Jim Delany Quashes Latest Expansion Rumors
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany e-mailed conference officials Tuesday to stamp out a rumor that four schools had already been offered a chance to join the league. Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith confirmed Tuesday that Delany had quashed a report that the Big Ten had offered expansion spots to Missouri, Nebraska, Notre Dame and Rutgers. Asked if there was anything to that speculation, Smith said, "Nothing. There's no truth to it whatsoever. Actually, Jim sent us all an e-mail telling us there's no truth to that — which we knew. There's no extensions of offers that have been made, so that's not true."
obviously, logic implies they really offered Mars University. The question is, of course, would they leave their rivalry with Jupiter St behind?
And don't settle for just a bunch of little ones. I don't care what they say, Mercury St. does not carry the Sun's television market.
It seems like Pluto would make the most sense, since they are currently independent.
But if they pull in The Univeristy of Vesus & Mercury St, that might be enough for the Sun's TV market.
Yeah, but if we can steal Neptune and Uranus it might just collapse the whole Gas Giant conference causing Jupiter State and Saturn A&M to join as well.
see Uranus in the Conference.
I think this is Delaney-speak for "how in the hell did they find out about this?"
I also think these were pre-offers, such as "if we were to extend an offer, would you be prepared to accept?" Time will tell.
The more and more that information "leaks", the more and more this thought pops into my head. I mean at some point they have to put feelers out to other schools, right?
and is in each school's best interest to look wanted to potentially get more from their conference.
I can't take anymore of this expansion talk are we a Super Conference or not already!?!
In addition to the obvious reason that such an expansion would create a ginormous market base, I had another (horrifying) thought on why a move to 16 teams may be tempting for the conference. Forgive me if this has already been mentioned.
Say such an alleged super conf is broken up into two divisions of 8 teams apiece. Traditional thought has each team playing its own conference members, plus a few teams in the other division to continue rivalries. But the league could easily just have each team ONLY play teams within its own division (despite the subsequent home/away inbalance) and thereby allow each team an extra OOC game (5 instead of the current 4). Given the way the majority of BigTen schools schedule, this would likely be another home game, meaning even more $$ for the schools.
I definitely don't like the above idea - I abhor it. But until the Super Conference Rumor That Cannot Die is finally slain, I will worry about such thoughts as those above.
Big Ten can expand to 50 teams...as long as it doesn't include Rutgers.
I am still upset that the University of Chicago has not been considered.