The Big Ten Conference is “not making any decisions quickly” regarding any future expansion, University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson said Thursday.
“We’re thinking deeply about the issues at hand, and we’re not making decisions to chase dollars right now,” Wilson said at the university’s Presidential Committee on Athletics meeting. “So even though it looks that way to some of our critics, that's not what we're doing.
The Big Ten announced the additions of USC and UCLA last summer and Washington and Oregon this summer. All four additions will take effect in 2024.
The Big Ten’s growth, coupled with the Big 12’s additions, left the Pac-12 with only four remaining members — Stanford, California, Oregon State and Washington State
“We're trying really hard not to respond to other people's urgent needs,” Wilson said. “We're trying to be more strategic as a conference.”
University presidents have paid attention to inviting new members who “are comparable in quality on the academic side,” Wilson said. All four of the added schools are members of the prestigious Association of American Universities.
“The other thing we're thinking about all the time is how do we elevate the Big Ten brand,” Wilson said. “I don’t mean that in a crass way, but just think about Iowa playing football in Los Angeles now, or women's basketball. It's great for our student athletes. It's great for us to advertise the writing university in Los Angeles — where we have a lot of Hollywood alums.”
The expanded footprint also means more travel for athletes. The farthest current Big Ten destination for Iowa is Rutgers, which is just under 900 miles away as the crow flies. Now, four conference foes will be more than 1,500 miles away.
The conference is being “really careful” about the travel required for athletes, Wilson said.
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Iowa interim athletics director Beth Goetz said there is “not a one-size-fits-all” solution for scheduling amid the prolonged travel. One possibility, though, is to “build schedules that only require one trip out west.”
“Sometimes it's easier to sort of paint this broad brush and say, ‘Hey, we're going to have them all look exactly the same,’” Goetz said. “We know those outcomes just don't work for everybody. So there’s been a lot of emphasis on: let’s determine what’s best for gymnastics, let’s determine what’s best for football, let’s determine what’s best for track and create schedules that are going to mirror that.”
Football, basketball and volleyball routinely charter flights while other sports charter flights “perhaps not as consistently,” Goetz said. Expanding the athletic department’s use of the charter flights is “certainly something that we would look at going forward.”
Goetz cannot “pinpoint” a time when a new 18-team Big Ten football scheduling model will be ready. But all of the discussions have centered on continuing to have a nine-game conference schedule.
“Everybody, I believe, felt really good about the principles that went into creating the final product, or what we thought was the final product in June,” Goetz said. “They had a template to build on.”
The 16-team model would have protected three of Iowa’s rivalries annually — Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin — while the Hawkeyes would play other teams every other year. It is unclear whether those rivalries will continue to be protected in the 18-team Big Ten.
“I don’t know for sure how that will land,” Goetz said. “Those protected games is one of the principles that we wanted to run the models with. ... Certainly everybody’s protected games is a part of the consideration.”
www.thegazette.com
“We’re thinking deeply about the issues at hand, and we’re not making decisions to chase dollars right now,” Wilson said at the university’s Presidential Committee on Athletics meeting. “So even though it looks that way to some of our critics, that's not what we're doing.
The Big Ten announced the additions of USC and UCLA last summer and Washington and Oregon this summer. All four additions will take effect in 2024.
The Big Ten’s growth, coupled with the Big 12’s additions, left the Pac-12 with only four remaining members — Stanford, California, Oregon State and Washington State
“We're trying really hard not to respond to other people's urgent needs,” Wilson said. “We're trying to be more strategic as a conference.”
University presidents have paid attention to inviting new members who “are comparable in quality on the academic side,” Wilson said. All four of the added schools are members of the prestigious Association of American Universities.
“The other thing we're thinking about all the time is how do we elevate the Big Ten brand,” Wilson said. “I don’t mean that in a crass way, but just think about Iowa playing football in Los Angeles now, or women's basketball. It's great for our student athletes. It's great for us to advertise the writing university in Los Angeles — where we have a lot of Hollywood alums.”
The expanded footprint also means more travel for athletes. The farthest current Big Ten destination for Iowa is Rutgers, which is just under 900 miles away as the crow flies. Now, four conference foes will be more than 1,500 miles away.
The conference is being “really careful” about the travel required for athletes, Wilson said.
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Iowa interim athletics director Beth Goetz said there is “not a one-size-fits-all” solution for scheduling amid the prolonged travel. One possibility, though, is to “build schedules that only require one trip out west.”
“Sometimes it's easier to sort of paint this broad brush and say, ‘Hey, we're going to have them all look exactly the same,’” Goetz said. “We know those outcomes just don't work for everybody. So there’s been a lot of emphasis on: let’s determine what’s best for gymnastics, let’s determine what’s best for football, let’s determine what’s best for track and create schedules that are going to mirror that.”
Football, basketball and volleyball routinely charter flights while other sports charter flights “perhaps not as consistently,” Goetz said. Expanding the athletic department’s use of the charter flights is “certainly something that we would look at going forward.”
Goetz cannot “pinpoint” a time when a new 18-team Big Ten football scheduling model will be ready. But all of the discussions have centered on continuing to have a nine-game conference schedule.
“Everybody, I believe, felt really good about the principles that went into creating the final product, or what we thought was the final product in June,” Goetz said. “They had a template to build on.”
The 16-team model would have protected three of Iowa’s rivalries annually — Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin — while the Hawkeyes would play other teams every other year. It is unclear whether those rivalries will continue to be protected in the 18-team Big Ten.
“I don’t know for sure how that will land,” Goetz said. “Those protected games is one of the principles that we wanted to run the models with. ... Certainly everybody’s protected games is a part of the consideration.”
Big Ten ‘not making any decisions quickly’ on expansion, UI president says
University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson said academic quality and “how do we elevate the Big Ten brand” have been among the factors in conference’s growth to 18 teams.
www.thegazette.com
