Twenty-five years ago Penn State and the Big Ten changed forever. A vote on June 4, 1990 allowed the Blue and White to join the conference.
With it came tradition and a national athletic powerhouse. Rabid fans and big time academics. In return Penn State would associate itself with a conference that already hosted two national powers in Ohio State and Michigan with others following not far behind. The road wouldn’t always be an easy one for the Nittany Lions, but it was a chance to prove their worth on a B1G stage.
“The Big Ten hadn’t changed in many, many decades, but I thought if the opportunity to expand presented itself it was a no brainer,” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in a news release. “Excellent academics. Excellent athletics. And pointed towards the East Coast, I thought there was a lot of potential there. That was my recommendation at the time.”
So was it worth it?
To be sure there are freedoms to be had as an independent school from a football perspective. The freedom to schedule anyone, the freedom to simply avoid conference policies. For other athletic programs associated with Penn State it was an upgrade from the A-10 conference. It also meant that Penn State would go all-in across the board with athletics and supporting those student athletes.
“What it did for us when we joined the Big Ten is that it No. 1 it resulted in a reassessment of the levels of commitment we had to the various programs,” women’s volleyball coach Russ Rose said in a news release. “We became fully funded when we joined the Big Ten. Prior to that, we were not fully funded. And we were not fully staffed.
“Entering Big Ten, collectively, for all of the sports resulted in us having a new commitment from the University to try and be competitive. From a volleyball perspective, we had been competitive prior to that, but playing in the Big Ten in women’s volleyball made us better because the level of competition was better than we were experiencing in the Atlantic 10.”
And it’s safe to say the back-to-back-to-back-to-back national title winners have benefited from the change.
In the big picture it’s a decision that would be hard to turn down today. There’s extensive exposure that comes with the Big Ten Network. Then, there are the soon-to-be astronomical TV revenues as the conference renegotiates its broadcast rights. Maybe Penn State fans haven’t always felt like the conference has gone to bat for them, but at the end of the day it’s hard to say Penn State would be better off, or even relevant without the Big Ten.
So was it worth it?
