Where do you get these crazy ideas? First of all, Syracuse is not in the New York city market. Penn State is actually closer to the New York metropolitan area than Syracuse. Another interesting tidbit, Iowa City is about twenty-five miles closer to metropolitan Chicago than Syracuse is to metropolitan NY.
Rutgers is a different story. The campus is about forty-five miles from downtown Manhatten. While pro sports may dominate, Greater New York contains almost nineteen million people. The Tri-State population is almost fifty percent larger than Illinois, the most populous state in the Big Ten.
Many of the residents of the area are Rutgers alumni & natives of the midwestern states. Just because an individual lives in New York doesn't mean they were raised in New York. New York is a great melting pot of people from all over the country. There are millions of Rutgers graduates & natives from the midwest in Greater New York.
Further, adding Rutgers to the Big Ten would guarantee that the late afternoon games & night games would be televised by ABC New York. Rutgers would be a huge financial bonanza to the conference's TV contracts & the BTN.
