Here comes Kansas. Kansas in talks with BIG?
Kansas did invent the college football overtime format, so they have that going for them.
Well, at least the football team could get a win against them. Every six years or so.
Becoming a basketball conference.
Yep, and I am here for it. College Football sucks IMO, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better unless they finally expand the playoff.
College football is still what drives revenue so if you want to basically relegate the school to a second-tier athletic status for good, stick to only basketball. Times are changing but basketball isn't going to fund everything else.
Dear lord, the past 1.5 years has been a continuous punch in the nuts.
I think you go after Pitt and West Virginia - WVU is likely to be a target for the ACC and they might wanna go there anyway, but I think Penn State and Maryland, along with the opportunity to tap into Ohio even moreso for recruiting could get them as a package
West Virginia? The B1G already met it’s quota for couch burning schools.
Neither of those schools add much at all. Won't increase revenues or make the league better. Also WVU is a shitty hillbilly school. Hard pass.
If we have to expand (and I don't want to -- it already sucks we play Minnesota etc like once every 4 years in football; this will make it worse), it should be Kansas and Colorado.
- None of the remaining Big 12 schools are desirable to me (Iowa State? Please. The B1G is already in the state of Iowa and that school is fine, but nothing special).
- Colorado is a growing state with increasing fertile recruiting ground that doesn't have many ties to the Pac-12, and we can offer them more money
Colorado would like the extra money, and if they got to play Kansas and Nebraska regularly, that would make a nice "Western" section of the B1G, just like Penn State/Rutgers/Maryland work as an "Eastern" section.
I don't think Colorado would be down with that, the frequent travel to the East Coast across all sports would eat pretty heavily into their $$ share
Travel time is actually better than you think -- e.g. right now, their closest Pac 12 rival is Utah (about 8 hr drive). That would be the same as Lawrence, KS; Lincoln, NE is even closer to Boulder (7 hrs). In any case, they are flying everywhere, and going to KU, Neb, Wisky, Iowa, Minn, NW, and Illinois every year (which would be their core rotation) is better than what CU is doing now in the Pac 12 -- they'd just need to deal with one big flight a year (e.g., Rutgers or Maryland).
Basketball would be a little worse, but that sport flies all over the place already (e.g., Hawaii; Bahamas; New York), so I'd think they'd be fine. The other sports would be worse off, but to be frank, no decision-maker cares about them.
In terms of travel money? The Pac-12 is way behind the B1G and SEC in terms of money, so if the B1G want Colorado, money should not be a concern for either party.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/03/10/hotline-newsletter-pac-12-revenue-estimates-indicate-schools-wont-receive-as-much-in-fy24-as-peers-are-collecting-now/
Hard pass. Why does the B1G need to add more teams? Especially, if they are tier 2 type schools...
If Kansas joins the B1G then the football divisions will definitely have to be redrawn. As if the West wasn't weak enough already. They've averaged 1.9 wins/year since 2010, going winless in 2 of those seasons.
1, 3, 4, 7, 14, 15, 19, 25, 26, 34, 35, 45, 47, 63, 71, 80. These are the ranks of the largest TV markets where the Big currently has a significant presence. If you are primarily looking at TV markets nothing on the table looks that exciting.
During the Rutgers/Maryland expansion we picked up 1, 7 and 26. Nebraska gave us #71.
Kansas adds the Kansas City market which is at #32 along with some irrelevant markets in BFE Kansas. Other options
Iowa State add nothing as we already have Iowa
Missouri gives you St. Louis which is #23 – not bad from a TV perspective
Oklahoma State gives you #43 OKC and #58 Tulsa – its also split with Oklahoma and if a cable network has to decide between the SEC network and the BIG network we know which way that goes.
Denver is the 17th largest TV market and also fast growing. If TV is a major driver CU would rise up the list to pair with Kansas.
Problem is that the media market aspect is a little lost when streaming services cut into the cable subscribers numbers. While media market certainly will still be a factor, I don’t think you’ll see Rutgers type additions who are added strictly due to media market.
It’ll be a combination of athletics, academics, and media markets. With prospective schools needing to check at least two of those three boxes.
This won't happen, but if I were the Big Ten, I would consider a possibility of merging with the ACC or Pac12 to form a super conference of sorts and pick up the pieces you want from the Big12. Do away with OOC football games and have the 2 old conferences become divisions of sorts and the champs play for the super conference championship. The NIL and the soon to be possible football playoff is what are driving this change in part so ride the wave and get ahead of the SEC. If the NCAA folds at some point its going to possibly come down to a single unified conference or a few super conferences anyways.
UVA and VT.
Nooooo!!! Don’t want. Let them join the Mountain West or a reconstituted Big 8 that they can call the Big 12.
This is embarrassing if we end up with any of the Big 12 leftovers. ND is the best Midwest option out there. And I'll throw a wildcard that's probably never going to happen: Kentucky. CM Newton wanted to leave for the ACC because of hoops back in the day. Maybe they'd listen to us. They're 3-4 hours from Columbus, so you could have a nice little rivalry there. Plus, you stay in the Midwest footprint.
Pretty much agreed. Texas is so much better than Kansas it's not even funny.
Yeah, I am still baffled why OU and Texas, especially Texas, would want to join the SEC over the B1G. Texas is a better academic fit in the B1G. Texas - Michigan, Texas - OSU, Texas - PSU. These are all blue blood marquis matchups that would garner significant market share on any given Saturday. And the road to a championship is arguably a little easier in the B1G than in a conference that has the college football equivalent of the death star. I don't know, man, the OU and Texas higher ups must be sniffing glue.
Imagine it's a beautiful fall Saturday in Ann Arbor. The air is crisp, the leaves are in full color and you are getting ready for a Big 10 game against... Kansas? Rutgers and Maryland are bad enough already!
Imagine welcoming Kansas to Crisler though.
Iowa State makes sense, too. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Cyclones coming over to the B1G.
If you are going straight basketball. Hell get Kansas and Kentucky on the phone.
Too bad Boston College is not more like UPitt. Adding the Boston area would not be crazy given the #s of Big 10 (esp Michigan) grads in the area. (Haha, I never run into Mich State grads, very occasionally Ohio State).
Kansas because we lost the football wars. Let’s try to win the basketball wars.
Rutgers, Maryland and now Kansas? F that.
Sour grapes, but I need to start to find something better to do with my time. I guess Kansas is good at basketball. I guess I'm a basketball fan now. Can we get Duke in the B1G?
Maybe when the B1G and SEC have entirely absorbed the ACC, BIG 12 and whatever the East conference was called we can have divisions that reflect the traditional conferences.
CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd reports that OU and Texas are "expected to declare their intentions to leave the Big 12 in as soon as "24-48 hours," citing a prominent Big 12 source. Horns247's Chip Brown reports that the Longhorns and Sooners are set to inform the Big 12 on Monday that they will not be renewing their grant of rights agreement with the conference.
That’s gonna be a no from me dog
Get Stanford,SC,Washington,Oregon
Go big or go home
Aside from the absurd geographical differences, I would absolutely LOVE to bring Washington and Oregon into the B1G. Those are two teams that I always find it rather easy to root for, in the general CFB landscape.
God I hope not. SEC gets OU and Texas and we get the scraps of the Big 12? No thanks!
If we are determined to continue competing in an expansion arms race, I say go to 18 teams. First call is to Virginia. Great academics, high level hoops, decent football, excellent baseball. Perfect fit.
Second call is to North Carolina. Again, academics are excellent, plus hoops are elite and football is pretty good. Also good with baseball.
UNC won’t come without Duke, so you might as well add Duke. That gets us to 17.
Notre Dame may have an agreement that if they join a conference in the next decade, it’ll be the ACC (since ACC let them compete last year). But if they see UVA, UNC and Duke leave, they may see the writing on the wall and actually approach the Big 10. That gets us to 18. All schools that have high academics, and at least one name brand sport.
SEC then adds Clemson ... and ? ACC dissolves.
I understand your logic and all, but I mean let's be honest...this arms race is completely predicated on football power. If the SEC is adding Oklahoma AND Texas, who's out there left to pick up that could match those contributions?
Clemson for sure...good luck stealing them away from their cupcake conference.
USC? Maybe? If they ever get a competent head coach, but they're also on the opposite side of the country. Then there's Oregon and Washington, though both schools' football prowess has dropped off as of late. Realistically, who's left? All the best teams are gonna be in the SEC. They might as well be a football entity unto themselves and let everyone else compete for their own "national championship" the way things used to be.
As much as I truly do love conference realignments (because new is exciting to me), this Texas and OU move just seems to be too much. I mean talk about lopsided...
That’s one good plan. I think a Big Ten-PAC 12 alliance is the other.
If you have balls, this is what you do.
1. Write Nebraska whatever check it takes and send them back to the Big 12 or what is left of it. Remember the presence of Texas was why they left, so they might be more willing to go back than you think. People talk about Rutgets, but it's really Nebraska that was the giant mistake and they add nothing to the league.
2. Then you contact the following for three openings in descending order - first three that bite get in:
1. Florida State
2. North Carolina
3. Virginia
4. Syracuse
5. Kentucky
6. Tennessee
7. Missouri
3. If you don't like #2 go for a pie in the sky moonshot
USC and Notre Dame
GTFO out with this Iowa State, Kansas or Ok State bullshit. Go big or go home.
If we are talking about adding whatever schools outside of ND I would like to see
UNC
Virginia
Cincinnati and
Louisville or Memphis
Go big or go home
I mean, these schools are your definition of "going big"? Outside of maybe ND or USC, absolutley none of these schools move the needle within the football landscape. And let's be honest, at the end of the day, football is what's really driving this realignment. And if the objective is to try and keep up with the SEC, most of these schools wouldn't help the B1G in the slightest.
You never heard of Florida State or Tennessee in football? Wow.
When was the last time Florida State or Tennesee football was marginally effective? I mean, FSU yeah, they were good back in 2016. So you've got a decent point there...the geography there would just be really bizzare. But the Vols? Lol.
It’s more about brand than it is recent football success. Nobody adds a program based on how good they’ve been the last few years. If that were the case, UCF would be a better add than Texas.
Florida State and Texas aren't all that different in football success recently either. I mean, when was the last time Texas had a first round draft pick on top of not being the greatest on the field?
Touche, touche. I conceed the point.
It would still feel like we got the short end of the stick though...maybe it's just me lol
You're missing the point. It's not really about football competitiveness. If Michigan were available, the SEC would likely take it despite the lack of football relevance recently. You want big brand-name schools that people watch on TV and buy tickets to see live.
Furthermore, you have to grow your footprint in big, growing, receptive areas. Florida and North Carolina are big states, and growing faster than Illinois, Ohio or Michigan. If the schools can be picked off from the ACC, you have to do it, since they fit the profile of flagship state schools with good academics (okay maybe FSU is kinda light there). Same with Georgia Tech. Yes football money is driving this, no it's not the be-all-end-all, since conference presidents still do care about academic prestige. When you join an athletic conference, you also end up building ties between the academic and research sides of the universities. There has been lots of talk about how important the AAU and CIC is to the Big Ten schools.
I would be good with Tennessee. 1. I live in Knoxville. 2. They are dead in the water in the SEC 3. Texas and Oklahoma only make that worse. 4. Good college town. 5. Decent high school recruiting area. 6. Big TV market (Nashville). I actually don't hate that idea.
Could take Tennessee and Vandy (academic fit)
Although I can already see the t-shirts for the Texas v. Tennessee games. Battle for the title of the real UT.
1. Agree. That gets us to 13 teams so ....
2. UNC, UVA, Pitt, Va Tech, Cinci and Missouri first three to accept are in.
I would prefer Pitt, Cinci and UVA
How about fsu/miami?
Im Ok with this...If you look at whats available and somewhat geographical Kansas makes sense..the others besides the obvious ND for me would be Pitt, Syr, NC, UVA...Im not a fan with joining the PAC 12 ..to far away
We could play the long game and add Colorado, Utah, Washington and Oregon. This will set us up once climate change makes the southern US uninhabitable. We will really need to beef up the member schools ROTC programs however as that exposed southern border between Indianapolis and Denver will be difficult to hold with all that open land.