Jim Delany: Crazy like a fox?

But I think Delaney’s dream scenario includes Notre Dame and whole the Eastern TV market. He could secure the latter with Rutgers, UConn, and Syracuse, then add Missouri to lock up St. Louis and K.C.

If he adds just one team, ND is the prize fish. But why stop at one?

NOT GOOD ENOUGH

a cigar really is a cigar. Call me cuckoo, but I think they really are contemplating 14 or 16 teams.

Is that how Empire Strikes Back would have gone down if Vader had a fedora, cigar, and tommy-gun-toting heavies with briefcases?

I definitely share your opinion of this whole situation, Pitt is the only other school I can see with a great Big Ten resume, so I think this is all just to scare ND into joining. Hopefully it works!

I think this whole we are going to take the whole Big East conference is just us trying to scare Notre Dame to joining. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out though.

Or are we threatening the Big East?

Threatening to destroy the Big East may scare Notre Dame a little and could possibly encourage them to join the Big Ten to avoid the huge disruption to college sports, but I wonder if we're not threatening to destroy the Big East to get the Big East to save themselves by encouraging ND to join the Big Ten.

Starts out with Edward G. Robinson, transitions to James Cagney (see?) and then fades to James Earl Jones = pure Columbian awesome.

and well conveyed as well. I guess we shall see...

We're going to go 16 teams, you're losing at least 2 to 3 teams from your conference to us and the Pac Ten, either join us or have fun playing in the worst major conference making less dough.

Then again, I'm probably just having wishful thinking.

What in the world is happening?? My brain is on overload!! Someone please tell me what is about to happen!! Midwest 12? Big 14? Super 16? I cant take it any more!!

...they can raid the ACC and have the same net effect of dismantling the Big East (because who is the ACC going to raid (again)?) Therefore the talk of Rutgers and UConn are not a necessity if the intention is to topple the Big East and lure Notre Dame.

Consider the Big 10 taking Pitt and Syracuse from the Big East, and Boston College and Virginia from the ACC. Delany gets his fingers into the New York, Boston, and Virginia/Washington DC markets while solidifying Pennsylvania; the Big 10 acquires four highly respected undergraduate institutions, as well as two of the top medical schools in the nation (Pitt and Virginia - and all the medical research $$$ associated with them;) and the Big East still crumbles which brings in Notre Dame.

(I still prefer Texas to Notre Dame, but that's probably just because I can't wait for Michigan to meet Texas on the field again...)

Jim Delany is a canny business man. He wants to be out front and he knows that the off season story for the last few years about the Big Ten has been the Big Ten's failure on the national stage. So, he throws out the idea that the Big Ten is pondering expansion, on a 12-18 month time table. Now, consider all of the Big Ten talk since the expansion timeline went out, speculation of who would be invited, would they be a good fit, is the Big Ten powerful enough to do this, is it a good idea. While negative in some cases, it's all hypothetical negative, but it has the impact of keeping the Big Ten at the forefront of the discussion as one of America's premier and powerful conferences while taking attention away from the dead horse storyline of how the Big Ten is not so good in January.*

I'm not saying it's a smoke screen, I'm not saying the Big Ten won't expand. What I'm saying is that Jim Delany gets eight months of speculation out of this, always keeping the Big Ten's name in the picture, before we go back to talking about what's happening on the field.

*--Admittedly, the Big Ten's performance in this past bowl season helped out with that, but there was no guarantee of this when the expansion time table was announced.

Going along with Yostal's idea... by having Delaney keep talking about expansion this offseason, the Big 10 has gotten more publicity than any other conference and publicity = increased interest = potentially more viewers on BTN = greater revenue. Well played, Senor Delaney, well played.

Also, I always envisioned the meeting between Delaney and Swarbrick to more like Tom Hagen's visit to the hollywood producer in The Godfather. Only instead of a horse's head, Swarbrick wakes up with the Leprechaun head in his bed.

Cue music. Cut to dark smokey office in Chicago where Delaney sits in a leather chair with David Brandon flanking him.

The original thesis that Delany is playing brinksmanship with ND strikes me as very possibly (hopefully in my opinion) true. Its clear that the entire reason (if not rational) for expansion has to due with BTN money and not really with the idea of a conference championship game. Anyway, if its all about increasing BTN revenue (and worth) why not just have the BTN bid for the Big East's TV rights? You get the east coast market and dont have to muck up your the OSU-Michigan, not to mention all the other traditions. OF course there are a bunch of caveats, not the least being another conference raiding the Big East and not getting BTN on basic cable in those markets, but in theory you get all the benefits (money to the Big Ten schools) without the inconvenience of a killing the 'true' big ten.
Also, Delany should just threaten the Big East if they dont kick ND out he will destroy their conference. Seems like we have a lot of ways to paint them into a corner now...