Why would the Big Ten want more than the 12 teams it takes to hold a championship game?
If one were to listen solely to the league’s coaches — most notably Penn State’s Joe Paterno — one might think the sole motive behind expansion was to stage a season-ending event like the SEC, Big 12 and ACC do. “Everybody else is playing playoffs on television [in early December],” Paterno said last year. “You never see a Big Ten team mentioned. I think that’s a handicap.” But if late-season exposure were the main issue, the Big Ten could follow the lead of the Big East and Pac-10, which don’t have 12 teams, either, but have moved meaningful games to the first week of December. And if Delany viewed a title game as a must-have financially, he would have pushed league presidents to adopt one a long time ago. While a championship game would be the most tangible byproduct of expansion, the Big Ten is after a far bigger prize.
