What have they actually brought to the table?
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http://espn.go.com/college-football...ry-scandals-arrests-football-coach-suspension
Why was Rutgers invited to join BigTen?
- Thread starter Hawkeye_4_Life
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Did they? The last I heard cable companies in those states still hadn't added BTN to their basic cable package? Did I miss that news?
Getting Rutgers didn't bring their eyes. It jacked up their cable subscriptions and are we (Big Ten) are now collecting.
This, adding Rutgers I feel did very little for the big 10 if anything. Notre Dame now would have been a different story.
TV has been the standard argument.
If that hasn't panned out, then maybe Delany can arrange to swap them for a better school.
If that hasn't panned out, then maybe Delany can arrange to swap them for a better school.
Bringing in the farting irish has seemingly been the dream for years. If it didn't happen with the last expansion hard to see it happening anytime soon.
The first, basic fact you have to grasp is that the Big Ten is the athletics appendage to the real concerns of the 14 major research universities---plus Nebbie, where the BT honchos expect Warren Buffet's wealth (the part he hasn't arranged to go to the Bill & Melissa Gates Foundation) will enable both UNO & UNL to become major research schools, UNO & the Med School particularly in medical research. Plus Omaha has the highest number of millionaires per capita of major American cities...though this may no longer or soon no longer true).
(When the SEC, AAC, Pac10 began to devour the Big 12. the BT moved quickly to bring Nebbie on board with indecent haste, clearly fearful of losing a chance at the funding from Buffett, etal.)
The academic & research intrinsic core of the BT schools plus The U of Chicago, the most significant still of the group, constitute the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, which brings together the research, contracts, patents, etc in a shared effort. The ability of the Committee's schools to assist other members in research projects, shared patents, etc gives a huge advantage in seeking & gaining federal govt, private companies, major foundations, etc grants & contracts.
To put matters in perspective consider Deep Throat's advice: "follow the money." And in doing so you quickly realize that while athletics matter alot to fans, TV networks, and local businesses all over America, in the broad panoramic view of major universities like those of the Big Ten, athletic budgets are dwarfed by the real money---that which comes from private and government grants, contracts (especially the US Dept of Defense), and very significantly, patents owned or shared.At every BT School---Ohio State close to an exception by virtue of its obscene athletic budget, the revenues from ALL sources to each athletic department budget is LES THAN 10% of the total R&D budgeting.
At Iowa, as example of most interest, the non-gift revenue of the Hawkeye athletic programs is roughly one-fifth of the annual total from federal government sources. It is about one-sixth of the funding of medical research (While the Ath Dept has less than several hundred full-time employees and 500 student-athletes receiving some share of an athletic schollie, UIHC has over 10,000 staff. While Iowa contemplates spending about $100 million more upgrading athletic facilities, UIHC is in the midst of over two billion dollars in expansion.)
Wally Loh, the President of the U of Maryland, who prior to MD had been Iowa's Provost & representative on the Committee (and who disgracefully was passed over as the logical & obvious successor to President Skorton ), is primarily responsible for the addition of Maryland & Rutgers to the Committee & to BT athletics. He understood the inestimable value that Maryland could bring (an on-site base for the BT to gain great prominence with federal agencies, the Congress, the Washington establishment...and thus increase its access to the billions in federal budgeting) and that Rutgers would bring as an on-site NYC base for Committee & BT access to then nation's media & communications industry as well as the vast number of major foundations, institutes, philanthropic organizations, etc etc located in America's financial capitol. Loh quickly gained the support of the Chancellor of the Maryland universities system, a former Ohio State President. The two had no problems convincing the U of MD staff, faculty, major power brokers around the state that leaving the ACC to join the Committee & the BT would vastly raise the prominence, prestige and financial status of the U of MD....and even the Terrapin athletic power brokers came on board, when they realized the meaning of sharing in BT bowl games revenue & the BTN to a program in debt and facing major cuts in baseball, wrestling, other programs (now thriving in consequence of the cash flow from BT membership)
The eventual goals of the Committee are far from realized, but most of its agenda will not affect athletics much (although it now has its foot in the door, the elephant nose under the circus tent: John Hopkins U, which is 1-2-3 on the Committee wish list, is now a partial member of the BT---but not the Committee. LaCrosse, the dominant national power sport at Hopkins, now plays as a member of the BT...a mutually beneficial arrangement that gives the BT the 6th necessary lacrosse program to qualify to play in NCAA tournaments and provides Hopkins a built-in schedule & a required league membership).
The Committee has long focused emphasis upon Hopkins, Washington of St Louis, Carnegie-Mellon & Case-Western Reserve. The first two are the recipients of the largest amounts of federal & state grants, contracts, etc. The latter two are desired for the strength they would add to the medical research programs of member schools like Iowa, Michigan, Chicago, Northwestern.
The other long-time target is the U of Texas-Austin. UTA & the Committee/BT thought they were bringing in UTA in the late 1980s, when it fell apart because the TX Regents, legislature and Republican leaders in the state (all TX A&M alumni) refused to allow UTA to change conferences unless accompanied by TX A&M. The BT had no interest in adding TAM, and the Committee & BT turned attention to the pleading of Penn State. Eventually, Penn State committed to making about $6 billion enhancements to grad programs, library holdings & facilities, research programs, and three years later Penn State became the 11th member-institution (at the time the conjecture was that the Committee still hoped to find a way to bring TX in as the 12th BT memer (13th Committee member): the allure of all that Tidelands Oil money that made UTA the wealthiest university in America has remained strong ever since.
Adding TX would massively change/transform the BT if/when it occurs. Even with TX A&M gone on its own to the SEC, there are still influential brokers in Austin who would rather UTA be a whale in its own fishbowl than swim with the big fish. It gets humorous, perhaps, but no less a fact, that one concern i that UTA would have to fold its very own TV network into the BTN.
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Tiggerhawk gave the long version.
Rutgers and Maryland are slam dunk fits at the institutional level. They extend the research strength of the CIC, with the benefit of being state flagships at the door step of NYC and DC.
Athletically, the schools get BTN coverage in two large states. Philly used to have out of footprint pricing but is now in footprint. They were key in Johns Hopkins joining the B1G as an associate member, and hopefully soon part of the CIC.
Rutgers and Maryland are slam dunk fits at the institutional level. They extend the research strength of the CIC, with the benefit of being state flagships at the door step of NYC and DC.
Athletically, the schools get BTN coverage in two large states. Philly used to have out of footprint pricing but is now in footprint. They were key in Johns Hopkins joining the B1G as an associate member, and hopefully soon part of the CIC.
True. When I lived in southwestern Connecticut (basically suburban NYC) the only team that really got any play from the B1G was/is Penn State.
But keep in mind the B1G is very much about academic excellence as well. Others have covered this already in the thread.
Wow. I thought it was because they had cool uniforms. Your answer is probably better.
The average football fan in the Midwest knows more about Rutgers than the average fan in NJ. I lived there and it is all Jets and Giants, Yankees and Mets, Islanders and Rangers and Devils, Nets and Knicks. Nobody except those that go to school there or went to school there gives a crap about Rutgers. Not many give a crap about college football in general. You can go to a sports bar on a Saturday and not worry about getting a seat. It would be interesting to see what the viewership numbers are out east with the BTN.
Yes, the BTN is in NYC, New Jersey, etc. Verizon has it in their basic package. Not all services have it yet. But if you are any type of sports fan, you have to have something besides basic in a lot of areas.
Why will it look bad? Why will streaming be bad for the B1G? Won't the conference still own the rights to the games regardless of method of delivery?
Because people out East are not going to pay to stream the Rutgers. We should have taken MO when we had the chance, but Delaney was fixated on NY. Had we gotten MO, Texas may have eventually followed. But I don't see a scenario where that happens now.
Nice tl;dr but reading the rest of the thread, I'm not sure even your post was read. Tiggerhawk's long post was actually a brief summary of the facts (and very good). Football is what we care about here, but football and even the BTN are pretty small frogs in this pond. Fun, but small. There's bigger stuff going on.
I see that 2 of the 3 large cable companies did sign on. I wonder how much the BTN got for a rate. The article speculated $1, but to the best of my knowledge the original Comcast agreement was for $0.70 so I would be surprised its more than Comcast is paying. Maybe those original agreements have been renegotiated. Whatever the number that is a big revenue increase.
In the article I found, they estimated satellite companies were paying $0.35. Maybe the agreements have been renegotiated, but originally that number was said to be $0.10. They probably can set the rate based on the state of the subscriber, but I don't think they were doing that with the original agreement.
i'm aware of the history, but what i've never really understood is why research and athletics continue to be connected at all in this day and age. the CIC as a research organization should invite whoever is most attractive to them, independent of a school's athletics (in a role similar to the university of chicago), while the B1G as an athletics conference should pursue schools that are the best fit for athletically.
They remain connected because big contributors to athletics often decide to contribute to the academic and research side as well. For an example, I'm going to pick on one guy, Roy J. Carver, who contributed heavily to the Iowa athletic department. His primary interest was the football team but when the football team failed to perform, he became a superfan of wrestling and threw in a large enough amount of money to have Carver Hawkeye Arena named after him. But in the end, he (or his Charitable Trust) contributed around $90 million to the UI College of Medicine with the result that it was renamed the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. Short answer - THAT is why research and athletics continue to be connected.
i understand what you're saying about the affinity many research/academic donors have for the associated athletics programs of a given school. but, in your opinion, would an fan of iowa athletics (carver, for example) not still donate money to the college of medicine in a hypothetical case where iowa athletics and research/academics were associated with different organizations?
to put it another way, say the CIC brought rutgers on board, but the big ten (athletics) did not, choosing instead to go with notre dame (just an example). rutgers has a sugar daddy who's a big football fan and also chooses to financially support rutgers academics. the CIC would still benefit from that support, regardless of where rutgers plays its football.
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