Big Ten isn't playing 'Global Thermonuclear Conference Realignment'

ROSEMONT, Ill. — What I do love, I mean hate, about the Big Ten athletics director spring meetings is the fact that we're in a building where huge topics are discussed on one floor and the air goes out of the balloon on the next floor.

All the good stuff happens upstairs. The Big Ten TV talks? I'm sure the update B1G Commissioner Jim Delany gave to conference athletics directors was a pinata full of fun stuff. With the media? Hey, he did give a timeline (end of the summer or thereabouts) and that was more than I thought we would get.

Yes, I know some of the fun stuff can't be talked about the same way they're brought up in front of the notebooks (by the way, the only time I've ever seen TV cameras at one of these is when expansion is a huge thing, and we'll get to that, we have to get to that, right?).

But we can interpret. If we're wrong, hey, this is just us talking.

— Delany blithely dismissed the expansion question. The Big 12 is driving the topic with news it is considering adding schools (I don't see the value in what's on the board, but that doesn't mean I'm right or can see the future). Still, I have to think Delany and the Big Ten have run some 'War Games' scenarios.

Computer: Shall we play a game?

Delany: Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear Conference Realignment?

Computer: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

I'm not going to run the scenarios. That's what June is for. I do, however, think there's more to this. Is the Big 12 on some rickety rope bridge over a canyon in a tornado? No. Is it built for the long haul? That's probably up to Texas.

Will the Big 12 implode? Will it go on the offensive and poach schools? The football elite from the ACC, perhaps?

Whatever happens, whenever it happens, you want first pick. The B1G or SEC have the power and riches and TV and so they have the most Ping-Pong balls in this lottery.

And Delany, 68, who Wednesday referenced being recruited by Dean Smith to play basketball at North Carolina 50 years ago, won't want to go out as a Crying Jordan meme.

— On TV: No one refuted the SportsBusiness Journal's report that the Big Ten and Fox are close to a deal for half of the Big Ten's media rights for football and basketball (25 football games and 50 basketball). People love to refute things. That didn't happen.

SportsBusiness Journal reported that Fox/FS1 will commit $250 million a year for six years. For ... half ... of the games. Half. Delany declined to confirm the SBJ report, so there that is.

We all made a big deal out of the possibility that the Big Ten and ESPN could be breaking up. Assuming Fox is in for half (Fox does, by the way, own 51 percent of the Big Ten Network), the other half — also 25 football and 50 basketball games — remains up for bidding.

So, it's not over over

for the Big Ten and ESPN. Right now, I think there's a negotiation. How much does the Big Ten need ESPN and its tried-and-true platform and 'default' sports channel status (think about that, think about how nearly every time you walk into a bar/restaurant ESPN is on whether anyone is watching or not)? How much does ESPN need the Big Ten and a college football footprint that stretches literally from the amber waves of grain to Manhattan skyscrapers (or, I mean, Rutgers)?

'I wouldn't talk about walking away from anybody or walking toward anybody,' Delany said. 'We're interested in having great partners that have great platforms that are interested in marketing and promotion. The market will decide what happens. ESPN has been a great partner, as CBS has, as the BTN has, as Fox has. So it's a new day, we've approached it that. We're into the marketplace, and we will see what we shall see.'

Delany said the B1G spent three to four years preparing for these negotiations, which he said should conclude this summer. The new era begins with the 2017 football season.

— I wrote about B1G vs. SEC. I'm sure it trickles into competition among conference ADs, but I don't believe it affects how they do business. This is more media and fans and territory. I will right now cop to some weird sort of defense mechanism when it comes to this discussion. I really try not to engage in click bait and would like to think logic dictates my thinking, but when I post the mythical Big Ten-SEC football challenge sometime in June, please, it's June.

No wait, what I really mean is I'll fight to the death for Jim Harbaugh's right to run a satellite camp in Australia.

But seriously, my entry for this was the nine-game conference schedule the Big Ten is swinging into this fall and, it looks like, forever. Meanwhile, the SEC will play eight conference games and four non-conference that, for some, not all, will include a November meeting with an FCS school (of course, you know the B1G has agreed to not schedule anymore FCS schools).

Big Ten folks seem very much into this, wanting to play each other more and not less, which makes sense when you have a 14-team conference (Iowa has one date with Ohio State — at Kinnick in 2017 — in the next four years). They don't see it as a disadvantage, but the Big Ten also is shopping media rights. More B1G games should equal more quality TV and so nine games make sense in that backdrop.

— I asked about streaming. Of course, BTN has been at the forefront of streaming. My thought was more toward where the Big Ten will live in the streaming world, because that's the world a lot of us live in. I don't think the conference will have to commit to just one streaming service.

My thinking here is driven by the fact that HBO has its own streaming and has content available on Amazon Video. Then again, HBO has 'Game of Thrones.' Sure, the Big Ten can counter with Harbaugh the Unburnt.

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com