November 18th, 2012 at 1:29 AM ^
- Kansas - PROS: AAU member, outstanding basketball, good geographical fit. CONS: Awful football, not a great market, and no way they bolt for the B1G without K State.
- Iowa State - PROS: AAU member (how, I dont know), rivalry with Iowa, good geographical fit. CONS: Its Iowa State.
- Pitt - PROS: AAU member, rivalry with PSU, great basketball, good geographical fit. CONS: They dont have a campus stadium, and they only have ahout 20k people show up to their games at Heinz Field, very average football team.
- Rutgers - PROS: AAU member, could potentially bring in NY market and increase B1G's revenue, and also NJ is a good state to recruit in. CONS: Its Rutgers.
- Syracuse - PROS: Outstanding basketball, somewhat of a B1G type university. CONS: Im unsure if NYC watches them, because the 'Cuse is upstate. They arent an AAU member, and they play in a dome.
November 18th, 2012 at 1:57 AM ^
I always got the sense that Syracuse was to NYC what Illinois is to Chicago... essentially, the safety school for a lot of kids in the area and the team most non-Catholic neutrals will gravitate to as the home team. You see a good deal of Cuse merchandise on people in New York, often on people who don't appear to be alums.
of course it's all about basketball, but they could probably generate bandwagon interest if they were good again
November 18th, 2012 at 3:19 AM ^
I like it. It's 30% dollars, 70% investment into expanding to the East coast, 100% power play for the future. UA is a rising company, and while Maryland isn't known as a football powerhouse neither was Oregon. Maryland is a good bet as any for a meteoric rise. Rutgers is necessary because the B1G needs a foothold to the NY market. I know, college football isn't big there, but that means there's room for growth.
See, the B1G is on a path towards gradual decline with the change in population around the country. In this age of superconferences, staying put means eventually getting left behind. This will be a three kingdoms sort of thing, with SEC holding the southeast, Texas joining Pac12 to form a southwest kingdom. If B1G wants to compete on equal terms with those two powers, it needs to first grab the Northeast. Add the bonus of giving ND a royal Eff You in the asss, I love what Delany is doing.
November 18th, 2012 at 11:03 PM ^
"the B1G is on a path towards gradual decline with the change in population around the country"
This is the reason for the move to pick up MD and Rutgers, and has been something Delaney has wanted to do for years. The B1G is the only conference in a declining area, and Delaney knows he needs to fix that.
November 18th, 2012 at 10:36 AM ^
November 18th, 2012 at 11:57 AM ^
My thoughts, echoeing some sentiments already posted.
Clearly this is being done to gain Baltimore and NY markets - unless the B1G Network on the megalopolis.
14 teams in a conference seems completely stupid.
Maryland is terrible in football right now, but isn't far removed from bowl games 4 out of 5 years. Frankly, they bring as much to the table for football as Illinois, Indiana, Purdue (who they beat in a bowl game just a few years back), Minnesota...slightly less than Northwestern and Iowa.
In basketball, Maryland isn't what it used to be either. The glory days of Gary Williams are a thing of the past. You used to be able to chalk them up for 19-25 wins per year. Now they're about .500.
Between the above comments and the cuts Maryland is making, there really is no case for them outside of securing the Baltimore market.
Rutgers is slightly different. In basketball they have been a Big East whipping boy for at least a decade. Probably their best season in recent memory was the one that UM ended in the NIT championship. They're basically the Brian Ellerbe and Tommy Amaker era Wolverines, minus any semblance of misfit talent.
Football, however, has been strong-ish. Yes, they are winning right now with Greg Schiano's talent and doing so in a dreadful conference, but they're a name in regional recruiting with some strong schools and could be competitive.
Even on their best days, these schools (while fitting the Big Ten academic model) seem like a reach. This feels like a desperation market move to grab the megalopolis before someone else does. It only makes sense to me of it's part of a 16 team end game, but I don't see two other teams worth grabbing that haven't already moved in the past 3 years.
I'm also curious to see how the conference divisions would realign. There's a logical East-West split there, but it puts both Ohio and Michigan in the same division.
Too many questions and not enough answers on this one. If the conference was going to raid that part of the country to increase the competition, it missed the chance on Syracuse, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia.