The Big Ten and Pac 12 have long been partners in the Rose Bowl.
Their footprint on the college sports landscape significantly expanded Wednesday, announcing a new scheduling and branding agreement that will share TV coverage and effectively extend the reach of the conferences without adding more schools.
Starting in 2017, the leagues will implement a 12-game schedule that will be played over the second, third and fourth weeks of the college football season. Each Big Ten school will meet a Pac 12 opponent each year, and Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said competitive equity would factor into determining the matchups. Penn State, a traditional power, should expect to draw a name brand institution at the on-set.
Addressing reporters on a 50-minute conference call Wednesday afternoon, Delany and Pac 12 Commissioner Larry Scott both said this could make it more difficult for their conference affiliates to reach the Bowl Championship Series National Championship. It’s a concession they were willing to make, however, because national exposure and recruiting will benefit, Delany said.
“It’s a broader, more holistic view about the benefits of a high-quality regular season schedule,” Scott said. “It’s not just about how easy can you make it to qualify for a bowl and make the BCS championship game.”
Delany said most games will be held on college campuses. But you can expect some marquee matchups between perennial power programs to be played at neutral sites. Delany listed NFL Stadiums like Soldier Field, Ford Field and Metlife Stadium, the Rose Bowl and Yankee Stadium as possible venues.
One causality of the new agreement is the Big Ten’s nine-game conference schedule for football, set to start in 2017. Delany said those plans are now quashed. It also limits the chances of a school scheduling four nonconference home games, a tactic Penn State leaned on in some years to generate more revenue to support its self-sufficient athletics department.
“We all agreed that the 12th game was kind of a ‘buy game’ too often for our conference and a game that was not as compelling maybe as we would like,” Delany said in reference to the Football Championship Subdivision opponents that schools pay to come play at their stadium with the knowledge the revenue earned that week greatly exceeds the amount they write on the check to the opponent.
“This is a step that’s for the fan, for the player and for recruitment. Clearly, for coaches used to having four [nonconference] home games, it makes it more challenging. But that’s just one aspect.”
Both conference-owned TV networks will share coverage of a number of events. The Big Ten Network is seen in 80 million homes and 50 million through basic cable, putting it just on the outskirts of being a national network. A possible Big Ten-Pac 12 bowl game that would be broadcast on the networks will be discussed at some point, the commissioners said, but no formal discussion have yet taken place.
Other sports, including basketball, could see schedule changes starting next year. Delany said there are no plans to quash the ACC-Big Ten basketball challenge.
Delany referred to the agreement as an indefinite collaboration, a blank canvas that lends itself to creatively market events between the two leagues. He tossed around the idea of Olympic-style competitions for non-revenue sports and a Ryder Cup-style golf tournament.
There also aren’t any plans for the Big Ten to reach a similar agreement with another conference, Delany said, nor is this the first step toward a potential merger for a super conference.
“We have a common DNA but a tremendous recognition that 80 percent of what we do is in our region,” Delany said. “Those who think regional rivalries and local rivalries don’t mean anything any more, I think that’s erroneous. It’s wonderful if you can have that and this. Our goal is to build something new here on a very strong foundation of history.”
