Just as I was starting to get use to Nebraska being in the Big 10, the conference gets even more numerically challenged, as Maryland announced it's joining in 2014; Rutgers is rumored to be announcing a move tomorrow. That expands the Big 10's TV reach to cover Washington, Baltimore and New York as they have teams in the DC and New York media market; the Nets played their home games at Rutgers for a while.
I'm not sure how good of a sports ad this is. Maryland is a good basketball program but a so-so football one, and the reverse is true of Rutgers; they generally bring up the rear of the Big East in hoops and will be playing Louisville for the league title in football.
Both are academically solid schools. The Big Ten likes to pride itself on being top-tier in academics, and having top colleges helps keep that status.
UConn is rumored to be heading to the ACC to replace Maryland. It changes tradition some without one of the conferences' charter members, but it gives another good footprint in New England with some side coverage of New York. They get a killer basketball program and a football team that has become competitive in the last few years; the ACC already has Pittsburgh and Syracuse coming on board, so one more Big East refugee will be relatively easy to manage.
The Big East just about signed its death knell as a power football conference. It had already been demoted to mid-major status in football, as the new power structure gives the other five BCS AQs slots in the big bowls and giving the best of the rest one slot; if 2012 were played by the new rules, Kent State, Rutgers and Louisville would be fighting for a BCS slot as the best of the rest.
The Big East has always been a killer basketball conference, and will continue to do so. The block of Catholic non-football schools that make up the core are still around, but the big state schools are in the process of decamping for better football fits.
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