Just because the Big Ten didn't participate in the latest round of conference expansion doesn't mean Commissioner Jim Delany wouldn't be ready to climb into the ring.
"To expand, we must make a compelling case for it," Delany told The World-Herald. "Right now, we can't make a compelling case for it.
"We looked around with interest, and we looked around to analyze. We try not to over-react, and I don't expect that we will."
In the past two weeks, the Southeastern Conference has grown to 13 teams by accepting Texas A&M; the Atlantic Coast Conference has gone to 14 by adding Pittsburgh and Syracuse; and the Pacific-12 looked at going to 16 teams before picking the status quo.
Delany repeated that since adding Nebraska in June 2010 to grow to 12 that the Big Ten "is not in active expansion mode."
Still, the research file on realignment is always within arm's reach.
"We really did a lot of modeling on 14 and 16 teams," Delany said. "We just felt like we couldn't maintain the essentials of who we are."
The Big Ten already is in 30 percent of the country, and impacts adjacent markets.
"So size and scope is important," he said. "But it's not the driving force. The driving forces are 'What is our DNA?'"
Among the identifying traits of the Big Ten, Delany said, are camaraderie among schools, not schisms; the conference championship and the Rose Bowl as the football focal point; and the single-enterprise theory for the good of all members through revenue sharing and other cooperative ventures.
"That doesn't mean a 16-team model doesn't fit some," Delany said. "But it's not our first inclination. We'll try to figure out other ways to increase value, whether it is competitive value or television value.
"You have to look at expansion, television and other things you read so much about as a means to an end and not an end in itself."
Delany said the Big Ten wants its members to have the means to properly fund the teams a school sponsors and to create fair and healthy competition.
"But it will be done in the context of who we are," he said. "If an opportunity arises to do that with a larger number or schools, maybe some day we will.
"We did it with Nebraska. When that occurred, we felt good about it. We continue to feel very good about it. But we haven't been over-reactive."
Contact the writer:
402-444-1024, lee.barfknecht@owh.com
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