Over media hype for divisions comparable to Lebron

Submitted by KSmooth on

The Big Ten brass are taking a huge risk with this live-TV unveiling of the divisions.  Last time a prominent sporting figure put on a TV special to announce a very dubious decision, the reult was a PR debacle.

There's been a lot said and written about the topic of splitting up OSU and U of M and changing the time of their annual game.  It's pretty clear that for the majority of fans (me included) that simply protecting the rivalry is not sufficient, that the rivalry's position at the end of the season is essential.

If the Big Ten brass do not want a LeBron-like PR embarassment they need to be ready to announce tonight that the game will continue to be played at the end of the season.  I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of fans who either are unaware of the controversy or are still hoping that sanity will prevail.  When they read read the official announcement that the league is splitting the two teams up, without any further guarantees about the rivalry, things are only going to get worse.

Hopefully Delany & Co. are bright enough to figure that out on their own and we'll get to move forward with the rivalry more-or-less preserved, but after all the totally unnecessary machinations we can't be sure.

Mod Edit: Title adjusted

SAvoodoo

September 1st, 2010 at 4:42 PM ^

A) Nice title

B1) Announcing big ten conferences on your own network is a little different than announcing where one player is going in free agency on a national network in prime time

B2) What lebron announced wasn't the PR debacle, the way he did it was.  He could have stayed in Cleveland and people would have told him he was an idiot for making a specticle about it

C) "When they read read the official announcement that the league is splitting the two teams up, without any further guarantees about the rivalry." You have no idea they're going to do this, and frankly, I would be shocked if they did.

D) I agree the game should be kept as the last one of the season, and if they do the division winner based on overall conference record things will be fine.

1464

September 1st, 2010 at 4:44 PM ^

We aren't taking our talents to South Beach, bud.  We're taking them to Lincoln.  Aside from that, there is hardly any legitimate correlation between the two.  I hope Delany has random kids sitting in the background as a levee for criticism.

BBA1994

September 1st, 2010 at 4:44 PM ^

I believe it will be announced that The Game will continue to be the last weekend of the regular season.  Very calculated by the ADs and Delany to leak the idea of The Game possibly being earlier in the season to see the fan backlash.  A logical mind realizes that it won't actually be very often (once a decade?) that UM/OSU would even play in a BT Championship game against eachother so moving The Game to prevent a rematch the next week would simply be for naught.

DenverRob

September 1st, 2010 at 4:59 PM ^

JD has been the smartest businessman in cfb in the last 5 years. Way ahead of every other conference president. I wouldnt be surprised if this was a ploy of some kind. HOWEVA if he messes up the game he will be a villian to M and OSU forever.

Could you imagine the ohio sports hatred. Lebron, Art modell, JD

jmblue

September 1st, 2010 at 4:58 PM ^

You wouldn't normally expect an athlete to put on a 60-minute tribute to himself with a free agent announcement buried in there.

You would, however, expect a conference splitting into divisions for the first time in its 100+ year history to make the announcement publicly.  And since the conference has its own TV network, why not use that forum?

I'm all for this.  And I hope the league offers some kind of explanation as to why which team is in which division, especially since they apparently aren't going to be drawn up geographically.  I'd be far more annoyed if they'd just announced it via press release and forced us all to make sense of it ourselves.