The SEC Championship Game is worth around $15 million per year between sponsorships and TV rights fees.  If the Big Ten is able to add another marquee football school, the conference can expect something in line with what the SEC receives.  That’s a decent chunk of change, but note that a championship game is really a side benefit to expansion as opposed to a driving force (which is a HUGE mistake a lot of sports fans are making regarding this issue).  If the Big Ten wanted more exposure in December, it could just play regular season games at that time like the Pac-10 and Big East.  Expansion has very little to do with trying to get onto TV on the last week of the season.  Whatever team or teams are added to the Big Ten, they’re going to have to bring a lot more revenue with respect to the TV contracts far above and beyond merely the ability to hold a conference championship game.  The Big Ten Network is exponentially more important to the expansion process than this issue.

In short, what would be the advantages and disadvantages of going to 12, 14, and 16 teams, each of which has been bandied about as quite possible.

Personally, I believe that the 12-school conference is the perfect size because it allows you to split into divisions but still maintain strong connections with everyone in the conference.  The only “disadvantage” to the 12-school conference is more of the Big Ten’s position – the only 2 12th teams that make perfect sense are Notre Dame and Texas and neither of those teams would come alone.

A 14-school conference still allows the conference to maintain some cohesiveness where you can split into 2 7-team divisions and, if you go up to a 9-game conference schedule, can still play everyone on a regular basis.  From the Big Ten’s strategic standpoint, it allows more flexibility in expanding its footprint.  Instead of having to choose to go west or east, it can go in both directions if it desires.

The 16-school conference is really a loose confederation instead of a tight conference in my eyes.  It would take some massive firepower (at least 2 out of 3 of Notre Dame, Texas and Nebraska) to make it worthwhile.  The one scheduling advantage to a 16-school conference is that you can divide the conference into 4 4-team pods that rotate divisions.  (This is what the WAC did when it had a 16-school conference.)  With a 9-game conference schedule, that means that each school would have 3 annual rivals and play everyone else 2 times every 4 years.  So, it is possible to play everyone in the conference on a regular basis in a 16-school conference if the pod format is used.

I’ll have to ask you a three part question.  First: without thinking about money, or logistics, and if saying “no” wasn’t an option, what would be the ideal move for the Big Ten?  Second: getting back to the real world, what’s the best possible decision for the conference?  And lastly, just a shot in the dark, what ends up happening? Does Joe Paterno get that “Eastern Rival” he’s been pining for?

1. The Big Ten adds Texas as team #12 and stops there.  There is no single school that can provide more impact for the conference (even Notre Dame).

2.  For all of the focus on TV markets, this expansion is going to require a massive football name in order for it work, which means at least one of Nebraska, Notre Dame or Texas.  Any 14-team scenario would 1 of them would work very well and I think that you need 2 of them for a 16-school conference.  If I were making a recommendation to the Big Ten and it’s not an option to just add Texas or Notre Dame as team #12, I’d go for a 14-school conference with one of those big names as an anchor.  The other 2 schools would provide a base of households (Missouri to the west and Rutgers and/or Syracuse to the east), with the caveat being that if the Big Ten can get Texas but also needs to take Texas A&M, too, then the conference should do it in a heartbeat.

3.  If I were to bet today (and be advised that this changes on almost a daily basis), I believe that the Big Ten will add Nebraska, Missouri and Rutgers to create a 14-school conference.  Nebraska provides the national name, Missouri safely delivers a state of 6 million people for the Big Ten Network, and Rutgers is a reasonable bet to at least get a toehold in the state of New Jersey.  They are all large flagship schools that are members of the AAU, so they meet the academic requirements of the conferences while “fitting” the Big Ten mold.  These are also all schools that will say yes to a Big Ten invite almost immediately.  Finally and most importantly for your readership, JoePa gets one Eastern rival to pummel annually.

Well, if I’m actually an authority on this subject (and I don’t think that’s the case), it occurred by accident.  I went for about 5 years writing about completely random sports subjects on my blog before I wrote the “Big Ten Expansion Index” post back in December.  That particular post drew so much interest that I started writing more follow-ups, which garnered even more interest.  Since then, the entire focus of my blog has been on conference realignment issues.

While I’m not an insider with respect to this issue at all, I do take a lot of time to research issues and really think about every angle (both positive and negative).  That’s really where my skills as an attorney (my day job) come into play.  The Big Ten has a certain set of parameters and I simply try to approach everything from the standpoint of what they would be looking at in a way that tries to inform and entertain.  It has been interesting to see how a lot of reporters on the college football beat really don’t know what to make of this expansion story.  Many of these guys are clearly more comfortable writing about spring football than trying to explain cable carriage rates for the Big Ten Network, the relevance of the American Association of Universities, or other critical factors.  In that sense, I hope that the blog has filled a void.

What’s really been incredible is how there’s now a large group regular commenters on the blog.  If there’s one thing that I’m proud of, it’s that the blog has stimulated a lot of great insightful discussions from people all across the country and representing virtually every expansion candidate school.  I get a bigger kick out of reading all of those comments than actually writing the blog posts themselves.

We once again want to express our gratitude to Frank the Tank for offering his always insightful views on expansion.  To read more of his musings, and to learn pretty much anything you ever wanted to know about the financial aspects of Big Ten expansion, be sure to visit his blog: Frank the Tank’s Slant.