Article out of Jersey with more on Rutgers to Big Ten move at http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/1 ... _move.html

It's going to be interesting. One thing is for sure...costs won't be a drastic change. The Big East required the schools programs to travel further than what is ideal. The AAC is worse with more Texas and Florida trips. Meanwhile, the conference makes little money in their revenue sports. That is what will change things by joining the Big Ten. Just having that new income will offset any costs with the goal being to cut down on school subsidies...which is expected.

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I'm not sure I fully agree with the change in costs. It's going to be become a lot more steep. Even with a year in purgatory, aka the AAC. It's a big change in travel between Temple and UConn to PSU and UMD. The Big East spent some respectable coin back in the day, even if the travel was great for those northeastern schools, but Rutgers is now the northeastern outpost of midwestern conference.

People want to assume UMD's "travel subsidy" is laundered ACC buyout fee money...but it actually could just be what it is billed as. UMD and Rutgers are going to be doing a lot of traveling when they're not playing each other and Penn State. It's not as glamorous as it looks.

Plus, Rutgers is going to have to spend like these other schools to keep up with appearances. No way do they stay a long time being the doormat.

Although I don't believe rutgers will start throwing money around like Ohio State, I agree there will be some increased travel costs (to Nebraska, et. al.)
and Rutgers may be forced to "up their game" in a few areas.

But to Quinn's point, the increase in costs should not be dramatic in any way.

Rutgers (in an effort to become attractive to the power conferences) endured substantial cost over-runs on their stadium expansion
along with contractual goodies to keep Schiano as long as possible.
These over-runs (borne by a cash-strapped State) wound up costing the AD and President their jobs, if memory serves.

Rutgers now has those investment costs somewhat behind them, and no longer need to spend wildly to impress.

It should be pointed out that Nebraska, rutgers and Maryland do not receive a full share of Big ten revenue distributions during a vesting period.
I think this article implied the vesting period is 6 years.
that is why they used the 12-year time frame in stating "Rutgers expects to receive $200 million over the next 12 years" (it's back-end loaded).

This was always my personal concern about the Big Ten taking Rutgers, because, athletically and institutionally, they were a "work in progress." A few years of some investment and success on football, but very little in other facilities and programs should not have gotten them that Big Ten invitation.

If Rutgers does nothing else from here on out concerning the improvement of its athletic programs and facilities, I hope the Big Ten expels them. The only reason they are there is because of that big city to the northeast of them and because the Big Ten needed another school to help keep Penn State from wandering off.

I'm hopeful they are up to the task of being in one of the top conferences in the country, and am very excited for them. But, I'm still concerned they are very much in over their head, and robbed Peter to pay Paul to make this happen.

Take it from UMD's people about this change. It helps sustain what they have now, not reverse what they lost. At least, not anytime soon. For that much more money, full share or no, it's a sign that the cost of operating top-level football and basketball in the major conferences is going up, with the revenue merely subsidizing/absorbing it, not helping to improve/develop the entire structure.

If you price out the travel from the old Big East to the new Big Ten there are a lot of similar locations...

ND/Purdue, DePaul/Northwestern, Marquette/Wisconsin, Lville/Indiana, Cincy/tOSU, Georgetown/Maryland, Syracuse/PSU...

And travel between USF/Iowa is about comprable (~1K miles) and flight+drive time is similar between WVU/Michigan.

So after rulling out those similar one's you're left with...

B1G: (all flights) MSU, Illinois, Minn, Nebraska
oBE: (all drives) UConn, Prov, St John's, Seton, Nova, Pitt (only flight)

and if they add another Eastern school or 2 like UVA, Syracuse, BC, or even GT then travel would be even more in-line with what is was before in the oBE.

But yes, their travel budget will increase however the major increase in funding will more than make up for those extra trips out West and when consider how the non-fb schools split off and the new AAC was adding more Texas/Florida area schools I'm not sure how even a UConn fan on Rutger's BOR could argue that changing conferences was a bad move...

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I think Rutgers was a good add, but I think if they added Syracuse it would look a lot better. The Rutger/Cuse combo in NYC would really solidify the B1G conference there...and this map would look way better with the state of NY included.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... tions3.png

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I think the Big Ten should have taken Syracuse instead of Rutgers. Not just because Syracuse operates on a more competitive scale with its athletics, but because it would have had practically the same pull on NYC as Rutgers did. Having lived in NYC and the on the island, Syracuse has a big state school-like pull going for it, even if it isn't.

For Rutgers, that it won't be making a full share of conference revenues and won't be getting a travel subsidy, my hope is...I hope they did their homework on that. And I mean an actual, sobering look into running athletics in the top conference, not just a wishy-washy "look how awesome our life will be" propoganda piece.

Syracuse is not an AAU.
Rutgers is an AAU school.
Syracuse has poor tv market.
Rutgers has a great tv market.
The B10 wanted a great tv market and a AAU school.
Clearly they took Rutgers.

I don't have a dog in this fight, to be honest I don't really care about Rutgers. Over the years I have been somewhat of a Syracuse fan. That is to say I never followed their schedule, but if they were on, I tended to root for them depending on who they were playing. IMO, from an athletic standpoint, Syracuse was the much better school. In football, Syracuse was probably the better team over the long run. In men's basketball there is no discussion to be had. That being said, Big 10 expansion was clearly not about making the conference better in athletics. There were far better options than Maryland and Rutgers. This move was about TV money. I'm not from that region of the country, but from what I have read Rutgers offers the NYC TV market. There aren't any markets in the US better than that one.

Article out of Cedar Rapids(previously posted in another thread)discussing Big Ten revenue sharing at http://thegazette.com/2013/10/25/in-big ... t-the-gate

...just a reminder that if Syracuse and Nebraska were offered membership into the Big Ten at the same time, they'd have BOTH been in the AAU. Syracuse withdrew and Nebraska was kicked out. The AAU thing is very overstated. Valuable? Yes. A necessity? Well, it's been discussed throughout the web: UNL was on a ten-year or so watch for possible AAU expulsion, and it never stopped the Big Ten from recommending UNL to apply for membership or unanimously accepting them. For a school sitting in a "nowhere" market (UNL) and not being in the AAU, the kind of upside for UNL must have been huge for the Big Ten to overlook.

I know my New York and New Jersey geography. I know which school is closer to the big cities (let's not forget that there's also a Rutgers campus across the Delaware staring into the Philadelphia waterfront in Camden), but if you have never been to NYC when Syracuse plays a game in the Garden, or when Syracuse crosses the state line to play at the Meadowlands, I think boxing Syracuse into their western NY zip code isn't doing them justice.

Rutgers gets in because it's a big school in between two big cities, has the AAU distinction, and the support of schools like Penn State, but on anything related to athletics, it might as well be in the wilderness. It was an "easy" decision because there was nowhere else Rutgers wanted to be. If Syracuse had wanted the Big Ten invitation more than the ACC, I don't think Rutgers would have liked the end result.

The AAU is not overstated.

UCONN is trying to get into the AAU.

Top academic rating is important.

Johns Hopkins a great academic and research institution just joined the B10 in lacrosse entered the B10 Research Consortium.

The university of Chicago is still a member of the B10 research consortium.

Syracuse research level does not rank itself near that of johns hopkins or the university of chicago.

The Big Ten was/is looking at non-AAU schools like Oklahoma, Syracuse, UConn, Notre Dame, and Boston College.

AAU matters but at this point and time the Big Ten cannot be surpassed by any other BCS conference in academics, where they hurt the most is in media markets and sports success.

UConn/BC bring New England, Syracuse brings the state of NY and NYC (as much if not more than Rutgers), Oklahoma brings their state and some of DFW (goes great if Texas and Kansas join too), and ND brings a huge national following much of which is already in the Big Ten's footprint but also helps solidify them in the East Coast and California.

AAU is great but the Big Ten has recognized that they need more than elite academic peers, they need to add some elite athletic peers.

Rutgers/MD were smart schools for markets, Nebraska was an athletic school (non-AAU), if they can't get UNC I'd assume they'd try hard after OU/KU/UT next go round.

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

Yeah, and some of those schools (BC and Notre Dame) don't see the AAU as being something part of their mission. AAU is a research designation. ND's an undergrad school. BC's not gunning after it, either. Syracuse saw that what it took to "keep up with the Jones'" was not something SU wanted to attempt.

...and that's why the AAU is overstated. Most schools aren't built on the mission of research intensity, or specific research metrics (kind of stupid how UNL was assessed, if one ever reads it) and just because they aren't doesn't preclude them from excellence or prestige. Dartmouth isn't AAU. Georgetown isn't. AAU will probably do nothing for them.

The Big Ten wants good, big schools with decent athletics. The only one that stands out now is Rutgers, but, again, that's no small school there in New Brunswick.