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BIG TEN CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYSOctober 13, 2016Jim DelanyWashington, D.C. THE MODERATOR: Thanks for joining, everyone. We have Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany here. Jim, with that, we'll open it up. COMMISSIONER DELANY: Thanks, Gary. It's great to be in Washington, D.C. We said a couple years ago when Maryland formally joined the Big Ten on July 1, 2014, we wanted to live in this corridor. Before they came in officially on July 1, 2014, we selected Washington, D.C., as a site for our 2017 basketball tournament. So I think that our actions are aligned with our plan. We've been really active. It's a very important part of the country for us. I'm hoping the Nationals beat the Dodgers tonight so we can have a World Series of two national teams both in the Big Ten footprint. But we've been very conscious about living here. As you know, we've established an office in New York City. Johns Hopkins is a lacrosse affiliate member. That's really important to us, not only for that sport as it grows in the Midwest, as well as establishing in the East, but also because it was important to Maryland and to Rutgers. So that's another action point. As you know, we've started to develop Big Saturday in New York City with a hockey-basketball doubleheader. Last year it was Penn State and Michigan. Fabulous success. I think we had 27,000 people in the two events -- 12,000 at noon for the basketball game, and over 14,000 for the hockey game. And it was great to see multi-generations of people attending that. This year, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Rutgers will be featured in a double-header again. In 2018, we're at the Garden a week early. I know Michigan State is playing in the Palestra, the game is already sold out with Penn State. So as you can see, with BTN distribution, putting events out here, we're able to really leverage the pre-existing Big Ten, ex-Patriot alumnis who are now inside the footprint. We have over a million people from Northern Virginia to Southern Connecticut, half of which are Rutgers and Maryland graduates, half of which are from other Big Ten teams. So when we come here, and I think our coaches would testify to this, they're often hit with Go Bucks, Go Blue. There are lots and lots of Big Ten friendly fans in this area. So it's great to be here. We're very excited about it. It really is an example, I think, of a traditional conference innovating. We're very proud of our tradition. This is our 120th year of operation. Our first year was 1895-96, but we continue to change and innovate. Expansion is part of that as the Big Ten Network is also part of that. So for us, it's a natural. It's just the beginning of what we think is going to be a tremendous thing. This year will celebrate not only 120 years of Big Ten, but also ten years of a period of time where we had every college men's basketball game nationally televised. So we have changed with that technology. We announced this summer four new, some new and some old, basketball partners in television going forward starting next year. So BTN has been restructured and extended. CBS will continue to be a partner. ESPN will continue to be a partner, and FOX will be a new partner. So we think basketball's in great shape from an explosion perspective. It's also the 20th year of our tournament, and we've had over 1.8 million fans attend over the next two years. We'll top off 2 million total fans. All of those games are also nationally telecast. So if you're a young person and want to get a great education and play in great venues in Chicago, Indianapolis, D.C. and New York, this is a good place for that. It's also the 40th year that the Big Ten has led the country in attendance. So a lot of people are concerned about regular season popularity of basketball. It's not a problem in the Big Ten. Our television ratings, our fans, our coaches, our players are performing in a way to be very attractive to television audiences as well as in-stadium. So we're fortunate, we're blessed. We have a great history. We've got a promising future on every level that can be measured. We've had our fair share of success in the tournament. Qualifying teams, advancing teams, putting teams into the Final Four winning games, and doing it the right way. I was telling our coaches last night, I couldn't be prouder of them. They're working with young people, preparing players for a future that sometimes it involves professional sports at the next level. Most times it doesn't. But it's an opportunity to play at a very high level, get a great education, play a team sport, and enjoy it at world-class universities. So let me stop there. That's a little bit about our efforts to go to the Big Ten in this region in recent years and the actions that are associated with that. Little bit about our history and our tradition. But we're really pivoting to our future and also complimenting, I think, the great players. There is a lot of talk about one and dones. Most people stay. Most people get their degree. And it's interesting to note in six of the last seven years, the Player of the Year came from the Big Ten. That's not anything that people particularly focus on, but individuals are being very successful here. Last year it was Denzel Valentine, before that it was Draymond Green. Before that it was Victor Oladipo. Before that it was Trey Burke. Before that it was Frank Kaminsky and also Evan Turner at Ohio State. So we're producing kids who are graduating, kids who are staying, and kids who are excelling at the highest level. That development of player doesn't happen without talent and also without great coaching. So I compliment our coaches for not only creating great teams out of disparate individuals from various backgrounds, but also the kinds of production, the kinds of success that these young people have had. So let me stop there and take whatever questions you may have for me. Q. We noticed over the past year or so that some fans have expressed disappointment to some mainly Big Ten rivalries like Indiana, Purdue, or Ohio State, Michigan, they only play once during the regular season. Would the idea of protecting particular basketball rivalries, is that something the Big Ten might look at for future schedules? COMMISSIONER DELANY: It's been discussed by our administrators and by our coaches. I think there is when conferences have expanded and have been able to maintain pure double round-robin. It's certainly an alternative, but to date there hasn't been a groundswell. But I understand that there is a loss there. But some of these rivalries are the most intense in college basketball. Sometimes they're between very strong teams. So there is a competitive aspect to it right now. We're rotating teams through the single plays, so it's really competitive equity and fairness in terms of trying to win a championship versus serving the traditions associated with rivalries. There is a good case to be made for each. Quite honestly, I would tend to defer to our athletic directors and our coaches in terms of where that balance is struck. That discussion has occurred, but for now we are where we are. Q. I know you've addressed this before. Any chance of expanding the conference basketball schedule into 20 games? COMMISSIONER DELANY: No. Again, that gets discussed, the 16, the 18, and the 20. It's really a little bit about the number of games, but it's really about compression. Right now we're having 18 games and we have to move some games into late December to kind of create the right mixture of preparation. Our coaches love two days prep before each game. They don't want to play more than three games at home or on the road at the same time. They want the 5-4 home and aways. So there are a lot of factors that go into it. Quite honestly, when you go to 20, you get stronger strength of schedule, you get a truer champion, but you also get more compression. So if we were able to experiment by moving games earlier into December, and December became a month for conference games, I think it becomes sort of more digestible. But I think 20 games in the month of January and February leading up to a tournament are probably too many games, too much compression. But I think it's what our fans want. I think it's what our players want. In many ways I think it's what our coaches want. But it also has to be managed within the context of how much you're away from campus, how many games you have in a particular ten-game span. And that's a challenging set of issues. I know next year when we're going to play the tournament a week early in order to accommodate to the availability of Madison Square Garden, we'll probably experiment with more games in December and we'll see how that happens, and that's in order to relieve the compression issue. Q. There are obviously, as you stated, a lot of benefits of this eastward expansion, TV and an expanded footprint and everything. Is there a certain trade-off for more travel for the athletes and logistically becoming a little more difficult? COMMISSIONER DELANY: I think perhaps there is. A lot of it has to do with the actual logistics of travel. So you can fly into D.C. and bus to Maryland in probably 40 minutes. Likewise, you can fly into Newark and get to Piscataway in 20 minutes. So airtime-wise it's probably from the Midwest an extra 20 minutes over what it might be to Penn State. Having said that, I think we're always conscious of it. It sort of depends on where you came from. Rutgers was in a conference that had some national dimensions to it, and the ACC is not middle Atlantic anymore. The distance between Syracuse and Miami or D.C. and Miami or even to South Bend are robust distances. So our air connections in our region of the country are pretty good, and it really has almost more to do with logistics of how do you get from campus, because they're flying oftentimes charter, how do you get from campus, what is the traffic pattern like, and how quick can you get in and get out? Q. Do you have any concerns as the conference has grown to add Penn State and Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers that maybe here and there students lose an extra day in class and some of the academic components are sacrificed? COMMISSIONER DELANY: I think it creates more pressure. It requires more scrutiny. It requires us being thoughtful about fairness in terms of travel during the week versus during the weekend and how those sort of are balanced out. But we're playing games on five days a week. We may play games more, which may give us more flexibility to spread the games. But I think that having two days between games, and I think we're the only A5 or FBS conference, however you want to describe who we are, that provides for that. So we work closely. We set our schedule. Television doesn't set our schedule. We provide for the prep time. We provide for the balance, and we're always looking for ways, on one hand, to make sure that the travel has the least amount of impact on preparation for games, but also the least amount of impact on missed class time. It's a balance, and we work at it regularly. It's quite a good challenge. Q. What do you need to see from the tournament this year and next year to make New York and D.C. part of the regular rotation? COMMISSIONER DELANY: Well, the regular rotation is going to be determined down the road. But the presumption is we're going to be back here. We're going to build here. We expect to have success here, and this is part of the Big Ten footprint. So we're actually in New York next year and then we're, I think, Chicago, Indianapolis, Chicago, Indianapolis through 2022. But we've got fully 20% of our alumni base living out here. This is, I think, maybe the most important corridor in the world from D.C., Northern Virginia, to Southern Connecticut, whether you're talking about higher education or politics or finance or media. So we expect to be here, and I think over time we also expect with the majority of our fan base, and the majority of our institutions east -- or west of the Alleghenies, we're going to be there a bunch too. But we're going to be here. So we don't have any particular benchmark that we're looking to exceed, but we expect to be successful right away, and we expect to build on that. Q. There have been a couple athletes around the conference that discussed possibly protesting the anthem or drawing awareness to social issues. I wonder if there is a league stance on that or what you feel about athletes taking a stance like that? COMMISSIONER DELANY: Yeah, the league stance on it is as follows: First and foremost, they're citizens and students, and then they're players on college teams. So I think we're at a vector in our society where a lot of difficult issues are facing us, and I think as such our young people have a right to express themselves symbolically and peacefully. I would, in addition, encourage them to act. Act as voters, act in their communities. And I think that there are a lot of zones, whether it's at a press conference or whether it's -- I personally stand for the anthem. I personally believe in speech. I love college basketball and college football, but I love our freedom more than I love college football or college basketball. But as long as it's done in the right way, in a respectful way that other people may hold different feelings and that those are respected, I definitely respect our coaches who have the challenge of helping these young people move from teenagers to young adults. And we're at a place and time in our country where I think it's worthwhile to take a hard look at a lot of issues. I think our players as students and citizens have those rights, and I respect them for that. Q. Was part of the vision in bringing the tournament to D.C. to provide a broader education for the students participating, as well as the students from area campuses? COMMISSIONER DELANY: You can't help but as an American to be impressed by Washington, D.C. I've taken my kids here. I worked here in the summer of '68. It's sort of halfway between where I went to college and where I grew up. It's a fabulous city. So whether it's the White House or Congress or the Reflection Pool or the Potomac or Rock Creek Parkway or the Smithsonian Zoo, it's a fabulous city. They're here to play and they're here to compete. But there is no doubt about it, it's also a great educational opportunity for them. I think you can feel the excitement by our coaches as well as by our players for being here. Q. How are the non-revenue sports impacted by the Eastern expansion? COMMISSIONER DELANY: That's a great question. We're doing a deep dive on the whole issue of time management for our students. And as conferences have gotten larger, there are, in fact, some benefits. There are also some negatives. Part of the negatives are losses to really critical rivalries. Everyone who lives here realizes that Georgetown, Syracuse was lost in translation as expansion occurred. That wasn't good. Pitt and Penn State were lost. That wasn't necessarily good. Texas A&M and Texas were lost. That's not necessarily good. But also it's true that we weren't primarily looking to just add travel and time away from campus. So I would say we're taking a hard look. We have some regional play. We have some divisional play. We have some sports that don't have postseason in a conference and a lot of regular season, some that have both, and some that only have the postseason. So I think under the general umbrella of time management, the NCAA's dealing with it. We're looking at length of season, we're looking at number of contests, and we'll also look at the regional issues associated with being in a larger conference. I think that will play out on a sport-by-sport basis, not in the next 12 months, but over the next 48 months. It will take some time. Because there's not a cookie-cutter answer. What fits for cross country may not fit for hockey. What fits for hockey may not fit for volleyball. So we can do certain things, probably, to make things more regional. But the fact is the aspirations of these universities are global and national in almost everything they do. So if Penn State and Nebraska don't play every year in women's volleyball, as an example, they both have as aspirations to win National Championships, and we take that game away, you know what? They'll probably go out to Stanford or Florida or Texas to play because they're going to seek out the competition. So we need to provide the right balance for people with those aspirations, but do it in a way that mitigates missed class and that kind of thing the best we can. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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