Big Ten makes it official: East/West Divisions & 9 gm schedule
Big Ten just put out the press release:
http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/042813aaa.html
Big Ten East Division: Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State and Rutgers.
Big Ten West Division: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin.
9 game conference schedule beginning in 2016.
Protected cross-division games eliminated with the exception of Indiana-Purdue.
East Division will have 5 home conference games in even years, meaning Michigan will have Ohio State at home in our 4 game home conference slate in odd years.
I like this setup better. I hated the idea of a rematch and situations like this year where we play Ohio, and Nebraska and MSU have a much easier cross-division schedule.
Winning The Game should be a necessary step to winning the Big Ten Championship and possibly the National Championship. Can you imagine a situation where it shouldn't?
How is that any different than what it always has been? We pretty much always have to beat Ohio St to win the Big 10 championship.
Do you not realize that in the Leaders/Legends setup, we have to play OSU every year, while our division rivals don't? And then if we win the division, we could possibly play them a second time in two weeks?
I can understand being upset about the divisions if you're sad about not playing some of the West teams every year, but I can't understand how people could think this is bad for us from a competitive standpoint. This is much fairer to us than the current division. Every team in the East has to play OSU. And we only play them once a year.
Yes, and now we've ended this little unfairness by putting ourselves in the division with 2 of the other 3-4 likely elite programs over the next 20 years.
Facts are, under a better East/West division with us in the West (with State and Purdue in West and something like Illinois and NU in the East; and protected cross-over games), we'd be favorites most every year to get to Indy. Under that scenario, we just have to take care of business against every team except ohio, and we'd go to Indy. I'll take a neutral court game v ohio. Yes, that might mean we'd have to move ohio from the end of the season. I'd make that sacrifice in order to drastically improve our chances of making the Championship game and getting what probably will amount to an auto bid to the Football Final Four.
Now, under the new system, any loss to ohio means we are not going to Indy.
I know this goes against MGoOrthodoxy.
There is no way - absolutely no way - that the Game will ever be moved. That's non-negotiable. You do not mess around with what many consider the greatest rivalry in sports. Any proposal to move the Game is a non-starter. Fans on both sides were outraged when the idea was floated a couple years ago.
Michigan and OSU will play on the last week of the regular season. That was the starting point of the discussion. Given that fact, there are two options: play them as a cross-division game, opening up the possibility of back-to-back meetings and an imbalanced schedule for the two schools compared to their division rivals, or play them in the same division, which eliminates both issues. It's an easy decision.
The road to Pasadena goes through Columbus. Thus has it been and thus it shall always be.
This is the way its meant to be. Besides, I'd rather not have to play them twice unless its in a winner take all national title game.
So in 2016, our schedule will look like this (obviously not in this order) assuming they keep as many home/road alternating series as possible:
5 HOME GAMES
- MSU
- Probably Penn State
- Rutgers/Maryland (no one should have to go to the East Coast twice in a season)
- 2 against West Division
4 AWAY GAMES
- Ohio
- Probably Indiana
- Other one of Rutgers/Maryland
- 1 at West Division
Also, in 2016 M has open dates in Week 2 (9/10--vacated by ND) and in the middle of B1G season. Unless they move the Ball State game in Week 4 to Week 2, or schedule a B1G game early in the season, they will have to play 11 straight weeks.
I can dig it
I bet state will take offense to this quote: "In the first 18 years, you're going to see a lot of competition between teams at the top of either division," Delany said. "We call that a bit of parity-based scheduling, so you'll see Wisconsin, Nebraska and Iowa playing a lot of competition against Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan."
what schools would the B1G go after for a bigger market footprint? Texas & some other TX school would make sense to be put in the Western Div.
or
Texas in west and someone like UVA in east and the divisions would be more equal that way.
A couple of issues. Much like the B10/SEC/P12, the B12 has an even Tier 1/2 media payout. The big difference is in the Tier 3 contracts. UT has, by far, the largest because of the LHN. Team like OU have a media payout compared to our BTN payout. The B10 teams further bid out their radio broadcast, coaches shows, and other media rights not pledged to the BTN. Michigan make an additional $7 million from their media deal with IMG. Not all schools get that kind of money.
On top of that, Michigan made more in football ticket revenue ($46 million) than at least 6 of the current and future teams did on their entire football revenue. Michigan made $85 million on direct football revenue alone ($22 million more than the next school, OSU did).
To say that the B10 distributes it's media money evenly is a misnomer. The only difference is that the B10 consolidates their tier 3 into the BTN while Texas sells it on by themselves.
As far as expansion goes, The B10 sat at 11 teams for 20 years until UML was admitted. They can wait until the B12/ACC GoRs runs out in 10/12 years. I actually think that if B12 teams like Kansas were wanting to go, they would go a few years early. The reduction of media rights wouldn't really be that big of deal at that point.
Wow, how did Iowa get so high on total Football revenue, especially as compared to ticket revenue?
the #s always surprise me no matter how many times I see them.
I'm shocked we make that much more than OSU. I thought their tickets were even more expensive than ours.
And I think their student tix are only partial year, though that may have changed since they shifted from trimesters to semesters.
but how do we know Ohio still be a home game in the 4 game home conference slate? They're in the East as well, so will have the same 5/4 timing as us. I'm guessing this just assumes they won't switch it up from the current cycle?
I've got to assume they won't mess with the timing of any of the big rivalry games. Pre-2011, every team had two protected rivalries, and I'm guessing those won't be touched.
It is an assumption, but a pretty good one. I don't see any way the Big Ten could give one team back to back home games in The Game. Probably the same way with Michigan-MSU. Michigan has had Ohio at home on odd years since 1901. Michigan has had MSU at home on even years since 1968.
And seeing we play Penn State this year on the road, I have a hard time seeing the Big Ten giving us another road game against PSU in 2014, meaning Michigan should get PSU at home in even years (which is the way it has been for most of the time since PSU entered the conference).
contiguous in terms of geography, even though the Atlanta and Texas markets make sense. I still think Notre Dame and Kansas make the most sense from a cultural, geographic and athletics perspective, even though Kansas doesn't make much TV market sense (Kansas City, meh). Those two would increase basketball strength, as we'll be falling behind the ACC with their addition of Syracuse and Pitt.
UVa and ND would also make sense. ND to the west for competitive balance and making it a more Chicago-Minneapolis centric division, with the East being the more Detroit-Ohio-NY-Washington-Baltimore division. ND's non-conference schedule could have USC, Stanford and Navy, they'd play Purdue every year and would rotate UM and MSU frequently. They'd also get natural games in NY and DC once it a while, and ND games against Illinois, Indiana, and Northwestern (not to mention Wisconsin and Nebraska) have to look attractive to the TV networks as well.
As long as the ACC remains viable and willing to let ND sit in on its non-football sports, there's no reason for ND to change their current situation. ND gets to maintain its exclusive TV contract and the illusion of independence while still having a league home for their other sports. ND fits well with the Big 10 but ND alums are adamant that it not happen. They're far more likely to go all in with the ACC than join the Big 10.
Delaney really, really screwed himself when he let the ACC take Syracuse, Pitt (and then ND later), leaving him with the embarrassing scraps of Rutgers and MD. Syracuse would have delivered the same TV market and occasional Meadowlands games as Rutgers. Pitt is a big market unto itself, and with those two in tow Rutgers and MD wouldn't have looked so bad.
We could have an East division (A B1G East, if you will) of UM, MSU, Ohio, Pitt, PSU, Syracuse, Rutgers and Maryland, tossing both Indiana schools over into the West. Then we'd be done; we wouldn't be assimilated in the northeast by the ACC (they would still only have lonely Boston College), and at that point who cares where ND goes. What an epic failure.
Maybe we can get Missouri to bounce around over to us. Or Kansas and/or Kentucky. Our only options are looking like we're headed toward claiming that Delaney is dedicated to becoming the nation's best basketball conference.
Why do we need to expand at all? Besides the "fact" that it's supposedly inevitable for there to be four 16-team conferences . . . how does it actually benefit the B1G to have two more teams?
The addition of Nebraska gave us the lucrative B1G Championship Game, as well as another traditional power, so it made sense.
The additions of Rutgers and Maryland gave us a toehold in two huge markets, which apparently will increase our TV rights enough to offset the splitting of the pie 15 ways instead of 13 (the league office gets a cut). So I guess it makes sense.
But 16 teams? Where's the benefit?
It's pretty tough at this point to get two more teams that would make the league more profitable with the revenue split 17 ways instead of 15. The law of diminishing returns is kicking in. Note that no conference has dared to go with more than 14 members for football.
Stop obsessing with Notre Dame.
Notre Dame has moved away, gotten married, and had four kids. The oldest is a teenager.
It's over. It ain't happening.
Plus, she got fat anyway.
Adam Rittenberg had some quotes from Jim Delany on the rationale for some the placements, if anyone is interested. The full blog entry is (HERE).
The last sentence of his quote on why Michigan, Ohio State and/or Penn State or even Michigan State were not in the West, aside from geography, is intriguing:
"Michigan State's a good football program, but it wasn't going to make things equal competitively. It may have had an effect. It depends upon what you think Michigan State and Purdue will do over the next decade."
So, it may not matter which division State is in apparently, or at least may matter less in the mind of the Big Ten. Actually, competitive balance was the third priority this time, according to Delany, and he als describes the process in the first attempt as well where it was the first priority. They seeded teams and then split them based on recent history to form the Leaders and Legends initially. It seems like they made a similar consideration this time, but also Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State were very strongly in favor of a straight geographic division.
In the entry, he also talks about the debate between 9 and 10 game conference schedules as well, which apparently was an issue at various meetings. Interesting stuff.
April 28th, 2013 at 10:10 PM ^
On one hand, it's a shame for sparty that their run of Big 10 success is ending. On the other, at least their intense rivalry with the Hoosiers will be played annually.
April 28th, 2013 at 10:08 PM ^
So? Everyone said the same thing about the SEC East in the 1990s. Then the West ended up getting the upper hand. Chasing parity is a fool's errand. Geography makes more sense.
Whoops - I did misunderstand you. But where did Delany say that?