TV controls college athletics to a harmful degree. Games are
scheduled at inconvenient hours for student-athletes, fans, and university
communities—but not for TV advertisers. With this essential logic in mind, I
offer my quirky forecast for the Big Ten to add UCLA and Cal.
I’ll share my reasoning in a minute. First, here are my
assumptions.
1.
Jim Delaney runs the conference, not university
presidents.
2.
Jim Delaney covets TV markets.
3.
Jim Delaney—a product of my law school, UNC— understands
the intrinsic value of outstanding public universities.
4.
Jim Delaney also understands the importance of
cultural symmetry between schools as diverse as Rutgers and Nebraska, and their
traditional Big Ten brethren.
5.
The Power 5 is a transition state that will
become the Power 4 and eventually Power 3.
Here’s my reasoning for UCLA and Cal—not from my
perspective, but my imagination of Jim Delaney’s perspective. Los Angeles (UCLA)
is the #2 TV market in the U.S., and San Francisco (Cal) is the #6 TV market.
With Rutgers, Delaney has a piece of the NY and Philly markets, rated #1 and
#4. Chicago is #3. By acquiring these two schools, the Big Ten would have 5 out
of 6 top TV markets (Dallas is #5).
Not only would these schools add tens of millions of TVs to
the Big Ten gravy train—it would allow a TV window on Saturdays from noon Eastern time to midnight Pacific time. Can Delaney resist that?
Cal and UCLA are currently ranked #1 and #2 in the U.S. as public
universities. Michigan is ranked #3. Illinois and Wisconsin are tied for #10,
and so on.
What about travel and division imbalance? Those would be solvable
in Delaney’s world. Move Illinois to the East. Add UCLA and Cal to the West. By
present and historical measures, this Illini fan is sorry to say that this would dilute the
East; adding UCLA and Cal would beef up the West (UCLA is having a down year, but compares to Nebraska). The result: more parity.
Here is your lineup, reflecting current football standings:
East West
Michigan Wisconsin
Penn State Nebraska
OSU Iowa
Indiana Minnesota
Maryland Northwestern
Illinois UCLA
Michigan State Cal
Rutgers Purdue
