Big Ten not likely to go to 9 game Schedule
But Delany told the Chicago Tribune last week the challenge is financial. "I know our fans want to see more Big Ten games," Delany told the Tribune. "Our TV partners want to see more Big Ten games. But if we can't finance our programs, it's not going to happen." Programs like Michigan and Michigan State draw income by hosting games. If the Big Ten moves to a nine-game schedule, teams will play five road games every other year. That means scheduling only home nonconference games. Big Ten coaches weighed in on the issue during Tuesday's weekly conference call, and they would prefer an eight-game schedule. "I would say this if I were the one designing it and had all the votes, which I'm not designing it and I have none of the votes, I would probably stick with eight," Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said. "I would probably go back to having (the regular season) end the Saturday before Thanksgiving. "I always thought one of the bonuses for Big Ten players and coaches and fans was they were able to enjoy a Thanksgiving weekend with their families and perhaps have the championship game two weeks later." What coaches like about an eight-game schedule is the balance it offers. "I think the trend to go toward nine has been out there a lot because of the difficulty of getting some nonconference games," Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez said. "I kind of like having eight conference games, having balance, four and four, home and on the road, and have the ability to schedule four nonconference teams throughout the country." Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said playing eight Big Ten games is tough enough. "As you look at your football team, you want to grow your team," Dantonio said, adding he knows fans want to see Big Ten teams play a quality non-conference schedule.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100929/SPORTS0203/9290333/1133/sports/…
September 29th, 2010 at 8:48 AM ^
the point of equal revenue sharing. So that conference road games were about THIS CLOSE to conference home games in terms of revenue for the schools.
Bah! Now I'm all confused.
September 29th, 2010 at 8:59 AM ^
They wouldn't be though, because instead of one team playing at another Big 10 school, they would both host MAC teams. That would bring in 2 stadiums worth of revenue minus the payments for those MAC teams to get beat up. So even if they share the revenue, its still less revenue total.
September 29th, 2010 at 9:07 AM ^
I hadn't considered that aspect. That makes sense, I suppose. So I guess the only way to work a 9 game Big Ten schedule then is to convince the TV network broadcasting it to pony up as much as the gate would be for the other OOC game, in addition to the regular TV revenue of showing both games, which, yeah... not gonna happen.
September 29th, 2010 at 8:58 AM ^
Otherwise Indiana would makes as much money as Michigan. And people would WANT to play Michigan every year. Just conference tv money equally. And Bowl money, to some extent (It's a 13 share system...14 next year?...with money from a bowl split with 2 shares going to the team in the bowl...so it's a bit more profitable to go to a bowl...a share for the Big Ten...then a share for each other B10 team. So OSU in the National Championship makes a bit more than Indiana at home for the holidays...but not that much).
September 29th, 2010 at 8:49 AM ^
I see it sticking with 8 conference games because it is going to be a pain in the ass to work out the scheduling and logistics. Plus, Delany made a good point about the money situation.
September 29th, 2010 at 9:10 AM ^
Couldn't the Big Ten just schedule their teams' 5 conference road games the same year they have all home games for their non-conference games? For instance, OSU this year and the years we play Notre Dame at home.
It may get too difficult to schedule so I doubt it will happen. But I'd love to see a 9 game conference schedule. Teams sometimes get more hype because of the opponents they don't play. Like Wisconsin going to those Rose Bowl's in the 90's. A big part of that was because they always missed out on playing the 1st or 2nd place team in the Big Ten.
OSU seems to rotate off of Sparty's schedule quite often. And I remember Purdue getting some preseason love a couple years ago simply because they didn't have to play either OSU or Michigan.
September 29th, 2010 at 9:15 AM ^
There's an asymmetry with the scheduling, because our permanent rival is OSU, whereas plenty of other teams will have seasons without the two major other-division powerhouses off their schedules. The two examples you cite, Purdue and Wisconsin, are the classic ones.
For that reason, it's a shame we can't go to a 9 game conference schedule. I mean, isn't it better to play Minnesota than UMass? Surely the scheduling could be worked out so that we played an extra home game when needed.
September 29th, 2010 at 9:43 AM ^
A bit of a tangent, but not only did Wisconsin luck out with their conference schedules but they have also drawn some of the weaker Rose Bowl opponents (UCLA & Stanford). The Badgers have won all three of their Rose Bowls during the 90s & 00s, whereas the Wolverines have only won two out of seven trips. For some reason, we always get to play a powerhouse version of USC, Washington or even Texas.
Lucky fucking badgers...
September 29th, 2010 at 10:11 AM ^
They got to play Oregon instead of USC's annual de facto home game in the Rose Bowl like everyone else from the Big 10 had to do the last decade. OSU had already lost to USC in Columbus earlier in the season. Does anyone think OSU would have won a rematch in L.A.?
September 29th, 2010 at 12:40 PM ^
Absolutely not. But I have to admit, it was kind of nice being able to watch the Rose Bowl without having to watch USC in it.
September 29th, 2010 at 10:15 AM ^
I hear you. After the 99 season, the media (as well as Badger fans) would not shut up about Wisconsin being the first Big Ten team in 40-something years to win back-to-back Rose Bowl games. They beat a UCLA team that gave up an average of 41 points a game and an 8-4 Stanford team that didn't play a ranked team all season. Most teams would win back-to-back Rose Bowls playing that kind of crappy competition.
Let's see how the Badgers would have done against the kind of teams WE always played in the Rose Bowl (#1 Washington with Mark Brunell, #1 USC with Reggie Bush, #2 Texas with Vince Young, etc.) That's quite a difference.
This was around the time I truly started to despise Wisconsin and Barry Alvarez...who, despite their success, continued to lose to us year and year after year. What wonderful memories of seeing Ron Dayne get stuffed by the Michigan defense and him running the wrong way on option plays - complaining that the Big House crowd was too loud for him to understand the right calls.
I'll give the Badgers credit for their program improving. But they still are the Rodney Dangerfield of college football. Too much hype for a team who has only one victory over a top ten team this past decade.
September 29th, 2010 at 3:34 PM ^
And of course, no one ever bothered to mention that prior to 1973 or so, Big Ten teams weren't even allowed to go to the Rose in back-to-back years.
September 29th, 2010 at 9:20 AM ^
For bottom-feeding schools like Indiana, it’s a lot harder to make a bowl game when you play nine serious opponents, rather than eight. I have the same misgivings as everybody about 6-6 and even 5-7 teams being rewarded with post-season play. But as long as those bowl games exist, the Big Ten might as well send as many teams as they can.
Top teams like Michigan have a different problem. By the end of 2011, Michigan will have hosted 30 home games in four years. That’s a tremendous advantage. The ability to play eight at home (in the years when Notre Dame comes to Ann Arbor) is eliminated, because in those seasons the Wolverines would have to play five conference games on the road.
Even if Michigan dropped Notre Dame, as some fans want, surely Michigan would schedule somebody who was owed a return trip. You don’t want exclusively a non-conference diet of one-and-dones, do you? Indeed, this year Michigan played an extra opponent, UConn, who is owed a return game. With five Big Ten road games every other year, you would probably never see more than one serious non-conference game ever again.
Several other Big Ten teams are locked into long-term home-and-home contracts with geographic rivals: Iowa with Iowa State; Illinois with Missouri; Michigan State and Purdue with Notre Dame. Those teams, basically, could never schedule any other opponent that required a return game, unless they wanted to play just six home games in some years.
(Incidentally, for all of the Irish haters out there, do not underestimate the recruiting value at places like Purdue, where you can tell a kid that they’ll play Notre Dame annually. It’s the Boilermakers’ one and only guaranteed national TV game every year.)
September 29th, 2010 at 9:28 AM ^
"(Incidentally, for all of the Irish haters out there, do not underestimate the recruiting value at places like Purdue, where you can tell a kid that they’ll play Notre Dame annually. It’s the Boilermakers’ one and only guaranteed national TV game every year.)"
That's the whole point of the Big Ten Network and our deal with ESPN - every single game is going to be televised nationally if you want it. Sure it's not OTA but if you live in Indiana and your cable operator doesn't carry the BTN then you need to switch to Dish/DirecTV/UVerse/Anything else. When was the last time Purdue wasn't televised (seriously)? Also, with the big games going to ESPN instead of ABC I think we're starting to get to the point where there is little difference between OTA and "Cable" when it comes to something being nationally televised.
September 29th, 2010 at 10:31 AM ^
And therefore, if you are sufficiently determined (and/or willing to pay for it), you can see every single one of your team’s games.
But don’t underestimate the value (to players/recruits) of playing in a nationally televised game, i.e., the feature game on ABC/ESPN, or NBC in the years when they visit South Bend. That is something Purdue football can sell to a high school kid.
Now, I have no particular interest in helping Purdue get good. I am just explaining why, to them, the Notre Dame series is important beyond merely intra-state bragging rights. I have even less interest in helping Michigan State get good, but I can respect when they do something right. Can you imagine how much it helped them to beat Notre Dame in a nationally televised night game?
Michigan needs the Irish less, but don’t forget, Denard Robinson’s current celebrity is largely due to what he did to Notre Dame in South Bend. Obviously, that would have been a great game against any opponent, but there is a mystique in playing and beating Notre Dame, even when the Irish aren’t even that good, that hardly any other foe can match.
That’s what the people who say, “stop scheduling Notre Dame,” are missing.
September 29th, 2010 at 9:23 AM ^
And the desire for 9 conferences games will evaporate.
September 29th, 2010 at 9:38 AM ^
With 10 teams, playing 9 conference games makes sense since it's a round robin and you can definitively have a champion. With 12 teams, the 9th game is just an extra crossover game and doesn't really bring anything extra to the table. If it's more financially viable to play 8 conference games and schedule harder OOC games, that's the likely path the conference will take.
September 29th, 2010 at 11:08 AM ^
FUCK!
NCAA still needs to stop allowing FCS wins to count toward bowl eligibility and BCS. That might help a bit.
I get what they're saying. If Michigan plays the Kirby Teachers' College at the Big House and Northwestern plays the Northern Iowa School for Mimes in Evanston, that's 170,000 seats sold that day for the conference -- versus 60,000 seats sold if Michigan visited Northwestern. I guess the extra 111,000 tushies at one of two craptacular games makes more money than the conference would earn with the extra TV revenue from a Michigan-NWern game.
We can change this, of course, if we were to stop going to FCS games. Of course, most fans buy season tickets or ticket packages, and the FCS tickets are purposely lumped with the ones we want (e.g. you couldn't buy tickets to the MSU game this year without U-Mass). But we could still not go.
Not very likely is it?
I guess a plea of a 9th game based on the principle of "holy hell are we still even in the same conference as Penn State anymore?" doesn't pass.
So Fuck.
Fuck Fuckity Fuck Fuck Fuck.
September 29th, 2010 at 11:32 AM ^
September 30th, 2010 at 9:34 AM ^
Aye. People not reading my diaries is the worst problem facing American right now.
September 29th, 2010 at 12:02 PM ^
I like the idea of a scrimmage against FCS opponents. Keep the number of games at 12 and add a scrimmage against FCS opponents that doesn't count, but can be a source of revenue. The Big10 can then move to 9 games, force home-and-homes with BCS opponents to even out schedules and still have 8 home games each year.
September 29th, 2010 at 12:27 PM ^
I'll take Northern Iowa School for Mimes and the points at Evanston this season. Crowd noise wouldn't be a factor as their silent snap count is incredible.
September 29th, 2010 at 3:43 PM ^
Adding a ninth game wouldn't make much financial sense, would make it harder on the weaker programs to reach bowl eligibility, and would very likely cause everyone to downgrade their (already crappy) OOC schedules further.
The one change I want to see is to get rid of the two-on, two-off scheduling policy. Currently, it's likely that we'll go four years without playing one school from the other division. (OSU is protected, which means that we can play only two of PSU/Wisc./Ind./Ill./PU in any given year.) In both 2011 and 2012, we're scheduled to play Illinois and Purdue and miss the other three. Only two of those three can be added to the schedule for 2013 and 2014, so one school (I bet it's Indiana) won't play us for four years. I don't like the idea of having a four-year class of players never get to compete against one of the other conference schools. That's just not right. Switch it up every year, instead of every two years.
September 30th, 2010 at 2:21 AM ^
I'm glad that the discussion has turned to no 9 game conference schedule. As another poster pointed out, with 12 teams, the 9th game doesn't really add anything. I'd much rather see M play an OOC opponent than another B10 team. I'd like to see us schedule better OOC opponents, not just creampuffs. I'd really like to see us start to schedule some teams that we haven't played before, or have only played once or twice. There are a lot of teams out there we've never played before. Not FCS, but FBS teams. I'd like to see M set a new record of having at least 1 win against every FBS team.