ESPN Take Two: Big Ten's next expansion move


Sure, so:

In 2009, three teams turned a net profit at the U: Football, $14,888,989, Men's Basketball, $8,041,167 and Men's Hockey, $4,295,417. The remaining sports combined to have a net loss of ($13,720,499), plus a net loss on the dollars "not allocated by Gender/Sport" of ($13,505,074).

Net gains/losses by sport (2009):

Football Men's Team $14,888,989.00
Basketball Men's Team $8,041,167.00
Ice Hockey Men's Team $4,295,417.00
Golf Women's Team ($288,067.00)
Golf Men's Team ($317,036.00)
Gymnastics Men's Team ($358,315.00)
Tennis Men's Team ($368,147.00)
Gymnastics Women's Team ($416,064.00)
Tennis Women's Team ($462,713.00)
Wrestling ($696,963.00)
Swimming and Diving Men's Team ($748,071.00)
Soccer Women's Team ($749,907.00)
Softball Women's Team ($785,237.00)
Swimming and Diving Women's Team ($789,924.00)
Ice Hockey Women's Team ($837,485.00)
Baseball Men's Team ($839,294.00)
All Track Combined Men's Team ($990,993.00)
Rowing Women's Team ($1,110,201.00)
Volleyball Women's Team ($1,175,595.00)
All Track Combined Women's Team ($1,223,084.00)
Basketball Women's Team ($1,563,403.00)
Not Allocated by Gender/Sport ($13,505,074.00)

FWIW - I ran the comparable figures for Wisconsin men's and women's hockey and men's hockey had a profit of $3,893,822 for 2009 and women's hockey had a profit of $70,640. Combined for both teams was $3,964,462 for UW and $3,457,932 for Minnesota. Hockey is quite profitable for both schools.
 


Earlier this evening, Notre Dame and Texas jointly presented the Big Ten Conference with their proposed terms of entry into the conference. These terms resulted from lengthy discussions among both schools and the Big Ten over the past several months.

The major items include:
1. The preservation of an eight game (plus championship) conference football schedule. Both ND and Texas wish to preserve rivalries with non-Big Ten universities on a regular basis. This would require the Big Ten to abandon its current plans of a 9 game conference schedule.
2. The staggering of the schedule to allow for mid-season scheduling with non-conference football opponents.
3. The preservation of the status quo conference makeup until approximately 2014, unless the Big XII fails to retain key (NOT including A&M) conference members. This will provide the member schools, acting in unison, with the greatest leverage negotiating ongoing television contracts, particularly with ESPN.
4. Should Texas depart the conference for the Big Ten before ND due to the further disintegration of the Big XII, ND will remain independent until approximately 2014
5. The Longhorn Network would remain independent until approximately 2014, at which point the network would become a part of an expanded Big Ten Network (specifically referred to as "BTN2"), likely either in partnership with Fox, NBC, or less likely ABC

The Big Ten just wrapped up a meeting to initially consider all of the terms presented by the schools, including the aforementioned.

Notably, there is a general discontent with the reporting of the situation by ESPN with specific regard to Texas. ESPN has, for self-serving purposes, drastically exaggerated the lean of Texas to the Pac12 conference in nearly all commentary. ESPN has essentially waged a propaganda campaign to drive support among the Texas stakeholders to the Pac12 conference. ESPN has gone so far as to attempt to accelerate the disintegration of the Big XII to pressure Texas into making an immediate conference change decision. Texas has steadfastly resisted change, and will do so until the appropriate time occurs for Texas to stand in a strong position to renegotiate television contracts, including with ESPN.

In reality, the preference expressed by Texas' relevant leadership is to depart the Big XII for the Big Ten at the time that gives Texas the greatest leverage in negotiating a new television rights deal. The Big Ten and Texas agreed that Texas should do what is best for Texas, which they also both agree is a move by Texas to join the Big Ten Conference. Delaney's top priority has been to create an environment for Texas and Notre Dame to join the conference on mutually benefical terms.

Notre Dame has an interest in preserving its traditional rivalries, three of which occur already in the Big Ten, and creating a new national rivalry with a traditional powerhouse. The Big Ten believes that ND prefers independence, but realizes that it will soon have no choice but to join a conference. The Big Ten also believes that ND is trying to position itself so that if it must join a conference, it does so on the most favorable terms possible. Hence the return to the 8 game schedule and a protected game with national power Texas. The Big Ten will attempt to create a mutually beneficial environment for ND that allows it to preserve a great deal of independence to retain all its traditional rivalries within the conference context.

The initial mood at the Big Ten to the terms provided by the two schools is "receptive."
THis would be awesome, and the only conceivable way the B1G expands I believe. But wow...what a tough conference schedule that would create for all involved!

What a shocking article if true! Delaney must be the master of stealth compared to all of these other conference commishs and university presy's. This would be awesome, and the only way I can see the B1G getting involved in the expansion game again, unless their hand is forced somehow. But, wow...what a tough conference schedule.
 

While I would hate to have to deal with UT's politics and bullying... I don't know how you pass this up if you're the Big Ten. That's a freaking mega conference.
 

Yeah, screw Texas and screw Notre Dame. Let's do the math, if we go to even 14 teams, then we play 6 on our own side every year and just 3 of 7 teams on the other side. If 16 games, then just 2 of 8 teams on the other side. We'd only get to play for the Little Brown Jug 2 of every 8 years? And even though our rivalries with some of the B1G eastern teams aren't as strong, we're still talking about a tradition that goes back over a century with most of these teams. Don't chuck that at all for a few extra dollars.

The B1G is nearly perfect as it is - with 12 teams, and fairly even divisions. Getting bigger than 12 means the teams in the other division won't really feel like rivals very much anymore. With 16 teams, let's just go to 4 divisions (like the NFL) and have a 2-round playoff for the conference champ. That way, at least we'd see the 12 other teams that weren't the 3 in our division on a semi-regular basis (half the time if you had a 9-game conference schedule).
 


What a shocking article if true! Delaney must be the master of stealth compared to all of these other conference commishs and university presy's. This would be awesome, and the only way I can see the B1G getting involved in the expansion game again, unless their hand is forced somehow. But, wow...what a tough conference schedule.

This is not an article. The source is someone writing on a Northwestern football message board. It has made it's way to other teams' message boards. If it were true, you would find references to it on ESPN.com or other web news outlets.
 


Sure, so:

In 2009, three teams turned a net profit at the U: Football, $14,888,989, Men's Basketball, $8,041,167 and Men's Hockey, $4,295,417. The remaining sports combined to have a net loss of ($13,720,499), plus a net loss on the dollars "not allocated by Gender/Sport" of ($13,505,074).

Net gains/losses by sport (2009):

Football Men's Team $14,888,989.00
Basketball Men's Team $8,041,167.00
Ice Hockey Men's Team $4,295,417.00
Golf Women's Team ($288,067.00)
Golf Men's Team ($317,036.00)
Gymnastics Men's Team ($358,315.00)
Tennis Men's Team ($368,147.00)
Gymnastics Women's Team ($416,064.00)
Tennis Women's Team ($462,713.00)
Wrestling ($696,963.00)
Swimming and Diving Men's Team ($748,071.00)
Soccer Women's Team ($749,907.00)
Softball Women's Team ($785,237.00)
Swimming and Diving Women's Team ($789,924.00)
Ice Hockey Women's Team ($837,485.00)
Baseball Men's Team ($839,294.00)
All Track Combined Men's Team ($990,993.00)
Rowing Women's Team ($1,110,201.00)
Volleyball Women's Team ($1,175,595.00)
All Track Combined Women's Team ($1,223,084.00)
Basketball Women's Team ($1,563,403.00)
Not Allocated by Gender/Sport ($13,505,074.00)

Interesting, nothing to surprising, to bad womens basketball doesn't do better.

Womens rowing is troublesome, how you could spend a million bucks on it is beyond me, I know they have the new building but I would hope it is used as a resource for the students and not just the rowing team. Kind of throwing money away if that is the case.
 

This is not an article. The source is someone writing on a Northwestern football message board. It has made it's way to other teams' message boards. If it were true, you would find references to it on ESPN.com or other web news outlets.

The old unconfirmed message board trick. Gets me every time. :)

Thanks for pointing that out Eagan.
 



Interesting, nothing to surprising, to bad womens basketball doesn't do better.

Womens rowing is troublesome, how you could spend a million bucks on it is beyond me, I know they have the new building but I would hope it is used as a resource for the students and not just the rowing team. Kind of throwing money away if that is the case.

Rowing is equipment heavy (rowing sculls are not cheap) and have a lot of athletes to feed & to travel to regattas.

Remember, rowing was added to offset football in numbers.
 

I just don't get any of this.

I can understand why A&M wants to be in the SEC (even though they're going to get absolutely destroyed and will be one of the worst teams in the conference pretty much from the get-go), but why the hell does the SEC want A&M? Do they think a footprint into Texas is that big of a deal? Is it worth it to dilute your product that much?

The Big Ten should not expand any more than it already has. Getting to 12 made sense for a variety of reasons. A college football conference should never be bigger than 12 teams.

False. :cool:

To add: Rittenberg did some crazy foreshadowing in this blog entry that is linked in the first page.
 




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