Brian Bennett's (of ESPN) take on Big Ten "realignment":
Link: http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/75700/winners-and-losers-in-big-ten-realignment
I know we've had at more than 0 posts on our conference shufflings, but I thought this article gives a very insightful summary of its impacts. Plus it also makes for a good discussion jump off.
Do you generally agree with his winners and losers? Have a pick of your own?
April 29th, 2013 at 12:00 AM ^
April 29th, 2013 at 12:03 AM ^
April 29th, 2013 at 12:51 AM ^
UConn's new mascot?
April 29th, 2013 at 12:12 AM ^
Set design critique aside, in what other major sport is "competitive balance" ever an issue? Everyone thinks the Wings being in the western division is dumb because of this, and as much as Bud Selig is an idiot, he still hasn't put the Rangers or Angels in the central to balance things out. I don't get why this is still an issue. Splitting the conference based on "who's good" at a time puts everything in a constant state of movement. Pick something. Pick a name for that something. And leave it the hell alone.
That's what the conferences were in the beginning, so choose something that has the foresight to last for 50 some years and take your hands off.
Thanks.
April 29th, 2013 at 12:31 AM ^
Not sure I completely follow the sentence, but the Wings in the Western Conference is dumb because of travel/time zone/historical rivalry reasons, not because of competitive balance. The rest I agree with, though.
"We've had at more than 0 posts." <--- This is a winner.
I had always heard the Wings were in the west to give its opponents some extra marquee games. Most of the popular teams are in the east, Detroit in the west helped sell tickets.
April 29th, 2013 at 12:17 AM ^
April 29th, 2013 at 12:52 AM ^
April 29th, 2013 at 12:33 AM ^
April 29th, 2013 at 12:42 AM ^
Everyone loses except Wisconsin and Nebraska
Purdue is in the easier division and has a protected game with Indiana. They will have the easiest schedule in the Big Ten most years.
April 29th, 2013 at 10:59 AM ^
They don't get to play themselves.
April 29th, 2013 at 12:47 AM ^
Michigan has to beat OSU and PSU to make the title game, at which point, who cares who comes from the West, they will lose anyway. I don't care if the West Division is easier, they still have to beat the East Division for the conference championship, and that will be UM/OSU. Plus UM gets good access to New Jersey/Maryland/Virginia to recruit by playing Rutgers/Maryland every other year there. Yeah, it sucks that Maryland and Rutgers is a thing, but since it is, Michigan in the West would have been the worst case scenario.
Are people here really that upset because Nebraska/Wisky/Iowa will have a slightly easier path to play in the B1G Championship game and get pasted by Michigan or OSU? Who cares about division titles?
April 29th, 2013 at 12:51 AM ^
It's a big deal for OSU.
April 29th, 2013 at 12:57 AM ^
April 29th, 2013 at 12:59 AM ^
I think this is the best that the B1G could have gotten in regards to conferences. The winner of the East should beat the West winner almost every year, meaning that winning the East will be prestigious in its own right. Hopefully this means many great Mich v. OSU games in the future as well as many Michigan apperances in the new playoff system. Go Blue
Winner = SEC. Eight games in conference in addition to playing Western Carolina the third Saturday every November increases the SEC's odds of placing a zero or one loss team in the playoffs.
April 29th, 2013 at 10:32 AM ^
April 29th, 2013 at 10:57 AM ^
I don't know how Michigan wasn't listed as a winner. We basically traded Nebraska for Penn State which is a win for the foreseeable future. We traded pretty good NW and Iowa programs for Rutgers and Maryland. And since we play OSU every year, at least the people we compete with for our division title also have to play them every year.
This is a definite win for us mainly because not much has changed other than guaranteeing and equivalent schedule for our division foes.
OP, why the quotation marks around realignment?
So all the options of teams the B1G will add seem to be East teams.IMO if you look at the map of states the B1G has added, Virginia and Georgia seem to be next. Let's say for the sake of argument that Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech are the two teams that make 16. How would you then split this up? I would think that Michigan would end up with all new B1G teams along with Ohio, Penn State, and MSU. This pretty much means IU goes west and the last protected game is gone. This will make scheduling easier, and they probably did this in anticipation of the next phase.
April 29th, 2013 at 10:30 AM ^
April 29th, 2013 at 10:34 AM ^
I had thought UVa and GTech were prime previously, but doesn’t the assignment of rights clause the ACC is adding pretty much negate any availability of their schools to future B1G inclusion?
"The nine-game schedule begins in the fall of 2016. Not coincidentally, the Big Ten's current TV contract expires after the 2015-16 academic year. The league will have 63 conference games to offer to network executives for the next contract instead of the current 48."
I believe this is also around when the jump to something just north of $40 million per year in revenue for each school was projected as well, so perhaps part of the estimated figure was the move to a 9-game conference schedule all along, or at least the assumption was that it would happen by this time. Obviously, not sure about that, but it makes me wonder how the Big Ten was breaking that down and what the components were.
As for the point Bennett made about Michigan State being in the West to balance out divisions, even Delany himself said (or at least seemed to say) in interviews yesterday that when they were down to considering performance (the "third consideration", he said), it didn't seem to matter as much to the Big Ten (not in comparison to Michigan, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Ohio State, etc...) where MSU landed.
April 29th, 2013 at 10:25 AM ^
Honestly, as much as I want to see competitive balance, it's not something you are going to reorganiez for in the future and it's hard to do. Who knows how Penn State is going to do through their scholarship reductions? Is Michigan State in a mid-upper tier of hte big ten? What about Northwesterh who appears to be on the rise?
I think the picking of winners and losers is tough and a bit shortsighted on a competitive balance aspect, though geographic exposure is a fair argument. I would also agree that certain programs may value football more (nebraska) than say basketball for other schools (Indiana) and so they will be more likely to stay in a mid-upper range than drop out, but it's just hard to tell.
I'm just glad Michigan and Ohio are in the same region. Being in the Chicago area, it sucks that I won't see them out here as often, but I suppose it was bound to happen unless the eye was chosen for the realignment.