Quote:
Originally Posted by kcchief19
I think the idea that the Big Ten is out to try and get into the New York market is fan-based or media-based speculation. There is no New York market for college sports. New York is a melting pot for fan bases and there is no school that you bring in that "gets" you the New York market. In addition, New York is more of a college basketball market than a football market. But as much as we love college basketball, the money in conferences comes from football.
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Three things:
1. True, no one team is going to deliver the New York market, even if Rutgers or Syracuse was currently a major college football power. But that doesn't mean the conference won't benefit at all by having one of those teams. Rutgers' ESPN games have done big NYC ratings numbers...that extra viewership will make its way to the conference's bottom line, even moreso if there's additional premier matchups to sell in the area.
2. You're forgetting the carrier rates for the Big Ten Network. Doesn't it jump from like $0.30 per household to $1.10 per house if the Big Ten has an in-state presence? I'm not caught up on the full particulars of how the NYC area would be treated (Rutgers is closer to NYC than Syracuse, but of course Syracuse is located within NY State), but there's an added benefit there.
3. If this wasn't about grabbing the NY market, why would these schools be in consideration at all? We already know (at least based on assumptions/projections that the researchers have performed) that the analysis has shown that expansion will be profitable for the current members of the Big 10 in that the added revenues from one (or two or three) of these schools will be greater than what the 11 teams will sacrifice in splitting the pie up even further.