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BIG TEN MEETINGS
The Missouri Compromise
By Paul Smith
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In a Des Moines Register story Thursday, July 26, reporter Randy Peterson says the new Big Ten Network, to be activated this school year, may occasion a conference look at expanding to 12 teams.
"I think we need to look at it in the next year," Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany told Peterson, who cited possible contacts with Rutgers and Syracuse of the Big East.
But the REAL school the Big Ten is after, collegeBLITZ.com learns, is Missouri, a likely addition in some 3-5 years.
"According to what I'm hearing," one well-placed source said, "the Big Ten has already made the offer and Missouri is working to try to find ways to get out of its (Big 12) league commitments."
The league's official stance after Penn State entered in 1993 had been adamant until 1999 when it entered discussions with the University of Notre Dame. But the two sides couldn't agree on the Fighting Irish's insistence on a national football schedule and playing less than the Big Ten requisite eight league games.
"There was great value there," Delany told Peterson. "There aren't that many universities that produce that kind of value."
Delany had said that the presence of a league T.V. net had "Changed to some extent how you think about it.
"The broader (the network) is distributed, the more value (expansion) has," he told Peterson. "We have eight states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota). With expansion you could have nine."
If you include the large Penn State marketplace in the New York City/New Jersey region, the Big Ten hits 10 states hard. The Nittany Lions actually have a couple of New York area radio stations in their network, and coach Joe Paterno's weekly T.V. show is widely circulated through New Jersey, and most of New York state.
Which adds the intriguing thought of adding Missouri. "Missouri has a very similar profile to Big Ten schools," the source said. "It is an ideal [addition]."
Many thought possibly Pitt would be a consideration, "but Penn State has Pennsylvania pretty well covered." Bringing in the lucrative St. Louis and Kansas City markets would assure the league of direct access to nearly 30 percent of the nation's top 50 markets.
'Wherever," Delany told Peterson, who broached the subject of possible candidates. "With the network, there's a different element. It changes the dynamics."
Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz, who is open to the idea of the 12th team, told Peterson, "If it makes sense -- if the right institution was interested -- I think there would be consideration given."
When Ferentz discovers that is very likely to be Mizzou, a natural border rival of Iowa, that could heat up the enthusiasm in a hurry.
But Delany cautions this won't happen overnight. The network's establishment comes first.
"You have to build a network that has value first," he told Peterson. "You don't expand it until you have it built...
"Every time you make a major adjustment in the Big Ten, there's a gestation period. You have to allow one set of efforts to settle in, and then catch a breath."
Paul Smith covers the Big Ten, Notre Dame and the rest of the national college football scene with his View From the Midwest.
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