[BigJohn043]

The Big Ten is much more than an athletic conference.  Membership, for example, allows each member school access to the research and libraries of all other schools.  There are shared tutoring and training programs, as another example, for professors who are named heads of their departments.  And the Big Ten is a buying/purchasing consortium that sends out purchasing requests en masse, and buys from the lowest bidder on the conference schools' massive combined request.

The Big Ten is a massive, synergistic partnership with an emphasis far beyond athletics.

I know one of the Presidents very well; she's my sister in law.  (Not insignificant here that the majority of Big Ten presidents are women.)  I've not spoken with her, but am confident she has a strong bias to adding Stanford next, a bias to Cal, and a clear preference for Washington over Oregon. Having the example of former power Nebraska in their conference, and the realization that Phil Knight is 85. each Big President will wonder about the long term strength of Oregon football. And none of them, I am confident, respect Oregon as an institution.

My guess is that they'd feel comfortable standing pat at Notre Dame and Stanford, and at 18 teams. They would not dread losing Oregon, Washington, or Cal, but could not miss the obvious travel advantages of having those three schools plus SC, Stanford, and UCLA in a Big Ten West. But again, to many of them, Oregon is in the mix for no other reason than football.  The Ducks would become, from every perspective other than athletic, the Boise State of the Big Ten,

The addition of USC/UCLA was a bit of a no brainer for the B10.  It increased their payout per member and at the same time increased their overall academic standings.  A win for both the ADs and the Presidents.

Turning down UW/UO was similarly a no brainer.  It would have decreased their payout per member and while UW would have fit well within the B10 academic world, only Nebraska has a lower academic standing that UO.  And as Hulk has pointed out there is probably some buyers remorse with Nebraska.

If you look at the other members the B10 has added (PSU, MD & RTG) they are all strong academic schools in the middle of the rest of the B10.  They also all added to media rights per member.  MD & RTG added based on the importance of conference networks and charging higher cable rates for in network markets.  My sense is that this has gotten a lot less important in the media world so the B10 might be a bit more thoughtful about this going forward.

That brings us back to Stanford & cal.  We would be a big win in terms of academics.  But it is clear that we would be a negative to media rights per member.  Of course ND solves this for Stanford potentially.  The other thing that solves this is agreeing for the first deal to take less.  But to take Stanford & cal the B10 would have to do something they haven't done before.....

[BigJohn043]

The Big Ten is much more than an athletic conference.  Membership, for example, allows each member school access to the research and libraries of all other schools.  There are shared tutoring and training programs, as another example, for professors who are named heads of their departments.  And the Big Ten is a buying/purchasing consortium that sends out purchasing requests en masse, and buys from the lowest bidder on the conference schools' massive combined request.

The Big Ten is a massive, synergistic partnership with an emphasis far beyond athletics.

I know one of the Presidents very well; she's my sister in law.  (Not insignificant here that the majority of Big Ten presidents are women.)  I've not spoken with her, but am confident she has a strong bias to adding Stanford next, a bias to Cal, and a clear preference for Washington over Oregon. Having the example of former power Nebraska in their conference, and the realization that Phil Knight is 85. each Big President will wonder about the long term strength of Oregon football. And none of them, I am confident, respect Oregon as an institution.

My guess is that they'd feel comfortable standing pat at Notre Dame and Stanford, and at 18 teams. They would not dread losing Oregon, Washington, or Cal, but could not miss the obvious travel advantages of having those three schools plus SC, Stanford, and UCLA in a Big Ten West. But again, to many of them, Oregon is in the mix for no other reason than football.  The Ducks would become, from every perspective other than athletic, the Boise State of the Big Ten,

The addition of USC/UCLA was a bit of a no brainer for the B10.  It increased their payout per member and at the same time increased their overall academic standings.  A win for both the ADs and the Presidents.

Turning down UW/UO was similarly a no brainer.  It would have decreased their payout per member and while UW would have fit well within the B10 academic world, only Nebraska has a lower academic standing that UO.  And as Hulk has pointed out there is probably some buyers remorse with Nebraska.

If you look at the other members the B10 has added (PSU, MD & RTG) they are all strong academic schools in the middle of the rest of the B10.  They also all added to media rights per member.  MD & RTG added based on the importance of conference networks and charging higher cable rates for in network markets.  My sense is that this has gotten a lot less important in the media world so the B10 might be a bit more thoughtful about this going forward.

That brings us back to Stanford & cal.  We would be a big win in terms of academics.  But it is clear that we would be a negative to media rights per member.  Of course ND solves this for Stanford potentially.  The other thing that solves this is agreeing for the first deal to take less.  But to take Stanford & cal the B10 would have to do something they haven't done before.....