Maryland and Rutgers to move to the Big Ten

The University of Maryland has decided that the Atlantic Coast Conference is no longer the place to be athletically, so the Board of Regents voted to apply for acceptance in the Big Ten on Monday. Shortly after they made their decision, the Big Ten presidents held a vote and accepted the Terrapins into the growing conference as of July 2014. On Tuesday, Rutgers got the call from the Big Ten inviting one of the oldest athletic programs in the United States (Rutgers played Princeton in the first collegiate football game ever played in 1869) and at a press conference held Tuesday afternoon, the Scarlett Knights announced that they were accepting.

“Membership in the Big Ten is in the strategic interest of the University of Maryland,” Maryland President Wallace Loh said at a news conference on Monday. “We will be able to insure the financial sustainability of Maryland athletics for decades to come.”

Big Ten“The Big Ten includes America’s most highly regarded academic institutions, known for both their athletic success and academic achievement,” said Rutgers President Robert Barchi at the Rutgers new conference. “This is exactly the right conference for Rutgers. Our university is one of the nation’s leading research universities and our student-athletes excel in the classroom and on the playing field.”

John Swofford, ACC commissioner, released a statement that read, “Our best wishes are extended to all of the people associated with the University of Maryland. Since our inception, they have been an outstanding member of our conference and we are sorry to see them exit. For the past 60 years the Atlantic Coast Conference has exhibited leadership in academics and athletics. This is our foundation and we look forward to building on it as we move forward.”

“This is a historic day for Rutgers University,” said Rutgers Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Tim Pernetti. “It is an honor to join such a prestigious conference and begin our partnership with the outstanding institutions in the Big Ten. There is no finer conference in the nation that combines top-notch academics and athletics.”

Rutgers“The Big Ten Conference is pleased to announce that Rutgers University will soon join the conference family,” said Big Ten Commissioner James E. Delany. “The additions of Rutgers and the University of Maryland further expand the Big Ten’s footprint while helping solidify our presence on the East Coast. Both institutions feature a combination of academic and athletic excellence and will prove a great fit for our future.”

The move should be good for the both the Maryland and Rutgers athletic departments financially as the Big Ten has a large television contract that gets divided between the member schools. It’s estimated that the current ACC schools are given a share of that revenue that is estimated at roughly $17 million per team, Big East Schools are given roughly $3.2 million per school, while Big Ten schools are given over $24m and that figure is thought to be increasing to over $35m per year. Maryland does have to take into account the newly increased exit fee that the ACC voted on last year, which now stands at $50m and is not likely to be reduced. “There are no loopholes,” an ACC official was quoted as saying about the exit fee when asked about the likelihood that Maryland would ask for a reduction in that fee. Maryland and Florida State were the only two ACC schools that voted against the increase in the fee from $20m to $50m.

An immediate positive to the move is the fact that Maryland is already looking to reinstate a number of programs that they had to cut last year due to financial constraints. In July the school made the decision to eliminate men’s and women’s swimming, men’s tennis, women’s water polo, men’s cross country, men’s indoor track and field, and acrobatics and tumbling.

Not everyone is happy about the move though as ACC loyalists love their rivalries with the likes of Duke and UNC. Said John Lucas, former Maryland hoops great, “I understand the economic circumstances and I understand change, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” Lucas said. “It’s hard to get fired up over Maryland-Wisconsin.”

With these moves, comes holes in the conferences they are leaving and the Big East has seen it’s share of exit conversations in the last couple of years. West Virginia (went to the Big 12), Syracuse (ACC), Pittsburgh (ACC) Rutgers (Big 10), TCU (Big 12) and Notre Dame (ACC, all sports, but football) have left for greener pastures elsewhere. The conference has added Temple (A-10), Boise State (Mountain West), San Diego State (Mountain West), Memphis (Conference USA), Navy (Independent), University of Central Florida (Conference USA), Houston (Conference USA) and Southern Methodist University (Conference USA). The ACC has added Notre Dame, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and talk has it that either UConn or Louisville will be invited to join, that invite could come any day (it was thought that UConn would get the call on Tuesday, didn’t happen). Interestingly, Boise State, San Diego State and BYU (left the Mountain West conference to become an Independent) are all talking with the Mountain West Conference about rejoining. Last week a decision was made that will guarantee a spot in one of the six premier bowls for the highest-ranked champion (as determined by the new selection committee) to the “Group of Five” (the Big East, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt). Getting in that group opens the door to a new pool of television revenue as it’s been reported that ESPN has put in a bid of $7.3 billion over 12 years to broadcast the post-season games. With the Mountain West in that mix for a guaranteed spot the Western schools feel that there’s no need to move to the Big East, where they were expecting to get more revenue share money from bigger television deals.

The Conference realignment map is a tricky one as things get very complicated when you start looking at the individual programs. In other words, Temple is in the Big East already with it’s football program (which wasn’t A10, it was MAC), but the rest of the athletic department is still in the Atlantic-10 for one more season. Navy is joining the Big East as a football program only, as is SDSU and Boise St. (who is now in the Big West conference for all other sports). As television deals get larger in certain conferences, athletic programs want to get their cut of the deals. Some conferences are going through rough periods right now as schools are bolting for better deals and some are getting calls daily with schools wanting to join. Those conferences seldom have anyone leave, as it was stated the other day, the Big Ten is the the “Hotel California” of conferences.

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