It was announced yesterday that Rutgers and Maryland would join the Big Ten conference as soon as 2014. In an article on ESPN.com today, it outlined Rutgers football transition in the past 10 years from a basement-dweller in the Big East in 2002 to now being nationally ranked in the top-25 in 2012. The article highlights some of the changes that have occurred on campus over the past 10 years that has helped moved Rutgers in to a football school, one of these things was building a new football stadium which resulting in the cutting of six men's varsity sports. We've talked a lot in class about fiscal irresponsibility and Rutgers seems to be another example of a school spending millions on a new facility by borrowing money and cutting hundreds of athletes in the process.
Also, I'm wondering what the other athletes at Rutgers think of the conference change. It seems as though the dominating reason for the conference switch is because of football. Rutgers can make millions more from the Big Ten network's TV deal, which primarily covers football, and also the conference pay-out, as Big Ten member schools received $24 million last year compared to the Big East schools, who received $6 million. So while switching conferences is good for football, what effect does it have on the other teams now that their competition is located in a different region of the country, does the millions more that Rutgers will make even out with the increased travel costs? Overall, I think that it will be very interesting to see the consequences of the conference realignments on the less popular sports.
The ESPN article can be found at http://espn.go.com/new-york/ncf/story/_/id/8656660/rutgers-scarlet-knights-announce-move-big-ten.
Abbey McNamara
KIN 577
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