Report: Major Big Ten university doesn't support further expansion
Ohio State does not want to share more of the incoming media revenue windfall than it has to.
According to The Mercury News’ Jon Wilner, the Buckeyes currently stand in opposition to further expansion from the Big Ten. Wilner tweeted Tuesday morning that Ohio State does not support additional moves being made by the league after adding USC and UCLA. Given the Buckeyes are the Big Ten’s crown jewel program at the moment, that’s a pretty big vote against expansion.
Line movement: #Pac12 survival now a 5-point favorite over extinction, up from 4.5
The reason: Chances of more B1G expansion this cycle have diminished. We do not believe Ohio State supports additional moves, and that's a BIG vote against
— Jon Wilner (@wilnerhotline) August 30, 2022
This little nugget from Wilner — who broke the news initially that the Big Ten was adding USC and UCLA — comes a little more than a week after reports emerged that Oregon had engaged in preliminary discussions with the Big Ten about being the next team to join the league. Those discussions were said to not involve Oregon’s (outgoing) president, its athletic director, or Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren. The report was also met with some pushback from others that this was nothing out of the ordinary.
Warren said recently, however, he could see the Big Ten growing beyond 20 teams in the future. Oregon, Washington, Stanford, and Cal have all been said to be on the Big Ten’s shortlist, along with several other teams from around the country.
Earlier this month, the Big Ten announced its next media rights deal with FOX, CBS, and NBC as TV partners. The seven-year agreement is believed to be the richest ever on an annual basis for a college sports property, and it includes escalators that could bring the total value to $10 billion if the league continues to add teams.
As it stands, the 16 members of the Big Ten will share an average of $1 billion in revenue each year. The deal is backloaded, according to reports, with the big jump in payouts kicking in during the third year of the agreement and gradually increasing over the final five years. The annual payouts over the lifetime of the agreement for each of the 16 members could average in excess of $70 million per school — not including additional conference disbursements (i.e. bowl and NCAA basketball tournament revenue).
The widely held belief is that additional teams joining the league would need to bring additional value at a certain number or else they’d need to join as partially-vested league members so as to not cut into the fully-vested payouts.
It sounds as if Ohio State doesn’t want to deal with that potential.