In an interactive room on the ground floor of his league’s semi-new headquarters, Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren met with two reporters from The Athletic to discuss the issues facing college sports.
As a matter of near-dismissal, by the time Warren was ready to retire to his second-floor office, expansion had become a topic. “About being in the Big Ten,” Warren was asked, “things happen here unexpectedly every now and then. Do you expect (the conference) to stay at the current 14 teams?”
Warren launched into a lengthy response about how he likes the Big Ten’s institutional structure and why academic focus remains a key tenet along with athletic prowess. He then added: “But that being said, we just have to be careful about the world we live in. We just have to be a little careful and careful. What will be the evolution of college athletics? But right now, I’m excited to finish this school year strong.”
As for the lack of answers, it was vague and purposeful. Six weeks later, Warren’s expression seems prophetic. On Thursday, the Big Ten welcomed USC and UCLA as its 15th and 16th members, pulling off perhaps the most surprising coup of the realignment era. It was as startling in its power as it was in its hidden secrecy. It also left more questions than answers about the Big Ten, its member schools, its newcomers and the rest of the college sports landscape. Here are 10 big topics for league executives to think about in the coming days and weeks.
Notre Dame
Three years after the birth of the Big Ten, the seven founders met on December 1, 1899 at the Chicago Beach Hotel to consider expansion. Three Midwestern institutions applied for membership: Indiana, Iowa and Notre Dame. Indiana and Iowa sent representatives to make representations and were accepted as members, joining Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Michigan, Purdue, Chicago, and Illinois. Notre Dame did not send a delegate and his request was rejected.
This marked the beginning of a long and at times hostile relationship between the Big Ten and the small Catholic university located east of Chicago. At one point, the Big Ten tried to freeze out the Irish, but relations thawed in the 1940s, when Notre Dame competed annually with several of the league’s programs. In 1999, a full century after Notre Dame first considered joining the Big Ten, the fiercely independent Irish rejected the Big Ten’s invitation. But as the tectonic plates of realignment shake, Notre Dame may consider Big Ten membership if independence means irrelevance.
Media rights
The Big Ten was just weeks away from announcing a lucrative media rights deal that would likely pay the league more than $1 billion a year. It has already received definitive offers from NBC, CBS, ESPN and Amazon Prime to join FOX as the Big Ten football rights holder. Now the league must recalibrate its value with two recognizable brands in the nation’s second-largest media market.
The Big Ten and its media partners will now control 72 league games alone (up from 63) and between 30 and 40 non-conference games (up from 25-35). The league already had some of the highest-rated college football games in the nation, but now there’s the potential for USC and UCLA to face Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and other Big Ten teams in high-stakes regular-season games. The new additions will change the negotiations and likely push the announcement schedule from mid-July to September. Ultimately, the addition of the Los Angeles-based universities could help the Big Ten disperse significantly more revenue than the $55 million it currently provides to its institutions.
Ripple effect
One day after USC and UCLA were announced as future members of the Big Ten, the Pac-12 announced it will seek expansion candidates. The remaining 10 issued statements expressing their disappointment with those schools leaving for the Big Ten. What none of them mention is what they would do with the opportunity to join the Big Ten.
Several Pac-12 programs carry academic and football profiles worthy of discussion in Big Ten circles, including Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Utah. It also spreads across the ACC, where other universities fit this profile. The question becomes, does the Big Ten consider the addition of UCLA and USC a one-off move or just the first salvo in a concert of change?
Divisions and Schedules
Administrators seemed inclined to abandon the current geographic divisional structure, and those thoughts are cemented now that UCLA and USC have joined the Big Ten. It is absurd to assume that USC will play in the West Division and then face powerhouses Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan once every four years. The Big Ten’s media partners would rightfully frown upon it as well.
However, there are questions that remain. Would the Big Ten switch to a non-division structure in 2023 with its new rights deal, or wait until 2024 to fully rebrand, when USC and UCLA begin a football rivalry? If the Big Ten remains a 16-team league, will it institute a 3-6-6 schedule with three protected annual opponents and then rotate the remaining 12 twice over a four-year period? Perhaps at the end of each four-year block, the league could adjust some of these defensive streaks to put USC and UCLA through more opponents with regularity. The possibilities are endless.
Pac-12 Relations
On November 20, 1946, it began an affiliation with the nine-team Big Ten and the defunct Pacific Coast Conference, signing a five-year agreement to send its champions to the Rose Bowl. Then it was rejected because West Bank representatives were interested in the army’s invitation. But PCC and the Big Ten stood firm against the criticism. Illinois and Michigan voted against the move and ironically played back-to-back in the first two bowls agreed upon.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 eventually became like-minded. They worked together to negotiate television rights in the 1980s and operated the Rose Bowl as equal partners along with the Tournament of Roses Parade. With the ACC they merged into the short-lived Alliance. The move clearly changes the landscape between the leagues. The Big Ten is the power player, and the Pac-12 has become the underdog.
Pink bowl
Whether it’s the Bowl Coalition, the Bowl Championship Series or the College Football Playoff, the Rose Bowl has stood like an oak in the winds of change. It had the most influence and spending in the 1994 and 1997 college football title games. The Big Ten and Pac-12 had the influence to ensure that the Rose Bowl remained first among equals in timeslot and ratings.
No entity was left reeling more than the Rose Bowl after the USC-UCLA news. The Bruins play their home games in the Rose Bowl. No team has played in the bowl game itself more than the Trojans. The magnetic pull the location had over Big Ten fans will dissipate once regular season games begin at UCLA. In one bold stroke, the Big Ten and its two newcomers devalued the historic bowl game.
Basketball
Football leads every aspect of the expansion, but Big Ten basketball fans can’t help but get excited about regular trips to UCLA’s vaunted Pauley Pavilion. Likewise, the Bruins should relish the prospect of playing basketball games in the Big Ten’s elite venues, such as Indiana State Assembly, Purdue’s Mackie Arena and Michigan State’s Breslin Center.
The Big Ten has led the nation in men’s basketball attendance for 45 consecutive seasons (excluding the year of the pandemic). Both UCLA and USC have great coaches in Mick Cronin and Andy Enfield respectively. Their athletes will enjoy a more consistent, high-level environment and better television exposure than what they see in the Pac-12.
Olympic sports
Few athletics departments can compare to UCLA and USC when it comes to producing Olympians. It extends to excellence in non-revenue sports, from track and field and gymnastics to baseball and softball. While football is the primary driver in this expansion, every sport will benefit from the competition and exposure from USC and UCLA joining the Big Ten.
Big Ten baseball programs have long struggled to earn NCAA tournament slots, including this year when regular-season and tournament runner-up Rutgers failed to qualify despite 44 wins. USC and UCLA should immediately help the league’s RPI, plus provide recruiting opportunities and warm-weather games in March and April.
Travel
It will be a challenge for Big Ten schools, especially outside of football. According to numbers obtained by The Athletic through open records requests, the league’s 13 public universities earned an average of more than $4.85 million for travel in fiscal 2021. The cost of charter flights will jump and there will be more commercial flights for the Olympic sports teams from the Midwest who travel regularly by bus. Costs will also rise for UCLA and USC with longer flights.
That could force the league’s schedulers to think differently. It could include travel partners to allow one team to compete against USC and UCLA over a three-day span, or do the same for those schools when they travel to Michigan and Michigan State.
BTN
The league network has changed its equity from 51 percent when it debuted in 2007 to 49 percent in 2012 to now 39 percent. It successfully integrated Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers into its orbit during previous expansions and added those markets to the fold. It will look to do the same with USC, UCLA and Southern California and do what the Pac-12 Network couldn’t, which is achieve full market penetration.
(Top photo by Kevin Warren: Michael Conroy/AP)
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