Big Ten Football: Options for expansion to 16, 18, 20, or 24 teams

The Big Ten needs to expand rather they want to or not and it will not be an easy task to do.

The Big Ten conference and the SEC conference were 1A and 1B in terms of overall relevance and importance in collegiate athletics.

College football by a large margin determines the overall strength and power a conference holds in the collegiate athletics landscape due to the overall revenue and profits power five conferences produce year in and year out.

However, the SEC by adding Oklahoma and Texas and with the rumor that they may also add Clemson and Florida State puts the SEC far and above the Big Ten moving forward once some or all of the above schools join the SEC in the foreseeable future.

The Big Ten can stay put as is or make some moves but expanding its membership.

The expansion of conferences revolves around football. I for one was once naive to believe that college basketball for example was a factor in conference expansion.

Now, I and almost everyone else who follows, monitors, and reports on conference expansion know it is about football based on the enormous amounts of money revolving around the sport. As mentioned previously, there are four factors that drive college expansion.

Now, if non-revenue generating sports costs go up due to travel expenses, etc. then the Big Ten can think outside the box and expand the conference in football only. It could be a good idea especially if the Big Ten expands to the west coast and schools from the Pac-12 would prefer and be more willing to join in football only as opposed to being a full-fledged member of the Big Ten.

The Big Ten has already set the precedent for this possible proposal with the Pac-12 when Johns Hopkins University in 2012 joined the Big Ten as an associate member participating in men’s lacrosse and Notre Dame joined the Big Ten in 2017 as an associate member in men’s ice hockey.

The Big Ten should explore all options at this time including the one mentioned above. Now, what schools are the Big Ten truly considering?

Let’s begin to take a look at potential members the Big Ten may add in the near future.

The Big Ten can expand to 16, 18, 20, or even 24 schools sooner than later. If Adam Rittenberg from ESPN is correct, here are some Power 5 schools that are AAU members that could potentially get invitations and accept an invite to join the Big Ten conference.

According to the Association of American Universities

SEC
Texas A&M
Missouri
Vanderbilt

ACC
UNC
Duke
Virginia
Georgia Tech

PAC-12
USC
UCLA
Stanford
U. of California
Oregon
Washington
Arizona
Colorado
Utah

The main focus for the Big Ten could be to expand out west to be the first conference to cover the American college football landscape from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts.

The SEC expanding as seen and rumored below may force the Big Ten to expand sooner than later. However, the Big Ten could attempt to raid some teams from the ACC to expand to the southeast portion of the country or even attempt to persuade a team or two from the SEC to join the Big Ten as well.

If the Big Ten wants to stay at the same level as the SEC in football, adding USC, Washington, UCLA and Oregon would be a great move and it would cover the entire west coast and expand the reach of the very financially prosperous Big Ten Network.

Another route would be to include highly academically ranked non-AAU member schools that could expand the Big Ten tv/streaming network in major cities and areas that the Big Ten is not already in. Those schools could include TCU, Miami, Tennessee, and Notre Dame for example.

Let’s break down the main contenders to join the Big Ten and those schools that have little or no chance of joining the Big Ten if it were to expand to 16, 18, 20, or 24 teams.