How a 16 team Big Ten might work...

[Raziel]

I posted this on another board, thought I'd share it here:

I have always opposed a 16 team Big Ten, until just today. A poster on the Iowa board brought something up to me that I had never considered. I had always assumed a conference could only be composed of two divisions, however, unless there is a bylaw outlawing four divisions, why wouldn't that work? Here is how it could work out. In my best case scenario, the Big Ten would add the following five teams:

Notre Dame
Texas
Texas A&M
Rutgers
Syracuse

I chose these teams for a reason. If the Big Ten was to expand to 16, TV viewers would be essential. Financially, expansion to 16 would NOT work without the state of Texas. The BTN would need the entire state of Texas on basic cable to bring home a large amount of $$$ in subscriptions. I've crunched the numbers before (if any of you remember my long winded posts on this topic) and the addition of Texas, TAMU, and ND would pay themselves off without even including the $15M expected to be generated by the conference championship game (those three teams would likely bring in more than the $66M necessary in TV revenue for them to pay their "buy in"). So, if we are going to 16, that means the last two teams will need to bring in about $44M in order for the move to be financially viable. We haven't even touched the $15M yet generated from the conference championship game, so lets assume we add that in here. Now all we need to do is generate $29M in TV subscriptions between two teams to make this move economically viable. Lets just assume for a second that adding Syracuse and Rutgers would do that (That move would definitely nail down the 8+ million viewers in New Jersey and would likely gain some of the 19+ million viewers in NY due to the addition of Syracuse, definitely not all of the 19M viewers, but the move would definitely add some of them).

If this move would be economically viable (which I suspect it would be), I propose breaking this 16 team league into FOUR divisions. Here are the divisions I'd propose:

Division 1

Iowa
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Illinois

Division 2

Ohio State
Michigan
Michigan State
Northwestern

Division 3

Penn State
Notre Dame
Syracuse
Rutgers

Division 4

Texas
Texas A&M
Indiana
Purdue

Now, how do you determine who plays in the title game? The Divisions would be bracketed every two years. For instance, in 2010 and 2011 Divisions 1&2 would play each other. The overall champion of those two divisions would play in the conference championship game against the champion of divisions 3 & 4. Then, in 2012 and 2013 Division 1 would be bracketed with division 3. In 2014 and 2015 division 1 would be bracketed with division 4. Thus, every 6 years you would play every team in the conference twice. The only flaw with this system is it only would require 7 conference games per season, however, I guess you could play one team from one of the other two divisions in order to get to 8 games. This system (if you only played 7 conference games especially!) would almost guarantee you'd never see a rematch in the conference title game and would also allow almost every rivalry in the Big Ten to continue without sacrificing the "balanced divisions" that seem so important to everyone. Lets assume division 1 has a down year, does that matter much? Not at all if they are bracketed against Division 2 and that division champ is very strong.

I actually love the thought of going to 16 teams if this were the way the Big Ten implemented it. Thoughts?

 

[Raziel]

BTW...I began thinking about this again today due to a Chicago Tribune report yesterday about expansion, and a subsequent blog posting today by Adam Rittenberg that expansion talk is about to heat up again.

Big Ten expansion push heating up - Big Ten Blog - ESPN

Further, I like this breakdown because it kind of looks like an NFL 4 divisional format.

 

[PENNHWK]

Interesting, Raziel. If the Big Ten adds five to create a 'superconference' I see adding teams to the east and west. The five: ND, Rutgers, Pitt, Mizzou and Nebraska. If ND say's no, Syracuse. Then two eight team divisions.

 

[CAARHawk]

Syracuse is a must. If you get Rutgers and Syracuse, you increase your television money by a very significant amount.

 

[bud2380]

Penn St in a division with no traditional Big Ten teams and stick Indiana and Purdue with Texas and Texas A&M every year? I'm sure there would be no complaints from those 3 teams. Your post is further reason why expanding to 16 teams would destroy the Big Ten.

 

[Raziel]

Penn St in a division with no traditional Big Ten teams and stick Indiana and Purdue with Texas and Texas A&M every year? I'm sure there would be no complaints from those 3 teams. Your post is further reason why expanding to 16 teams would destroy the Big Ten.

Your comment about Penn State is laughable. Penn State was an East Coast team for almost a century before joining the Big Ten, I guarantee they'd love the division I have them in. ND/PSU used to be a big independent rivalry, and PSU used to play Syracuse on a yearly basis...those two teams had a pretty big rivalry at one time. Rutgers/PSU would be a great road trip for both teams. Penn State has wanted an eastern rival since they've joined the Big Ten, they'd be ecstatic if the Big Ten gave them two (and another familiar rivalry in Notre Dame).

Indiana and Purdue in a division with Texas and TAMU would be unavoidable, someone from the Big Ten would need to be in that division, who would you suggest? Also, keep in mind that you play four teams from the sister division every season, so again, Purdue and Indiana would still be playing current Big Ten teams regularly.

 

[trevorbrowne]

Indiana, Purdue, Penn State and Northwestern would never vote for that setup.

Nice try, though.

 

[CAARHawk]

This would be my set-up
Plains Division
Nebby
Iowa
Wisky
Minnesota


I Division
ND
Illinois
Indiana
Purdue


Great Lakes Division
UM
MSU
OSU
NU


Big East Division
PSU
Syracuse
Rutgers
Pitt

 

[eyekwah]

This idea of more than two divisions was talked of early on. If the B10 wanted to they could go to 15 teams and three divisions. See Frank the Tank article on the advantage of an odd number of teams. If ND doesn't come on board then you have a ace in the hole when they finally have to join a conference.

The breakout of the divisions would not have to be geographic, but it probably end up that way. Since the additional teams are unknown at this time it is hard to speculate who would be assigned where. If Mizzou and Nebraska join the I see a division of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.

The addition of three eastern schools would probably put Penn State, Syracuse, Rutger, Pitt, and an original B10 School, I would guess Michigan State. That would leave Ohio State, Michigan, Northwestern, Purdue, and Indiana in the third division.

The playoff for the championship would work like this. You play 7 conference games, four divisional and three non-divisional. The three divisional winners and one wild card team make the playoffs. The 11 teams that don't make the playoffs use the eighth conference game slot to win a bowl slot in a better game. You would not play another team you already played. Only the two playoff winners would have a 13th game.

There are hundreds of ways to consider.

 

[tiggerhawk]

Syracuse is a must. If you get Rutgers and Syracuse, you increase your television money by a very significant amount.

There is NOT going to be a sixteen-team Big Ten. The BT presidents are NOT going to make their decision(s) based on athletic competition factors.

The intent behind moving up the timetable for expansion has been to add another major research university timed to economic recovery and the prospective major increases in federal funding to university-based research anticipated from the Obama Administration.

The complication is that the initial background survey and fact-gathering work in preparation for a recommendation to the Presidents (perhaps as early as next month in order to allow a decision onn possible expansion to go on the agenda for the BT's June meeting, rather than waiting a year) has created a quandary. The original expectation was that the staff work would lead to a recommendation suggesting one or two possible candidates for the BT presidents to consider; the problem is that there seems to be no agreement developing on what schools should be recommended. The clear early favorite was Rutgers (still is), but there is a lot of sentiment for Pitt as well--and several other schools could get more consideration than was imagined to be likely.

Don't rule out the possibility that the BT Presidents end up to years from now formally offering membership to both Rutgers & Pitt (that would probably distress sports fans, who would most likely find a 13-team BT even more awkward than eleven has been. If things go that way it will be obvious long before the membership offers are made: with eleven BT presidents and hundreds of staff involved, no way that accounts of the deliberations will not lead out immediately.

Going to 12 schools, likely. Going to 13, possible. Even 14 could happen. Sixteen? No. Won't happen....

UNLESS the BT decides to go to a sort of two-tier arrangement: the BT itself (the present 12 schools including the U of Chicago) plus maybe Rutgers and/or Pitt added; then a secondary athletic conference which would include athletic programs of other universities but not as members of the BT itself.

To my knowledge there have been absolutely NO reputable sources reporting that this is a possibility that will get serious consideration.

 

[omahawk80]

I don't understand people wanting Nebraska, sure they put 80,000 people in the Memorial Stadium every week but when they do the stadium is the 3rd largest city in the state after Lincoln and Omaha. They don't have enough TV sets to raise that $22 mil in revenue to join the B10 and I'd be surprised if their academics were up to par with the B10.

 

[bud2380]

Your comment about Penn State is laughable. Penn State was an East Coast team for almost a century before joining the Big Ten, I guarantee they'd love the division I have them in. ND/PSU used to be a big independent rivalry, and PSU used to play Syracuse on a yearly basis...those two teams had a pretty big rivalry at one time. Rutgers/PSU would be a great road trip for both teams. Penn State has wanted an eastern rival since they've joined the Big Ten, they'd be ecstatic if the Big Ten gave them two (and another familiar rivalry in Notre Dame).

Indiana and Purdue in a division with Texas and TAMU would be unavoidable, someone from the Big Ten would need to be in that division, who would you suggest? Also, keep in mind that you play four teams from the sister division every season, so again, Purdue and Indiana would still be playing current Big Ten teams regularly.

You guarantee Penn St would LOVE the division you have them in? That is completely laughable. Penn St has been part of the Big Ten for more than 15 years, it's not like they joined yesterday. I'm not knocking the way you are splitting the teams so much as I am knocking the notion of a 16 team Big Ten. It's absurd, and I hope like hell they never do it. It would ruin the Big Ten. Go to 12 teams and lets play a conf championship in Indianapolis every year. Everyone is happy.