>> Missouri, another possible Big Ten candidate, is worried. Missouri curator Warren Erdman told the Associated Press the school has not been asked to join the Big Ten.
I don’t know what the Big Ten is. Don’t they mean “Big Eleven”?
Maybe they can get FIVE more new teams (plus Nebraska), hire a bunch of gay coaches, and call themselves the “Sweet Sixteen”.
What's interesting is that the federal government always wants to stick its neck into places where it doesn't belong, like regulating our state-by-state health insurance systems, yet when a clear case of collusion and antitrust violations across state lines presents itself, as seems to be the case with the BCS in general and with these conference shakeups as well, politicians like Tom Harkin want to point back to separation of powers.
Oh really?....hmmmm
The least important consideration in any of this is the desire of the fans. The schools automatically assume they'll come along no matter what, and unfortunately they're probably right.
whatta laugh!
colorado hasn’t had a winning season in years.
It's possible that Kansas could be an independent for basketball. Just think of the schedule and money they could make in that scenario. It wouldn't hurt their stature and maybe even be a recruiting advantage. Players haven't been going to Kanas because they play in the Big-12. They go because it's freaking Kansas.
I think we are taking sports way too seriously. Ultimately, it’s only entertainment.
I thought the Big 12 was the Big 10 before they added Texas & Texas A&M. What was it before the last realignment?
I don’t really follow sports any more, but this seems sad. This makes me think it’s time to scrap the whole conference thing and do something else.
Once that happened, it turned into a small town high school dating scene. When one couple breaks up, everybody breaks up an changes partners.
In the Big 12, Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska are Marcia. Oklahoma State, Tech, and A&M are Jan. Everybody else is Ugly Betty, hoping to latch onto Marcia and get a come along invite. Now, it appears that the Big 10 was flirting with one of the ugly Betties (Mizzou) as a distraction to get one of the Marcias (Nebraska.)
This situation came about because of poor management in the Big 12. On the field, the Big 12 was the second best conference in the nation, following the SEC, and had teams with nationwide followings. Yet, their TV contract was anemic and the payout to teams was less than their earning potential.
Now, it's probably too late to keep it together.
The economic impact on the teams left out of the major conferences will be huge. Take Baylor, for example. McLennan county has about 230,000 residents, and is rural for miles in all directions outside of the metro area. Floyd Casey Stadium seats 50,000. Baylor makes it's athletic dollar by being the Washington Generals for visiting teams. Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, A&M, and Oklahoma State games seem like home games for the visiting team. Where Texas can sell out a hundred thousand seat stadium playing against Air, Baylor only draws 20,000 or so to games against no name teams.
As to television money, Baylor will never be on national television, except for maybe ESPN 2 on a Wednesday night in September.
Beyond this, even with all the talk about how football is too important, a lot of people don't realize that football is even more important than just the football revenue. Football funds all the Title IX sports for women that lose money. Every televised football game is a three hour commercial for the University. When Baylor won the old Southwest Conference in the seventies, applications to the University doubled the next year. When the football team wins, alumni contributions go up. Applications go up. For a smaller city like Waco, those 25,000 Nebraska fans that buy tickets, eat at restaurants, buy gas and maybe spend the night at a hotel bring a lot of money into the Waco area. When Baylor played Northwest Louisiana last year, there were maybe 500 people that came with the team. Without these visiting fans and the shared bowl money, Baylor takes a hit not just in athletics, but across their entire infrastructure.
This may be the wave of the future, and the beginning of a consolidation, not just in sports, but across universities. Costs of a college education have been rising faster than inflation since the sixties. If, as I suspect, the conferences shake out into four sixteen team super conferences and then everyone else, you may see some colleges dry up and blow away. This won't completely happen to Baylor, but they could be facing some rough, rough times. A few years ago they made a power play to get away from the Southern Baptist Convention. This created some hard feelings, and a lot of Baptist Churches have quit having fund raisers for the school. They just had an underreported but nasty battle with their alumni association. This cost them millions in contributions. They have recently completed an aggressive building program. We're in a big recession, and contributions to all colleges have dropped substantially. Now, the big athletic money may be going away.
I'm using Baylor as an example because I'm familiar with them, but this scenario is getting ready to be played out at a lot of other colleges. It could be good. It could be bad, probably a little bit of both. However, there's getting ready to be a huge shake out of the colleges, and things will not look the same in a couple of years.
Well, if the chinks joined, the big 12 is going to be a powerhouse in gymanstics. With or without Cororodo!
This is going to be interesting.
As an alum of the CU graduate program I can only laugh.