When the Big Ten gathers for its inaugural men’s basketball tournament here this week, there will be plenty of time between buzzers to talk about the questions that will shape the conference in the next century.
When is the Big Ten going to get bigger? Will the League That Can’t Count round up to an even dozen, or will it grow to 14 or 16 schools? Or will it remain an oddball 11, a scheduling nightmare for events such as the hoops tournament?
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“I think there are a lot of possible scenarios out there,” Wisconsin Athletic Director Pat Richter said. “You just never know where it’s going. I don’t think anything is beyond discussion.”
Eight years after the conference voted to add Penn State, another expansion appears dead for the moment. But these issues have a way of coming to life very quickly in big-time college athletics.
The Big Ten has been believed to be hunting for a 12th school since last summer, when Commissioner Jim Delany said the league needed to revisit the question. He has since said his comments were misinterpreted, but they set off alarms in conference offices across the country.
The Big East worries that the Big Ten will pluck Syracuse, a move that would likely sound the death knell for that conference. The Big 12 hears rumors that Missouri or Texas is a target and wonders how it would survive the loss of either school.
“Everybody’s talking about expansion, but they’re talking about it in a defense mode,” Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese said. “They read some of Jim’s comments and they started to wonder, `What if?’ People are trying to figure out what’s going to happen with the Big Ten.”
That’s wise policy. But it’s clear that even those within the Big Ten don’t know what’s going to happen with the Big Ten.
“There’s no momentum to change,” Illinois Athletic Director Ron Guenther said.
But the momentum could come from without instead of within. Few people in college athletics believe that the last of the conference shakeups have occurred. With the Big East and Big 12 television deals coming to an end in the next several years, it’s possible that there will be even more shuffling.
There’s talk that the Atlantic Coast Conference might consider adding a few of the more attractive Big East schools. It’s possible that the Big 12 could grow again, or that it could lose Colorado or Texas to the Pac-10.
“Then the TV sets swing in favor of some other people,” one major-conference commissioner said. “Then everybody’s fencing with the same-size sword.”
The Big Ten doesn’t want that. An estimated third of the nation’s television sets are within its boundaries. In the modern world of big-time college sports, television ratings equals power.
The Big Ten’s plans are big news across the country because the last time the conference expanded, it shook the major-college sports landscape. The league’s 1990 decision to add Penn State defined the playing field for other conference expansions and mergers.
By adding an elite football team and well-rounded athletic program, the conference gained access to a vast Eastern fan following, which helped it negotiate a reported $500 million, 10-year contract with ABC and ESPN for the rights to football, men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball, the largest television contract negotiated by a single conference.
The problem with Penn State’s success, though, is that it has become the standard by which all future Big Ten expansions will be measured. Having bagged the biggest cat in the East, the league sees no reason to settle for anything less the next time it grows–if there is a next time.
“You can see the paradigm of what Penn State brought to the dance as the mold for what happens in the future,” said Len DeLuca, ESPN’s senior vice president for programming and development.
When Big Ten athletic directors and presidents talk about expansion, they talk in terms of “added value.”
Translation: added revenue.
Because the Big Ten shares its lucrative television, bowl and men’s basketball tournament monies, more members could mean less money.
“Dividing that money by 11 makes a lot of sense,” Big 12 Commissioner Steve Hatchell said. “Do you want to divide by 12?”
That’s not to say 12 is the only possible number for the Big Ten. One rival commissioner wondered if the Big Ten isn’t hoping to annex enough schools to make itself a stand-alone intercollegiate league, with exclusive TV contracts.
“I think one of Jim’s goals is to make it so big and powerful that it doesn’t even have to be part of the NCAA,” he said.
If Delany has a plan so grand, he’s keeping it to himself. “You think in a whole range,” he said. “Status quo to medium to large. We’re not proactive. We’re not contacting anybody.
“Right now, I feel people (within the league) are very pleased with where we are. That’s not to say we won’t grow.”
If Penn State is the model, any new members would need to share a common academic philosophy with the rest of the conference, be strong in football and respectable in other sports and produce a sizable TV audience.
One school fits those criteria more snugly than most: Notre Dame.
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“You’d be hard pressed to find anyone (else) who brings that kind of value,” one Big Ten AD said. “We really aren’t even talking about any other schools.”
Notre Dame resisted overtures by the Big Ten as recently as 1994, and it has extended its exclusive football contract with NBC through 2005.
Since then, the sides have regarded each other warily. Publicly, at least, Delany seems ready to set Notre Dame aside as an expansion possibility. “As we look at the world, we’ve got to look at other options,” he said.
There are other options, though none seemingly so attractive. Missouri is a nice fit academically, but the football team has had trouble filling its stadium, a concern in a league that shares gate revenue. One of Missouri’s major television markets, St. Louis, already belongs to the Big Ten.
As for Syracuse, it would bring strong revenue sports and a sizable East Coast following. But Syracuse’s smallish enrollment (10,500) raises questions about its compatibility with huge Big Ten universities.
Syracuse Chancellor Kenneth Shaw has long ties to the Big Ten. A native Illinoisan, he has degrees from Illinois and Purdue and was a high-ranking official in the Wisconsin system. He also was rumored to be a leading candidate to succeed Wayne Duke as the Big Ten commissioner.
“It’s nice to think that they might be talking about us,” Shaw said. “I’ve had zero conversations with any of my colleagues there on this subject. None, not even in passing. It might be that this is more media-driven.”
Actually, much of the speculation comes from other conferences, which wonder what the Big Ten’s next move will be. There’s no official forum to discuss the issue here this week, but any time representatives of all 11 schools are together, outsiders keep an ear cocked.
“I think they can do whatever they want,” the Big East’s Tranghese said. “They’re going to survive and be successful no matter what size they are.”