Conference may look toward adding 12th school for marketability

DES MOINES, Iowa – Big Ten officials will likely discuss expanding the division to 12 schools to accommodate the new Big Ten Network, commissioner Jim Delany said.\nThe network, which is scheduled to launch Aug. 30, would benefit from an additional big-name university in a large television market, Delany said.\n“I think we need to look at it in the next year,” he told the Des Moines Register on Wednesday. He offered no specific candidates.\n“The broader (the network) is distributed, the more value (expansion) has. We have eight states. With expansion, you could have nine,” he said.\nIn football, a 12th school could mean two divisions and a postseason playoff. That’s an appealing concept to the startup network.\n“Any television executive would do whatever they could to be able to air a game like the Big Ten championship,” Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman said. “It would be worth a considerable amount of value.”\nCoaches think otherwise, said Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz.\n“I’ve not met anybody in coaching that really enjoys it,” Ferentz said of the divisional playoff format. “There’s a lot of downside to it, in my opinion.”\nAmong the concerns are missing out on a BCS bowl by losing the conference title game.\nDelany said expansion would not guarantee the Big Ten would create an extra game.\n“I could live with two divisions and a championship game, but I think that has a tendency to devalue the season-ending game and have a negative impact on your losing team in season-ending games,” he said.\n“I don’t want us to tear ourselves apart over the structure of football for the sake of expansion.”\nThe Big Ten tried to lure Notre Dame into the conference in 1999, but the Fighting Irish chose to remain a football independent after lengthy discussions.\nDelany said of Notre Dame: “There aren’t many universities that produce that kind of value.”