and can’t have your ego take a hit by admitting you need some buddies to party with. Or, will they this time decide to listen a little more closely? I won’t go into too much detail on this because it has enough juice to have its own article, but if Notre Dame or Texas was swayed enough to join it’d be extremely difficult for the other to say no. Texas isn’t just pie in the sky either as they have discussed joining the conference as far back as the early 1990’s and with the recent Mack Brown pay raise that drew the ire of the faculty a move to the academically wealthy Big Ten could possibly go a long way in soothing those hurt feelings.

The Big Ten has made known their desire to move into new markets, and money is always the root of all decisions like the one that faces them now. They know that making the move to being the first “super conference” would stake their claim over college landscape as the new cash cow which is the purpose of this drastic move. What will happen next though, how will the SEC respond? Will they finally add Texas A&M and expand themselves, since those two have flirted for so long? Who else could possibly leave the Big 12, and could it remain or disintegrate into thin air much like the former SWC? What would be the affect on schools like Boise State and Utah joining major conferences? Copious amounts of questions that will be exceptionally enthralling to see put to the test.

Conferences and schools around the country are cautiously awaiting the Big Ten’s next maneuver. They hold the deck of cards that will determine everyone else’s fate. For a conference that has been laughed at over the recent years they all of a sudden find themselves surrounded by some of the best poker faces around. When, not if, they make their plans known, expect it to be a day that forever remodels the face of college football as we know it. The opportunity approaches the Big Ten to be pioneers and you can expect them to be the first to step into the new frontier.