Three Reasons Why the Big Ten Won't Expand
by Year2 on Dec 16, 2009 3:00 PM EST
in Football
12 comments
It's been big news around the college sports world that the Big Ten is thinking of expanding. It won't happen this time around, and here's why.
1. Notre Dame will say no
There is no other school that is as good a fit or will ever be as good a fit for the Big Ten as Notre Dame is. Not Missouri, not Pitt, not anyone. Notre Dame has everything from an academics, athletics, image, and money making standpoint that the Big Ten could ever dream of.
Yet, right now there's no reason for Notre Dame to subsume its brand underneath the Big Ten banner. It has a special provisioning in the BCS contracts, and those don't expire until after the 2014 season. Its contract with NBC isn't up until after 2015.
That marks the earliest point Notre Dame could realistically think about joining a conference: the 2016 regular season. However, that would require two things. First, the Irish would have to forcibly lose their favored spot in the BCS contracts. That's unlikely because it will take more than five years for Notre Dame to lose its historical luster entirely and the school just hired a competent and qualified winner with a great track record for once. Second, the Big Ten would have to offer something commensurate to what Notre Dame gets from NBC (i.e. every home game on national TV no matter what), and it can't do that.
2. Saying yes to someone else means saying no to Notre Dame forever
Conferences larger than 12 members don't work well with football. The WAC tried having 16 and couldn't make it work. The MAC has serious scheduling problems with its 13 team format. A 12 member league works. More than that really doesn't.
If the Big Ten adds another member, it will have 12 schools. Since more than 12 is untenable, if that twelfth school is not Notre Dame, then the Big Ten will never have Notre Dame. Adding Missouri or Pitt functionally closes that door forever.
Just because Notre Dame won't be ready to join up in five years' time doesn't mean it won't in 10 or 15. The Big Ten has already been waiting on the Irish for the 20 years since adding Penn State; it can wait longer if it wants to. Closing the door on Notre Dame forever would be a huge step, one that I think a lot of folks aren't taking that seriously.
3. Solving the problem at hand doesn't require expansion
Just what is the real problem here? Let Barry Alvarez tell you:
"We're irrelevant for the last three weeks of the football season because we're not playing," Alvarez said Friday.
Somehow, people have decided that the only remedy to this problem is expansion and adding a conference championship game. Really?
Take a look at the Week 13 scoreboard. Now the Week 14 scoreboard. The Pac-10, Big East, MWC, WAC, and Sun Belt all have games on those weekends. None of those conferences have championship games, and yet they all figured out how to hold games over those last two weeks. Heck, Wisconsin played in Week 14 and Illinois (those cads!) managed to schedule games in both Week 13 and Week 14.
If your regular season isn't long enough, the simple solution is to extend the regular season. I know there are traditions involved here, but expansion breaks more tradition than playing regular season in-conference games after Thanksgiving does.
My money is on nothing changing after this 12-18 month exploratory period. If anything does, it will be an extension of the Big Ten regular season. The conference has looked at expanding three times since Penn State joined, and each time the number has stayed at 11. There's little reason to think that won't happen a fourth time.
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100% Agreed
I made a similar comment on a Fan Post on Dawg Sports. I didn’t expand on my thought much, but I believe that it will be Notre Dame or no one over the next 12-18 months, and it won’t be time for expansion again until Notre Dame is ready to be that team.
Notre Dame will never joing the Big Ten.
As long as they have their prime contract as an independent, they’ll never want to pigeon-hole themselves with a conference. If they get bad enough that they lose their prime positioning as an independent, the Big Ten likely won’t want them anymore.
I think the Big Ten realizes this, and because of that, I think they’re seriously considering leaving Notre Dame behind. The Big Ten really wants some of the NYC marketshare, and they’re looking seriously at Rutgers. It still probably won’t happen, but ND is losing its mystique by the decade. ND makes the most sense now, but it won’t always be that way.
they will get to twelve teams b/c now they see the value of a cg.
the sec has one and it’s benefitted the sec for more bcs bowl bids. even the pac-ten wants to expand. everybody wants a cg to possibly up their slot in final bcs poll.
yes i am obsessive, obnoxious, in your face and all about covering the spread. those are my good qualities.
by wolfmanshowlforever on Dec 16, 2009 4:53 PM EST reply actions
Would have the opposite effect.
This SI article makes the point that the Big 10 has already had two BCS qualifiers in a season more than any other conference since the BCS’s inception. That makes for good revenue.
If they have a championship game, it might have the effect of knocking the second best Big 10 team out of the BCS. A loser of a conference championship game has only gotten into the BCS twice since the formula was changed (Alabama and Florida) because they were undefeated going into the game.
As things stand now without a conference championship game, the #2 team in the Big 10 is almost always BCS eligible. The #3 team (who would presumably not be in the conf. champ. game) is less likely to be BCS eligible. Based on estimates of what a Big 10 title game will probably make, if the Big 10 loses one BCS appearance over a four year stretch because of the title game, the conference will suffer a net loss of revenue.
agreed
but here is the problem. the big ten has the worst bcs bowl win game percentage. they end their season 2 weeks before most other conferences. that hurts their chances by not playing later in the season. i think they want a cg and i heard they want pitt. if they get pitt that leaves the b.e with seven teams. i would think the mwc would get the aq bcs conference status especially if tcu wins their bowl game and byu beats osu b/c the mwc for the second season will have two teams in the top 10. i also expect utah tho win since they do have a 8 game win streak in bowls. that would mean for the thirs season the mwc has three teams in the top 20. that would be better than the big east. just my opinion but i say that it’s 50/50 it will happen
yes i am obsessive, obnoxious, in your face and all about covering the spread. those are my good qualities.
by wolfmanshowlforever on Dec 16, 2009 7:14 PM EST up reply actions
But who cares about them ending the season two weeks before most other conferences. As point 3 above says, solving that in no way requires them to expand or have a championship game.
Previously a lunatic who mindlessly spouted "ESS EEE SEE," (Geaux Tigers!) I now am a West Coaster who has no idea what real football looks like. (Go Ducks!)
Who Dat and Go Braves, too!
by AllSaintsDay on Dec 17, 2009 8:32 PM EST up reply actions
If it's Notre Dame or nobody...
…it’ll be nobody for sure. It will take at least one more decade of supreme mediocrity, maybe two or three, before Notre Dame is better being part of a conference.
I largely agree
My only point would be that I think the Big Ten might at some point start to think that Notre Dame isn’t ever going to join the Big Ten. They might then begin to negotiate with Pitt or someone else to try to force ND’s hand and, if the Irish don’t budge, go ahead and sign the other team. If Notre Dame doesn’t sign up with the Big Ten when it’s now or never, they’re probably never going to. Then you can sell the ADs and presidents on adding a Pitt or a Rutgers.
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^ This
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by Stuck in the Plains on Dec 16, 2009 5:56 PM EST up reply actions
I guess the question becomes, just how important is expansion? If the Big-10 poobahs think that it has to be done to keep up with the SEC and Big 12, then ND joins up or gets left behind… and I guess it’s pretty likely that the choice falls on someone else, because ND really doesn’t need the Big 10 as much as the Big 10 needs ND (or a reasonable facsimile.) But if this is all basically an exercise in placating Paterno and Alvarez, then we get a year of sound-and-fury with no real result.
I just want to know what they'd rename themselves.
I like MEGA TWELVE.
It comes down to money
As we’ve been writing about on TRE, The Big Ten won’t add a 12th just to have 12. It needs to be big enough to increase revenues by more than 9.09%. I don’t know that Pitt does that.
If expansion happens, it will be a big deal or it won’t happen.
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