A couple months ago the Big Ten Conference made the decision to add Nebraska to their conference, making the cornhuskers the 12th member of the Big Ten conference. Lately in college football conference expansion has become all the rage, conferences’ such as the Big Ten and the PAC 10 have already added new teams into their conferences (The Big 10 added Nebraska while the PAC 10 added Missouri).

Now university presidents, athletic directors, and conference commissioners may try to sell people on the idea that they are expanding their conference for the benefit of the student athlete and fans of their respective conference or university. The reality is though that as in most cases the root of this decision is the almighty dollar, conference expansion in reality equals new lucrative television contracts, increased conference value, and increased revenue.

The magical number of conference expansion is twelve teams. That is why the Big Ten was so committed to adding another member (in the case Nebraska) and expanding their league from eleven to twelve teams. The reason why it is so important for the powers that be that their conference have at least twelve teams is so their league can have a conference championship game.
Last season, the Big Ten conference had eleven teams. Ohio State ended the regular season with a 7-1 conference record and thus was crowned the Big Ten conference champion because all eleven teams play in one division. Now, with the addition of a twelfth team to the conference, the league becomes so large that it has to split into two divisions.

Whereas formally the Big Ten standings would look like this

Illinois
0-0 0-0
Indiana
0-0 0-0
Iowa
0-0 0-0
Michigan
0-0 0-0
Michigan State
0-0 0-0
Minnesota
0-0 0-0
Northwestern
0-0 0-0
Ohio State
0-0 0-0
Penn State
0-0 0-0
Purdue
0-0 0-0
Wisconsin
0-0 0-0

Now with the addition of Nebraska the conference standings, in 2011 the standings will hypothetically look something like this

North division
Iowa
0-0 0-0
Michigan
0-0 0-0
Michigan State
0-0 0-0
Minnesota
0-0 0-0
Northwestern
0-0 0-0
Ohio State
0-0 0-0

South Division

Penn State
0-0 0-0
Purdue
0-0 0-0
Wisconsin
0-0 0-0
Illinois
0-0 0-0
Indiana
0-0 0-0
Nebraska
0-0 0-0

With this new setup a conference record of 7-1 wouldn’t make the Buckeyes the conference champion it would simply make them the champion of the North Division. Now they will have to play an additional game, a conference championship game against the South Division champion to truly become Big Ten champs.

Recently Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany announced that the Big Ten conference championship would be held at Lucas Oil Stadium (the Home of the Indianapolis Colts) in 2011. Delany said the decision to hold the 2011 conference championship game was an easy one.

"I wanted to get it accomplished so we could tell our television partner where it would be broadcast," Delany said. "We know the people in Indianapolis, we know they have a great facility, we know they are teed up to have the Super Bowl in 2012 and I said to athletic directors, we're not making this a long-term commitment. It makes a lot of logistical sense."

The language in Delany’s quote says it all; words are tossed around such as television partner, broadcast, and logistical. This isn’t a heartfelt decision with all the little guys in mind; this is a decision that is based on a lot of logic and calculation.

So now instead of the Big Ten champion being crowned in the regular season, the conference championship is decided over a conference championship game. One more game equals more tickets sold, more merchandise and team apparel sold, and more revenue for the Big Ten conference.

Let’s say that hypothetically at the end of the 2011 season Big Ten powerhouse Ohio State ends the regular season as North Division champions and fellow powerhouse Penn State ends the season as South Division champions. This sets up one final game between Ohio State and Penn State at Lucas Oil Stadium to truly decide who the conference champion is. Both the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions averaged crowds of over 100,000 people at their home games last season. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that those two programs would be able to pack Lucas Oil Stadium. A conference title matchup such as this proposed one amounts to massive amounts of previously inaccessible money for the Big Ten.

It should be noted that having two programs such as Penn State and Ohio State advance to the title game would be the dream scenario for Commissioner Delany and the Big Ten conference in general. These two schools have some of the largest fan bases in all of college football. Two other dream participants in the title game for the Big Ten would be Michigan and Nebraska.

That is why the addition of Nebraska is such an important move for the Big Ten conference and why conference commissioners all across the country are trying to reach that magical number of twelve teams. Money rules everything and conference expansion is an opportunity to gain revenue and make an even bigger business out of the machine that is college football. The Big Ten made the first move in gaining its twelfth member but don’t expect it to be the last move. More and more leagues will adopt this strategy and the gap between the haves and the have nots will become glaringly apparent.

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