Rutgers Makes One Kind Of Sense, I Guess

Rutgers is just totally off the radar here in NYC. And you can confidently put Syracuse on the list as "more important than Rutgers" in this market.

They are currently more relevant than the Nets here, which will continue for two years, and then the Nets will be in Brooklyn.

Rutgers is not even close to 10th banana in New York City. They barely register at all, except for with their alumni. They are not the "local" team that everyone follows in the same way people upstate hitch themselves to Syracuse (or even the way non-UM folks in the Ann Arbor area hitch themselves to UM). I've been in Manhattan for 13 years and never once heard anyone say, "Rutgers is on tonight, better make sure we get to the bar for the game." It doesn't open up a TV market, at least not for UM, since all of our games are on TV here anyway. Their basketball program is a joke. Football has had one or two decent years but otherwise is a joke, too. They would be a horrible, horrible addition to the conference.

Brian, please use your powers to prevent this terrible prospect from becoming reality.

To Excommunicate Rutgers!

with Big Ten expansion is lame with Rutgers up for consideration.

And the Mars invasion. Look, before I get neg-banged, this has absolutely NOTHING at all to do with market share, or filled stadiums, or what-have-you.

No. This is all about me and what I want. I may be moving to Texas in a few months, and I would totally dig it, man, if I could get UM on my local cable feed each and every football Saturday without subscribing to some sports tier that also carries North Texas versus Rice. Or some other sh-t like that.

And UM v. UT on a regular basis? How @#$%ing cool would THAT be?

here are a few notes (not opinions) from the NY perspective:

rutgers (undergrad and graduate schools, particularly the law school) has a pretty expansive network within manhattan. plenty of wealthy NJers went to rutgers and now call manhattan or its suburbs home. if the big ten was trying to get more dollars, they'd be looking to those people for the dollars.

within manhattan, the largest cable provider is time warner. the BTN is available only by purchasing a special sports package. verizon has made some inroads in manhattan, and offers the BTN as part of its regular cable package, but still has few customers. also, verizon does not carry BTN overflow channels. a small number of manhattanites have RCN cable. to my knowledge, they do no offer the BTN, even as a premium channel.

For a couple of reasons, which are related:
1. There are way more people walking around the city on the weekend in their Michigan, Wisconsin, ND and Penn State gear than Rutgers gear. Rutgers grads do not care about Rutgers, since culturally they probably wanted to go out of state to a private school.
2. This is even more important: LOTS OF PEOPLE HERE ALREADY GET BTN. I can't emphasize this enough.
3. I'm making this up, but it's truth-y: I bet the cable companies that don't carry BTN would be more likely to cave with the addition of ND than Rutgers.

As a new yorker I think this would be just about the greatest thing ever as I would get to go to a Mich maybe ever three or four years without travelling, so in my highly biased opinioned giant thumbs up on Rutgers.

I do think this would get BTN on most cable packages in NYC. I currently have Time Warner and get one BTN channel, but only as part of the sports HD package. I imagine without much cajoling, Time Warner would put BTN on main cable package. There are not only a decent amount of Rutgers alums, but a pretty big number of Big Ten alumini that would push Time Warner to do it I think. The increased revenue seems to me to outweigh the positives associated with a Pitt or Missouri, neither of which is really going to drastically change the conf profile.

Rutgers is in the AAU.

http://www.aau.edu/about/article.aspx?id=5476

They have been a member since 1989.

Austin is a 21 hour drive from ann arbor. The geographic fit for Rutgers is not good but its not wildly absurd either.

In the "cents" of "A bad penny always turns up," I presume.

People in New York are gonna watch this shit with RUTGERS? I know I won't.
Talk about status quo boring bullshit. To think the conference paid someone to sit down, scratch his balls, write the five names that everyone without an imagination or desire to increase interest in the Big Ten would write, and then this shit makes the MSM.

I have a feeling Coach Schiano will have something to say about all this...

I'm starting to think Notre Dame is the only school actually under consideration. All of this talk is just an effort to get ND to cave in and join.

I pay $3/month for BTN. I will pay $6/month to keep Rutgers out of the big ten because they are a big joke.

I live in NY and work with Rutgers alumni, they do not care about Rutgers. The local networks try to make Rutgers a big deal (only when they were winning), but have garnered zero attention.

There are probably more Gator fans in NY than Rutgers fans...maybe Florida should join the big ten.

Eh, it might be a gamble, but a gamble that makes sense in some ways. If NY/NJ is ever going to care about college football it's going to be because of Rutgers. There isn't another option. One potential way to make Rutgers alums and just general NY/NJ people support Rutgers is to have them facing off with Big 10 teams that have tons of alumni in the area that go crazy over every game, which would include games vs. Rutgers. It brings them into a community that cares, rather than just Big East schools that don't garner nearly as much support in NYC.

I don't think they're quite the dregs of the NYC sports market that everyone is making them out to be. Every one of there football games is on television and seem to have no worse support than the Nets or certainly the Islanders. SNY (primarily the Mets channel) already has a decent amount of programming dedicated to Rutgers. They will always be second teir at best in the NYC sports scene, but with a metro market size of 20M people, that doesn't necessarily make it any worse than, say, Missouri.

It won't be the financial draw that Texas would be, but I could see how it might make sense.

does not excite me one bit. It was the same sort of excitement attained from the rumors regarding Mike DeBord or Brady Hoke as candidates for the Michigan HC job.

with Comcast, Time Warner and the other relevant cable companies? As I understand it, the cable companies are generally carrying the BTN on the basic tier in those areas which fall into the conference's footprint. Are the terms of the contracts such that if Rutgers joins the Big Ten, then BTN will automatically be carried on the basic tier in at least New Jersey because of the enlarged footprint? If so, the Rutgers move does make some sense.

Of all the schools floated around as the newest member, I dread Rutgers the most. As a fan, I have no interest in TV deals and media market (I understand the Big Ten doesn't share my sentiment). I want a school that brings competition and excitement to the Big Ten. I want a school that feels like a Big Ten school. Rutgers? Excitement? Competition. No. I have fond memories of good times in NJ, so no rips on the state from me. It's just a terrible fit for the Big Ten.

The Big Ten should be setting its sights high, not low.

Their endowment is only $500M. The smallest Big Ten endowment is around $1.1 Billion(according to Wikipedia), which is Illinois/IU/MSU.

Rutgers is fraying around the edges. Take Texas. And A&M.

It's already on a lot of peoples' packages, and it's because of Penn State, which even right next to Rutgers' campus is more of a draw than is Rutgers itself.

The NY Times many seasons seems to regard PSU as the local college team in their sports section, or at least they did way back when I read.

IMHO, not that big a draw at all. I've lived at or near the NY/NJ border all my life (save for 4 great years in AA) and I've never felt anything close to a regional comraderie or spirit directed at, or galvanized by, Rutgers. It's considered a good local school, don't get me wrong, but it has zero appeal beyond the people who actually go or went there. NYers could give 2 s**ts about Rutgers. We don't get excited about NJ sports. As a rule. Ever. The Nets? Nobody cares; they're moving to Brooklyn. The Devils? nobody cares, even after winning the Cup several times. As a lawyer, I know RU best for it's credibility as having a fairly reputable law school, not much else. Their football team is on par with UCONN, their men's basketball program is terrible, no hockey. The womens' sports dominate the mens' programs.

If you're going for the NY/NJ/CT media, you absolutely go with 'Cuse. I see Orange everywhere. Northeast-coasters love 'Cuse basketball; and if the football program were to get the legitimacy of the Big Ten behind it, I think their style of play could lead to some solid development on that end.

'Cuse football "feels" Big Ten. The tradition of Ernie Davis and Jim Brown. Powerful RBs. Playmaking WRs like Marvin Harrison and David Tyree (who catches passes with his head to win the Giants the Superbowl). Heady QBs like Donovan McNabb. I think the Big Ten could use a domed stadium, too.

Obviously it's a basketball superpower. 'Cuse vs. MSU. 'Cuse vs. Purdue. 'Cuse vs. Michigan. I would put everything on hold to watch those intraleague matchups. Kids will be attracted to play for Big Ten schools because when you play 'Cuse, you're probably going to be on TV a lot.

Pitt is a close second. A lot of people will tune in to watch Pitt play intraconference Big Ten basketball. But you can say the same for 'Cuse. Pitt football is ahead of 'Cuse right now, but I think when Syracuse rights their ship, that's a team you want more in your conference selling merch, tickets and TV commercials. 'Cuse making Big Ten bucks can easily be the Michigan of the Northeast.