What is each Big Ten university known for?

bclintonk
Wed, 25 May 2011 15:20:47 +0000

Coolbrezze:

It hurted the conference more than help, and the only winner out of it was clearly Nebraska not the league as a whole.



Not so sure. I was always a bit suspicious of Nebraska’s academic bona fides but at the end of the day this wasn’t about academics. The Big Ten needed to go to 12 or 14 members so it could split into two divisions and have a season-ending conference championship game between the two division winners, a huge revenue-booster not only from ticket sales but from the addition TV revenue.

And once they were committed to expanding, they wanted a school that would regularly pull big TV ratings for the Big Ten network, and help get the network on more cable systems. The schools that regularly pull the biggest TV football ratings are Notre Dame, Nebraska, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, and Texas, though the exact order varies from year to year. Three of those seven, Penn State, Ohio State, and Michigan, were already in. Notre Dame said no. No way was Alabama going to leave the SEC, and although the Big Ten flirted briefly with Texas it was a poor geographic fit and in any event Texas wanted no part of it, largely because they figured they could throw their weight around in the Big 12 and get a better TV deal that gives them total control over their own cable TV network in Texas, a mega-market. So that left Nebraska, a traditional football powerhouse and proven money-maker with a rabid national following, and located in a contiguous state to boot. Financially it made sense, and make no mistake, it’s finances that drove this process. When in doubt, follow the money.