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.