Delaney on the Importance of the East Coast to the Big Ten
In a phone interview with the New York Post, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney discussed the significance that the East Coast holds for the conference.
The Big Ten commissioner, a South Orange native and North Carolina graduate, knows full well the value of the D.C.-to-Boston corridor, whose epicenter is New York.
"Anyone who forgets that forgets at their peril. It's the center, it has been the center of media activity for a hundred years. It's the center of financial activity and it has been that way for 150 years. To me it's sort of where a lot of things start in the county."
And in terms of college football, the East Coast is where the sports expansion could find its end game. Delaney would not talk specifically about expansion, but he reiterated the league's initial stance in December 2009 of studying the issue over a 12-to-18 month period. A college football presence in the metropolitan area remains very high.
"For us it's important. We haven't been there except through Penn State. Our teams play in the Garden. They play in the Meadowlands. They play teams out East. They play in the NIT. They play in the ACC. I consider the East Coast to be as important to us as the West Coast is even though the West Coast has got the Rose Bowl and the Big Ten-Pac-10 relationship. And it's so because of the recruitment of students, the recruitment of athletes, the size and scope of the markets. I hope it becomes more important."
As the Big Ten conference meetings approach, the subject of conference expansion will be back on the front burner soon. So after a several month reprieve, stand by for an avalanche of conference expansion coverage.
This means that expansion isn't over yet, doesn't it...? But I don't want Rutgers or Syracuse. Why can't we be done?
I'd love to see Michigan schedule a big neutral field game or two in NYC or Boston or Philly. Hell, I'd even take more home/way series like UConn.
If I'm not mistaken, Michigan will be playing at UConn in 2013, per the contract between the two schools
ed: yeah, here's the link: http://www.uconnhuskies.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/081809aaa.html
Hence the joke he made about it...
if it's the other team giving up their home and home. Personally though, I've been to Gillette and I would take a college atmosphere any day of the week.
Exactly why I wrote, "Hell, I'd even take more home/away series like UConn. "
is the East Coast region so important as to ruin the midwestern footprint? It's what makes the Big Ten the Big Ten.
Sit tight with Nebraska for a bit. See how it feels then think about the Big East.
If the East Coast is so important to College football than why is the Big East such a joke? I hate the idea that we bring in substandard teams to the conference so we can get a bigger media footprint. Maybe we should look at the top football conference and see what makes them so good. If your not sure why that is, it is because they dominate on the field and therefore dominate in the media. I get that Delany is interested in selling the BTN to New York, but do it by being the best football conference around and not by adding mediocre teams to "be in a market".
Maryland? They seem to be the only decent program athletically and academically in that corridor, other than Rutgers, which, yeah not gonna happen (I hope).
People have been saying for years we're the Harvard of the west, so let's bring 'em in and settle it on the field turf. They have a monster endowment, don't they?
Harvard is the Michigan of the East.
Michigan provides one of the best educations in the country, but Stansbury is the Harvard of the west.
Great academics, good athletics. PERFECT FIT IMHO.