Big Ten thinking expansion again: Syracuse? Rutgers?
Randy Peterson of the Des Moines Register is reporting that due to the debut of the Big Ten Network, the conference may be looking to expand again within the next year or two. His story mentions Syracuse and Rutgers as possibilities but it’s unclear if that’s just speculation on his part or if they are teams that conference officials are mentioning themselves. Conference commissioner Jim Delany hinted that the conference could be focusing on adding a team from a big television market that is not within the Big Ten’s eight current states.
The creation of the Big Ten Network means conference officials likely will discuss expansion again, commissioner Jim Delany said Wednesday.
“I think we need to look at it in the next year,” he said during a wide-ranging interview with Des Moines Register reporters.
Adding a 12th team likely will be revisited because of the network, which is scheduled to launch Aug. 30, Delany said. An additional big-name university in a large television market means more exposure for the network and its sponsors.
“It changes to some extent how you think about it,” Delany said of expansion. “The broader (the network) is distributed, the more value (expansion) has. We have eight states. With expansion, you could have nine.”