Posted on 05/13/2010 3:15:18 AM PDT by Bad~Rodeo
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- From geographic proximity to its membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities, Missouri in many ways is a natural fit for an expanded Big Ten.
Need another reason? Try 13 million -- that's about how many extra dollars Missouri could expect to earn annually from a conference with its own television network and a revenue-sharing model that distributes equal payments to all 11 members. The Big Ten insists that no decisions have been made on expansion -- and no offers extended, contrary to a Kansas City radio station's report earlier this week. But Missouri isn't waiting idly for its prospective suitor to make up its mind.
The Kansas City Star reported that athletic director Mike Alden, Missouri system president Gary Forsee and Columbia campus chancellor Brady Deaton met last week to discuss the school's potential interest in leaving the Big 12. A campus spokeswoman declined to confirm the meeting, referring to a previously issued statement that the school "will not respond to speculation about conference realignment." At the same time, school leaders have never outright rejected the notion of Big Ten membership, offering public statements with plenty of room for conjecture.
On Tuesday, Deaton told The Associated Press that Missouri will "always do what is best for the university." "You've got every major conference looking at how they should reposition or if they should reposition," Deaton said. "I don't think all the benefits and costs are known."
Sports economist Andrew Zimbalist suggested that expansion by the Big Ten or other power conferences is a near certainty. "There's going to be some merger and acquisition activity," said Zimbalist, a Smith College economics professor. "That's a done deal ... The dominant conferences would like to aggregate."
To that end, the Big 12 and
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
Texas is reported to be researching starting its own television network for sports programming.
Guess the “Texas joins the Big 10” rumor is wrapped up.
Message to Mac, we already win the Revenue championship, why share with the Big Ten.
Face it Texas will win the revenue game regardless of what division they are in, as long as they keep winning.
Hey Mac, how about scheduling some Big 10 or SEC games instead of schools like “Sister Mary Joseph”.
I just hope if Texas does jump ship, they’ll keep the Red River Rivalry & the A&M games in the future.
The Red River Rivalry is the PC name the networks use for the same game. :)
This will mean the demise of the Big 12, and probably a realignment of many conferences. Stay tuned.
My guess is ND will decline, but the other three would bring the Big Ten up to 14 teams. I would presume this would mean two 7 team divisions and a football championship game that would bring in megabucks. And of course, $$ is what this is all about.
Could not agree more with your observation. Think the other 3 schools will jump at the opportunity. One thing the Big 10 does is share revenue evenly between schools so that’s huge when your talking about these three. I’m thinking that this is the first of many changes as for college football alignments. The Big East will probably be absorbed by a mega ACC conference with some of the ACC teams such as Miami, Florida State, and possible Georgia Tech going into the SEC. The Big 12 will probably recruit some of the better teams out of the WAC or Mountain West to fill their loses as well.
This could be huge!
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