BTN, DirecTV, ND, and Greed (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about how the Big Ten doesn’t really need a lot of fans or “viewers” in some markets in order to gain a truck load of money from that market. 

As an afterthought to that story, I should also note that Fox Sports (the minority holder of the Big Ten Network) is responsible for the marketing and negotiations of carrier agreements.  That’s huge to note because it was Fox Sports who staged a coup a few years back by coming from nowhere to lock down the MLB World Series, CFB National Championship, NFL Super Bowl, and NASCAR Daytona 500 – four of sports’ biggest events.

Onward and upward though, in this part I’m talking about Notre Dame: how they fit into the big picture for the Big Ten, why they might consider joining, why they’re still holding out, and what could force their hand.  I’ll also discuss why I think they secretly (at least some within the administration) want to join the Big Ten.

I should note quickly that, while I’ve tried to “clarify” a few things in Part 1, this part will be more opinionated than the previous and subsequent pieces.  It’s based more on what I’ve read from others’ thoughts than what can be substantiated with facts.

The History between the two entities

Of course, anyone who is a Michigan or Notre Dame fan knows well of the historic rivalry between the two football programs.  I don’t need to rehash some of the great games of college football history for you here.

This has to do with the “expansion” history between the Big Ten and Notre Dame.

1995 – right around the time Penn State was abandoning their independent status to become the 11^th member of the Big Ten (and yes, it still bugs me that they didn’t change the name), the conference was also making overtures to Notre Dame.  The talks never became very serious though.  Notre Dame had struck a “goldy” of a deal with NBC back in 1991 and didn’t stand to gain much of anything by joining the Big Ten. 

In a lot of senses, it could only have hurt Notre Dame to abandon their long history as an independent Catholic school to join forces with the “secular” conference that has them geographically surrounded.  Their enormous fan and alumni base has never been particularly fond of the idea of joining any conference, and to make such a move when there was nothing substantial to gain could have damaged the powerful support the school receives from its boosters.

It also would have drastically diminished Notre Dame’s exposure.  As a program that played games on both coasts and everywhere in between, they were available to Catholics (and non-Catholic fans alike) at least once per year in their region.  Joining the Big Ten would have kept the Golden Domers locked mostly in the Midwest for two-thirds of their season and alienated them from a large section of their fans. 

They also would have had to join the Committee on Institutional Cooperation – a consortium of Big Ten schools and the University of Chicago that shares research materials.  Many alumni didn’t like that idea well at all as they thought it might damage their reputable undergraduate courses.

1999 – The Big Ten and Notre Dame entered into discussions yet again, and this time things looked much more serious.  Some of the factors that had kept Notre Dame from even considering such a move had changed somewhat from just four years before.

For one, it started to become apparent that Notre Dame wasn’t making that much more money than the Big Ten schools were making.  As much as Notre Dame faithful love to scream that “money isn’t an issue”, yes it is.  Perhaps not as much of an issue as it is with other schools around the country, but the hallowed halls of Old Notre Dame still has bills to pay and scholarships to offer.  It ain’t cheap putting together a top notch educational institution. 

Even if Notre Dame was making more than enough money from their BCS earnings, NBC contract, marketing, ticket sales, and every other form of revenue, it became apparent that they weren’t outpacing the Big Ten.  The argument that they could make more money by staying independent than by joining a conference had not held water and the Big Ten was increasing their revenue flow annually. 

Getting the top notch bowl games was getting tougher as well (which decreased both exposure and revenue).  Whereas the old days saw only a hand full of bowls tie themselves to conferences, by the late ‘90’s many of the top bowls had done so.  Short of getting a spot in the National Championship game, or a BCS at-large bowl, Notre Dame was likely to find itself invited to a second or third tier bowl, even if it had a very good overall record, simply because the better bowls had made deals with the SEC, Big XII, Big Ten, ACC, Big East, and Pac-10.  (This was also around the time of the creation of what we now know as the BCS)

In the end, though both sides at least came to the table to work out details for a possible expansion, Notre Dame decided that joining the conference was still a big enough conflict with its Catholic roots to be a bad choice, and they left the Big Ten empty-handed.

2010 – The Irish are once again receiving much consideration by the Big Ten as a possible candidate for expansion.  This time around, things have changed even further, as the Big Ten is considering adding multiple teams to their conference, potentially destabilizing the Big East (where all of Notre Dame’s other sports teams except hockey, are members).

Why Notre Dame should seriously consider joining this time

Don’t kid yourself, many Big Ten fans are still miffed at being turned down at such a late stage in 1999 and don’t really want Notre Dame in their conference.  Still others see the big picture for the conference and agree that having the Irish on board is a good thing on many levels.

For Notre Dame though, this should be a very tough decision – tougher than any they’ve made in connection with the Big Ten before.

Money really is an issue, even if not a big one

First of all, as I said above, money is an issue.  Like it or not, the cost of education is rising and it’s not just because college administrators are getting greedy.  I’ll hit on this heavily in Part 3, but in the Technological Age we’re currently in, courses cost a lot of money to put together.  Every little thing from building maintenance to computer labs costs more than it used to and everything seems to be “upgrading” at an unbelievable rate.  Even programs like Notre Dame need a big cash flow to keep pace and there’s only so much an administrator can afford to leave on the table in the name of moral righteousness.

The most common numbers thrown out in connection to what the Big Ten paid its member schools the last couple of years are between $20 million and $22 million.  The details of Notre Dame’s most recent extension with NBC aren’t openly available, but the previous contract paid the Irish only $9 million.  Even adding the $1.3 million that they received from the BCS doesn’t bring them close to what Indiana and Purdue get from the Big Ten, despite having traditionally inferior teams. 

I realize that Irish fans are insistent that they don’t care how much the Big Ten makes, and I respect that.  Life isn’t all about how much green you pocket.  Believe me, I do agree. 

However, when you’re making $10 per hour, working your tail off, it can get awfully annoying to watch the guy next door, who isn’t as talented as you are, make $20 per hour.  And when you see him stroll home with a brand new mass spectrometer microscope that you really need, it starts to become a little more difficult to argue that “money doesn’t matter”. 

The “other” sports could soon suffer first

The biggest non-news-news to come out of the latest round of expansion rumors is that the Big Ten is seriously considering adding more than one team.  If I’m Notre Dame, that tidbit of information would make me more than a little nervous.

The Big Ten currently stands just one team shy of being able to host a conference championship game.  If one team were all they were after, Notre Dame would be fine and dandy, if not a shade poorer than their neighbors. 

The Big Ten has also made it clear though, that they will not end up at an odd number of teams like they did after adding only Penn State back in the 1990’s.  It’s just not symmetrical enough and makes for odd divisions.  That means they’re going to add at least three schools this time around.

Three schools from around the Midwest wouldn’t even be enough to make Notre Dame sweat too heavily.  However, three names have popped up time and again in the rumor mills: Rutgers, Syracuse, and Pitt – all out of the Big East.

What’s exponentially (can you tell that I like that word?) worse is that some of the most educated scenario-guesses have the Big Ten expanding by five, making it all but certain that at least two would likely come from the Big East. 

What’s even more exponentially (okay, I didn’t really need to use it there) worse, is that the SEC has made it clear that they will react with expansion of their own if the Big Ten gets a little too high and mighty with their plans. 

What could unfold if the Big Ten takes five teams is known around the net as “Armageddon” – a complete and total realignment of the conferences.  In that scenario, the Big East gets pillaged like some Caribbean coastal town by not one, but as many as three different pirate hoards (or would “whores” work better there?). 

If the Big East collapses (or implodes) as a result of all of this pillaging, Notre Dame’s “other sports” would have to find a new home.  Assuming that the Big Ten, ACC, and SEC are all full by this time, where do they go? 

As possible as it may be for the Irish to remain independent in football, it’s not likely that they could afford to be independent in every single sport they play.  There’s a reason they aligned themselves with the Big East for lesser money sports in the first place – to help offset the costs of competing. 

If the Big Ten only adds three new schools, the Big East might survive, and Notre Dame can continue being Notre Dame the Independent.  However…

That national schedule could start to look awfully weak

Erik Lord, Senior Analyst for College Football Campus and Navy alum told me and Stones Zorger during our weekly talk show last week (shameless plug, I know)  that scheduling has become something of an issue for the Midshipmen (another independent).  With the current BCS system being as it is, and perfection being so important for a team’s chances at a national title, no one wants to take a chance on an out-of-conference game against an opponent that could ruin it all.

There’s very little chance that Notre Dame will lose its yearly rivalries with Michigan and USC.  Those are too old and historic.

However, it’s not hard to imagine that a new conference configuration (or alignment) might drastically change the way out-of-conference games are scheduled.  The more teams there are in a conference, the more the powers-that-be have to consider adding more conference games to the schedules. 

They’re not ready to expand the season just yet, so should any of this happen, it’s the OOC games that would be reduced – leaving Notre Dame with fewer available options to choose from for opponents.  Let’s face it, the powerful conference teams aren’t about to abandon their cupcake opponents when there’s so much riding on a perfect (or near-perfect) record.

Does all of this sound like wild conjecture?  Maybe it is, but it’s a scenario the Irish have to take into consideration before it has time to materialize and they get left alone in the cold.  Would the Irish faithful be truly happy watching their team play Michigan, USC and a slew of FCS or “new mid-major” teams?  It would greatly reduce their strength of schedule and limit their ability to get into a BCS game.

Stability is important in any relationship

Even if the Big Ten doesn’t go to 16 teams this go ‘round, there’s nothing saying they won’t make that leap in the future.  For that matter, should the Big XII, Pac-10 or ACC find reason to believe that such an expansion might make them more competitive or be profitable enough, there’s nothing at all saying any of them won’t decide to beat the Big Ten to the punch and make the move themselves. 

One thing has become abundantly clear through all of the expansion talk: the Big East is a deer in the headlights.  They’ve done virtually nothing to stave off the potential massacre that could befall their conference.  Oh yes…they hired Paul Tagliabu.  Well, that certainly gives me a warm fuzzy. 

They’ve not tried to create their own network a la the Big Ten.  They’ve not tried to merge with anyone for network/scheduling deal a la the Big XII and Pac-10.  They’ve not engaged in any expansion talk other than to take a defensive stance when asked about the Big Ten’s plans of expansion.  They’ve not publicly made any kind of overture to their existing members to indicate to the rest of the world that they’re not taking this lying down. 

One thing Notre Dame could be absolutely certain of if they were to join the Big Ten right now: it’s not going anywhere.  It might grow.  It might eventually shrink again.  It might change names (though I’m dubious of that at the moment) and/or it might fiddle with it’s configuration a little (four by four divisions in a 16 team conference?). 

Whatever it does, the Big Ten is big enough, financially stable enough, powerful enough, and wields enough influence to guarantee that it will continue to exist as a conference for the foreseeable future and a few decades beyond. 

By joining now, the Irish would never again have to face the possibility that their athletic programs may be left hanging in no-man’s land because someone else decided to get a little greedy.

What’s keeping Notre Dame out?

There was just one issue that truly made Notre Dame walk away from the table back in 1999: the Commission on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). 

Believe it or not, as important as independence may be to the identity of Notre Dame, the Irish were almost willing to let that fall to the wayside and join the Big Ten.

There’s also the issue of displeasing their fan base.  For every Notre Dame fan I’ve heard say it’s time to join the Big Ten, I’ve heard at least five screaming at the top of their all-caps lungs that there’s no way in H-E-double hockey sticks they’ll ever join that conference! 

The thing about fans though, is that we always get over it…eventually.  At some point in the very near future, a generation of Irish fans will be born who will not even know that Notre Dame was ever an independent unless they overhear their parents continuing to lament it fifty years from now.  Eventually, the haters will pass away and all that will be left is a page in a history book that talks about the good ol’ days when Notre Dame could do whatever it wanted to do.

Some fans will throw a tantrum, say their hail-mary’s and move on.  In a few years, it’ll be an unwinnable argument and they’ll just accept defeat. 

It all comes back to that consortium, though.  Can the Irish continue to exist as a Catholic institution, holding firm to their Catholic beliefs and doctrines, while simultaneously sharing their food with a bunch of “secular” heathens? 

Why the Big Ten wants Notre Dame so badly

This could potentially be the shortest segment in history…but it won’t be because I’m long-winded and opinionated.

It’s the economy stupid!

Well, it’s only partially the economy, but is definitely about the money.

Go back to Part 1 of this for a moment (or read virtually any blog about expansion and Notre Dame’s place in it) and you’ll see that the Big Ten stands to generate an unprecedented amount of revenue by bringing Notre Dame on board.  All of those crazy cable deals that has the Big Ten Network on expanded basic cable can be multiplied the nation over. 

The Irish are one of those schools that could not only pay their own way into the conference, but pay for a couple of other teams while they’re at it. 

It’s (hopefully) about competition too

The Big Ten has some pretty decent marquee names on board with Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State.  Other teams like Iowa are only another BCS bowl or two away from adding their name to the list. 

If the Big Ten is going to expand by more than one team though, they can’t just add any old Tom, Dick, or Harvard just for the sake of expansion, and while money is great, it’s really not the begin-all-end-all. 

It does the Big Ten little good in the long run to secure tons of cash if they’re going to just get beat down on the biggest stages.  We saw just two years ago a small movement by college football fans calling for the Big Ten to lose its automatic bid in the BCS.

While that was a little premature and overreaching, it rang loud the national feeling that the Big Ten was no longer a competitive enough conference.  That’s not a situation Jim Delany cherishes. 

Notre Dame is a proud institution, but so too is the Big Ten a proud conference.  It wasn’t all that long ago that Michigan and Ohio State were facing off, not only for the conference title, but also for a shot at the national title.  Between those two programs alone, the Big Ten has eleven national championships dating back to 1901.

Notre Dame also can boast 12 national championships dating back to 1924.  That’s what the Big Ten is hoping to see more of.

Lately, the Irish have struggled.  They’ve had a string of ineffective coaches and have struggled to adjust to the newest BCS landscape. 

They’re committed though.  AD Jack Swarbrick has made it clear that he will not rest until they get a coach in place and system worked out that returns Notre Dame to the national title discussion. 

That’s the kind of talk Jim Delany and the Big Ten can believe in.  There’s no reason to believe that Notre Dame’s dedication to winning big hinges on their independence.  The Irish will be back and that can be counted on.

The Big Ten still hasn’t recovered their national reputation, but adding a team like Notre Dame could help a lot.  When the Irish get their ducks lined up again, it could be incredible to watch them duke it out with the likes of Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin en route to a National Championship Bowl. 

Even in the years they don’t quite make that leap to the biggest stage, the Irish have the potential to create some incredibly exciting games around the conference, and represent very well in BCS bowls or second-tier bowls.  The Big Ten could definitely use that kind of boost.

There’s this little sty in our eye

If you look at a map of the current conference alignments, the Big Ten owns virtually everything from Iowa City to Columbus, Ohio, then takes a small jaunt over to State College, Pennsylvania.  Virtually every major school in that massive swath belongs to the Big Ten…except Notre Dame (yes Cincinnati is in there too, but this isn’t about them, so cut me a little slack, okay?).

As Jim Delany looks from his corner office, out over the great kingdom he presides over, there’s something wrong.  Right square in the middle of “Big Ten Country”, at the northern tip of Indiana: there’s a foreign flag.  Like that annoying green dot that you see when you’ve stared at a light too long, that one lone, un-conquered parcel of land glares at him and obstructs his view of everything that is his.  It’s a constant reminder of what he’s almost accomplished back in ’99. 

Getting Notre Dame on board finally locks down the entire Ohio Valley as Big Ten Land.  All the biggest, brightest, and best schools in the region congregate under one umbrella.  And it’s a beautiful thing. 

There could be a touch of compassion there too

While Jim Delany is often portrayed as a money-hungry, power brokering, ambitious little conqueror, there could be just a hint of compassion in this whole deal too.

Yes, this is just my musing, but follow along for a moment.

Delany has pushed the “expansion button” and programmed in the launch codes.  All he and his presidents are waiting on now are the coordinates.  It’s going to happen.  Will this be a nuclear exchange or just a high-powered “traditional warhead” that he unleashes on the college football world?  We won’t know until the thing lands.

He knows, though.  He knows how many invites he wants to go out, and he has a draft list of whom he wants in what order.  There will have to be agreement by the school presidents, but he’s a master salesman.  He’ll likely get his way.  He’s likely already given them a heads-up of what he wants and given them time to debate in private over how to proceed. 

There is a chance that Delany is planning to change college football forever.  There’s a chance that a 16-team “Super Conference” has been in the works for quite a while.  Right now, he may be just testing the waters to see if it will work and prepare the world for what’s coming. 

As you’ve undoubtedly read on a thousand different posts around the web, that scenario could spell doom for the Big East.  It could also spell doom for Notre Dame as a national team.  What do they do then?

Could it be possible that Jim Delany is looking to offer protection from the storm?

For all of the hard feelings and passionate debate between Big Ten and Notre Dame fans, there’s a kinship that exists between the two as well.  They’ve not only been neighbors for as long as the Big Ten has been a conference, but they’ve been like step-brothers.  They may not like each other most of the time, but they couldn’t really imagine life without each other either.  No one wants to see Notre Dame fade into oblivion.

There is a “fit” there

There are quite a few good Catholic folks living in the Midwest who support and respect Notre Dame, even while cheering for another, more local program.  There are protestants and peoples of every faith (and/or no faith) who respect Notre Dame for its academic achievements as well as its athletic ones. 

I think Notre Dame alums and fans have that same respect for most of the Big Ten as well.  Both have stood strong and proud in the face of changing times.  Both have been inventive in their efforts to remain relevant and dominant in a system that makes it increasingly difficult to do so.  Neither has forgotten where they came from in the process.

I’ve had the pleasure of traveling almost entirely across this great country.  I’ve been from Florida to New York, through the Midwest to Colorado and Salt Lake City.  I’ve been to Nevada and south to Texas and Oklahoma.  I’ve covered just about every state in between.  Sorry West Coasters…I’ve not quite made it past the Rocky Mountains yet…they’re awfully tall.

If you’ve traveled as I have, you notice differences in each region of this great country.  Sometimes they’re subtle and sometimes they smack you in the face (like the way the accent changes dramatically as you cross the border from Ohio into Kentucky and again from Kentucky to West Virginia).

Notre Dame sits right in the heart of what is known as the Midwest.  The soil is rich and black there.  It hasn’t been many generations since folks in those parts lived on farms with no indoor plumbing (I’m in my 30’s and spent summers in just such a house), where the food on the table traveled less than a quarter mile to get there and was fresher than anything you could find in the very best organic store. 

The people know how to live off the land.  The women don’t fret over manicures or pedicures because they’ll just get ruined working in the garden.  The men’s hands are disfigured from calluses so thick they look like tumors growing on their fingers.  There’s a hunch in people’s backs and it doesn’t come from poor posture as much as from hauling heavy loads with their bare hands.

Every state in the union has some form of farming, but in those parts, it’s not just a way of life, it’s a part of the entire region’s heritage.  A house and a few hundred acres of land may be passed down from generation to generation for more than a hundred years.

Corn stands taller than an NBA super star and soybeans wave in the summer breeze with nary a weed to disturb them.  Cattle graze on open plains and your view of the stars at night aren’t blocked by skyscrapers or clouded by smog.  You can stand on a two-story building and see the next county with clarity. 

Good church-going folks would attend Sunday services and then gather around large tables with their extended families for a feast most reserve for special holidays.  These people know what a tough life is, and how wonderful a simple life can be.

Farmers aren’t just rednecks in overalls, but market analysts, weather forecasters, carpenters, and doctors too.  Your reverend will say a prayer with you on Sunday and help you put up a barn on Monday.  Time hasn’t changed that too much.  The people won’t let it.

Virtually all the states in the Big Ten footprint share this kind of background.  The people that settled this territory - whether Catholic, Protestant, or other - learned to live in harmony.  Once upon a time, it was a necessity for survival.  Now it’s because of their shared experiences and family values. 

I understand that Notre Dame is a private school.  I respect that they’re a religious-based institution.  I get that their independence is important to them.  I also understand that there’s not another program in the Big Ten that shares those same traits, and that’s troubling to many Irish fans.  I also understand the “Irish” pride. 

None of that changes the fact though, that people throughout this region of the country “get” each other.  At their core, they share many of the same values and have struggled through many of the same situations.  They just don’t necessarily agree on Notre Dame’s place in the future of college football.

If you look around the county, at the way people live, at what they remember and what they’ve experienced and what they’ve been taught about life, history, and family; is there another conference that could possibly feel like “home” for Notre Dame? 

They’re with the Big East in most sports now, but I would argue that it’s the wrong place to be.  Notre Dame Football is more like Big Ten football than any other style out there.  Their history is as grounded in “three yards and a cloud of dust” as Ohio State’s.  They’ve resisted the changes to the way the game is played almost as staunchly as Iowa has.  They’re as exciting as Penn State, as historic as Michigan, and as small-town as Purdue. 

What does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China?

It’s all about timing, partnerships, and growth potential.  There’s little doubt that expansion will happen and there’s little doubt that Notre Dame (and the Big Ten as well) could both grow financially by being together.  If you look close enough though, there’s also a family feeling between the two, and that’s the kind of foundation a partnership can grow from.

Though we tend to resist change, it’s coming.  In one form or another, this game has never stayed stagnant for very long, and it seems it rarely has a chance to even gain “stagnant” status anymore.  It may or may not be the Big Ten that ultimately changes college football the next time, but it will change.

Notre Dame has to take a long hard look into the future and try to decide if it can remain independent and also remain a premier college football team.  It needs to decide if it can maintain its strong Catholic identity while doing business in a secular world.  It needs to weigh in length what is ultimately most important for the institution at the heart of all of this debate.  Can it be Notre Dame as we know it, and thrive in the coming football atmosphere?  Does it care?

All of this is relevant.  If Notre Dame doesn’t join the Big Ten, it’s taking a risk.  If it does, it’s taking a risk.  Whichever way it chooses, it’s carrying a huge portion of college football’s history with it. 

So, the Irish have to decide once and for all.  What’s it going to be?  Yes…or…no?