Iowa President on B1G expansion: ‘Always discussion’

IOWA CITY — Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany often uses the temperature of 'tectonic plates' as an analogy when discussing conference expansion.

With the 10-school Big 12 still considering whether or not to add schools — therefore warm — the 14-member Big Ten remains aware but dormant in expansion. But that doesn't mean the league isn't preparing for a possible earthquake, either.

'I think there's always discussion because I think we're trying to understand what's happening across the nation and what our alternatives may be,' Iowa President Bruce Harreld told The Gazette. 'But there's no serious conversation. There's no specific set of proposals.'

At last month's Big Ten spring meetings, Delany told reporters his primary focus remains system reform and media rights agreements. College sports' five major conferences — the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, ACC, Pac-12 — became an autonomous voting structure within the NCAA in January 2015. The five-conferene voting block has self-governing abilities primarily dealing with student-athlete welfare issues.

The Big Ten's media rights agreements with ESPN/ABC, CBS and Fox conclude at the end of the upcoming 2016-17 sports season. Future deals should be announced later this summer, Delany said.

'We're pretty much laser focused on the reform, the balancing out of the system, so it's complete and it's supportive of students' experiences,' Delany said. 'We've made a lot of changes, we'll probably make more changes and then we're also working on the (media rights) agreements. Those are the two things that we're focused on.'

Lawsuits challenging the NCAA and its member conferences could impact the college landscape beyond just rights fees and autonomy. Ed O'Bannon, a former All-American basketball player at UCLA, filed an antitrust suit accusing the NCAA, its licensing company, all conferences and universities of engaging 'in a price-fixing conspiracy' that deprived football and men's basketball players from earning revenue based on their likeness. It stems from O'Bannon appearing in a video game without permission or compensation. That case could be headed to the United States Supreme Court for final resolution after a U.S. appellate judge upheld a previous ruling that the NCAA violated federal antitrust rules.

Likewise, there are other lawsuits challenging the NCAA's amateur model. Should the NCAA lose those cases, it could produce a seismic alteration for all conferences, including the Big Ten.

'I think we're all trying to figure out what happens in the court system — and I think it's headed the other way — but if the courts were to decide there had to be a payment process in place for athletes, then we'd have to back up,' Harreld said. 'I think we're totally committed to the notion of student-athletes and making sure that we preserve the amateurism of the sports. In that context, maybe, maybe, maybe we would have to think about expansion so we could just play among ourselves. Who knows? That's a long, long way away and a lot of ifs. But there's nothing active. We just have to make sure we have all of our options open.'

The Big Ten began a ripple of conference realignment in 2010 when it added Nebraska as a 12th member. Spanning the last six years, 12 schools have shuffled among the five power conferences, including Maryland and Rutgers to the Big Ten for the 2014-15 sports seasons. Among Division I football conferences, schools have changed affiliations 55 times since 2010.

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