Doug Karsch: It's Time For Delany To Step Up
It's time Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney do something other than try and defend all that is Ohio State football.
How about making the Big Ten a better place. How about providing the fans of this conference with a positive step towards re-establishing the Big Ten as the best conference in College Football.
Time for a new attitude.
Take All Comers!
There is something to be said for the modern era of college football scheduling. Athletic Directors are trying to maximize revenues by scheduling as many home games as possible. That means bringing in patsies that will agree to take a whooping in exchange for a check. This year of the 48 non-conference game, 36 seem like a waste. In 2012 Big Ten teams have scheduled non-conference foes as exciting as South Dakota and North Dakota State (apparently South Dakota Stat and regular North Dakota were busy). Network executives can't be thrilled about that. Michigan State fans will spend their hard earned money for the right to see Youngstown State, Florida Atlantic and Central Michigan venture into Spartan Stadium.
Networks (and fans) want great match-ups (or they should). Great match-ups lead to great ratings. Great ratings lead to buzz. Buzz leads to hype. Hype helps recruit.
How do you create all those things and still please all parties involved? You incentivize great scheduling. Take for instance the Big Ten's contract with ESPN. Get the network to agree to pay a bonus to schools whose games reach a certain agreed upon ratings threshold. If networks get a (lets say) 6.0 national rating for a game, the Big Ten School gets a bonus $2 Million. Those are rough numbers, but the point is, the fans and networks get better games, with better ratings to sell to advertisers, and the Athletic Directors get more cash without even calling a Dakota.
It would help raise the profile of a conference that now clearly plays second fiddle to the SEC.
Jim Delany, get to it. Or is there a scandal somewhere you are trying to clean up?
