The whirlwind arrival of USC and UCLA into the Big Ten felt more like a beginning than an end for a conference that now stretches from ocean to ocean.
It might make more sense for the Big Ten and the SEC to jointly revisit College Football Playoff expansion. The Big Ten entered into the ill-fated Alliance last summer to build a coalition that could stop the SEC railroading through its ideal Playoff, but Kevin Warren might have woken up Friday morning a lot more politically aligned with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey than he was a week ago, much less a year ago.
The Big Ten now stands poised to up annual revenues from broadcast partners from their current level, $440 million per year, to something well north of $1 billion. Big Ten Network revenues comfortably pass $100 million right now. They will also likely see a spike once these new markets come online. The point is, the Irish still enjoy the leverage associated with being masters of their own fate. We might be moving in a direction that makes that untenable in the not-so-distant future. Powers that be in South Bend might decide — and it’s been reliably reported in a handful of places that it’s being more seriously considered than in the past — that it’s time to sign on somewhere.
Before you scoff at the idea of academics playing a role in this, know that it still does matter to the Big Ten. USC and UCLA, institutionally, look and behave very much like Big Ten schools. Every Big Ten school is a member of the AAU except for Nebraska, which was when it joined before falling out.
Some of those schools just mentioned are close academic fits for the Big Ten. Closer, it should be said, than Notre Dame, whose academic profile is outstanding but not necessarily in a way that closely aligns with the Big Ten. It has been a concern when talking about potentially adding the Irish in the past, though not any time recently.But there would also be complications. The ACC grant of rights is a problem for anyone wanting to siphon schools off that conference.
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