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April 21, 2010

After a frenzied, rumor-filled weekend that the Big 11 was going to speed up its expansion plans, the brakes have been tapped.

Day one of the Bowl Championship Series meetings concluded Tuesday with no formal discussion about expansion.

“Informally,” Beebe said with a chuckle, “there has been plenty.”

Delany has informed colleagues that, contrary to a Tribune report, the timetable for Big Ten expansion has not been accelerated from the period of 12-to-18 months that was announced in December.

“You know, Jim wouldn’t be one of the top commissioners and one of the top sports people in the country if he didn’t take things into very careful consideration,” Beebe said.

Delany said through a spokesman that he would address the media Wednesday. His comments will be scrutinized and analyzed by commissioners such as Beebe and John Marinatto of the Big East.

This could be yet another smokescreen. Take some of the attention that is suddenly all over expansion away for a while so Delany can do more work with a little less glare.

Or it could be that while meeting with the Big 11 presidents over the weekend, Delany found insufficient consensus over the candidates at this point. All sorts of speculation can be found at this point.

Now the speculation for why the Big 11 might want to accelerate discussions centered on — of course — TV money.

The Big Ten wants to give other conferences time to respond. But more to the point, it could take a while to integrate schools such as Rutgers, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Connecticut.

The Big East “loyalty clause,” created after the ACC raid, calls for departing schools to pay $5 million and, more significantly, give a 27-month notice.

So barring a renegotiation, the parties would have to move quickly to get the jumbo Big Ten in place for the 2012-13 academic/athletic season.

For the record, the Big 12 has similar penalties and notice requirements.

The Big 11’s TV deal with ESPN/ABC comes up for renewal around that time, so the theory was that the Big 11 would want the teams in place to negotiate a new contract. The reason this is kind of silly, is that it has little to do with the TV contract. If it is already known that the expansion will happen and who will come, the contract negotiations won’t be effected by whether the teams are already there or coming in 2014 or even 15.

Meanwhile, programs like Louisville just sweat and hope to make themselves look attractive to someone in the near future.

Good piece on whether the SEC should act now with expansion plans rather than wait to see what the Big 11 does.

And here is the really delicate part: Obviously if the SEC wanted to expand, the first phone call would be to Texas. Texas brings that kind of value and more.  But if Texas says no, what are the SEC’s real options?

Do they go to the ACC and take teams from a conference that just expanded? The ACC is currently in negotiations for its new television deals and the proposed numbers from the TV boys are not great. To be perfectly candid, the ACC as a football conference is a little vulnerable right now.

The ACC got hammered in the court of public opinion when it took three teams from the Big East a few years ago. Does the SEC want that kind of PR headache? Of course not. But it may have no choice. Hurting another conference would be bad. Doing nothing could be worse.

Oh, the possible irony.





Here is a crazy thought…The Big 11 swoops in and takes all of the BE FB schools except SoFla…they also add ND and Nebraska or Mizzou. They have two ten team divisions, with the original Big 10 being the members of one of them. They cut a deal with the BCS that says if they do this, the conference is guaranteed two BCS spots (basically they move the ND 2 Loss option to the this new super-duper conference). Each team plays 8 teams from its division each year, with certain rivalies guaranteed (such as MU vs. OSU, Pitt Vs. PSU). The rest of the games are rotated, just as they are now. Then each team must play two teams from the other divsion, rotated each year. 10 Conference Games leaves room for one tune up game, plus one strong Non-Con each year. Who loses, except for the PSU’s and OSU’s that like to have 8 home games a year? In BB, your start conference play a little early. You play all teams in the conference once, and 3 or 4 teams in your own division twice.

Comment by HbgFrank 04.21.10 @ 12:46 pm

once again, I reiterate my post from yesterday. Every few days, you hear another report that the dcision will be sped up or slowed down, that it will involve only 1 team or up to 5 teams, that the SEC, ACC and Pac 10 may or may not take action, etc ….. whatever!!! I refuse to take anything I read or hear seriously until the actual announcement is made.

Comment by wbb 04.21.10 @ 2:25 pm

Frank, I like your idea but why stop there? Why not just trash the NCAA, who the heck needs it?

Go for a 100 team Sub-NFL league. Buy our own TV station. Start paying our student athletes what they deserve.

The boola-boola stuff would still be there but without the hipocrisy.

Comment by steve 04.21.10 @ 2:27 pm

To wbb and persons of his candor and insight. I too, am weary of reading about whether or not the BIG ELEVEN will or will not expand. Frankly, I believe the University of Pittsburgh would not be well served by becoming just ANOTHER football school and incidentally, one with a relatively tiny stadium. Compared to the well-heeled institutions in Columbus, Ann Arbor and State College Pitt would be comparable to Northwestern. That, of course, would’nt be all bad since the aforementioned Chicago school would have much in common with Pittsburgh when it comes to academics and respect. It is incomprehensible to this writer that the Big East cannot put together and keep together a conference which would play competitive and entertaining football to match their already well established basketball. George from Columbus where the college sports budget is the rudder of the rowboat.

Comment by rev. george mehaffey 04.21.10 @ 4:29 pm

anyone else starting to think this is a big publicity stunt for the big 11. Pump up their own image, make it seem like everyone wants in, convince recruits that other leagues are falling apart, do nothing in the end, and come out looking better.

Comment by OntarioLett'sGoPitt 04.21.10 @ 8:38 pm

Frank I like that idea–the old everything comes full circle idea. Will there one day very soon be NO conferences and 119 Independent teams??? Will PSU finally agree to play us every year at that point?

Comment by jason 04.21.10 @ 10:36 pm

Steve, the NCAA is watching this scenario very closely. It has been proposed more than once in the past that the BCS conferences could some day split from the NCAA. If they go to “super conferences” this gets more likely. Jason, I would have thought that what I wrote in my first post above was unthinkable just a few months ago…Then I read where the NCAA has decided that 65 teams in its basketball tournament is not enough…Nope, we need a “super” tournament field of 96 teams! We all know what that is about: $$$. While a 20 team Big Ten is a wild out-of-the-box notion with virtually no chance of ever happening, nothing is unthinkable any more in college sports. The dollar is king. Ontario, I do wonder if this is not some grand scheme by the Big 11 to pressure (bluff?) ND in to joining the conference.

Comment by HbgFrank 04.21.10 @ 11:33 pm

I pointed this out months ago. It seems like every story that fuels rampant speculation about the Big 1x has one author, Teddy Greenstein at the Chicago Tribune. Then Delaney comes out and says, ‘Now, Teddy, you’re jumping to conclusions again,’ in so many words.

Maybe Greenstein has great sources who know more than Delaney is willing to divulge, or maybe his sources have some interest in expanding big and doing it quickly, or maybe Greenstein needs to protect his job by breaking big stories to sell papers. I don’t know which it is, but like wbb, I’m not buying any of it until someone other than Teddy Greenstein confirms it.

I do think the Big 1x will expand. I think they’ll follow the 12-18 month timeline originally laid out by Delaney. And, I think it will be by one team to get to 12 to create the conference championship scenario. They’ll make another run at Notre Dame and have Mizzou as their backup. That’s my opinion, just like Teddy Greenstein and his sources have their opinions.

One good thing that may have come out of this is that the Big East has hired Paul Tagliabue to help them get their act together. Maybe he can help turn it into a real football conference after all.

link to bigeast.org

Comment by TampaT 04.22.10 @ 9:06 am

note that of all the hundreds of stories speculating about the B10 expansion scenarios, most of them insisting that they will go big and act fast, when we finally do hear something directly from the horse’s mouth, it is much ado about nothing.

Comment by wbb 04.22.10 @ 9:12 am

[…] A Pitt perspective on the Big 10 brake stomping. […]


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