Making sense of UCLA and USC’s move to the Big Ten

Close your eyes and envision the Midwest. You might see rolling crop fields, beautiful lakes, dense forests, and the bright lights of Los Angeles — wait, what?

In a seismic move, the University of Southern California (USC) and UCLA announced that they were joining the traditionally Midwestern athletic conference, the Big Ten.

Originally, the Big Ten was made up of schools from the Midwestern states near the Great Lakes. Back in 1993, Penn State joined the Big Ten, stretching the conferences into central Pennsylvania.
Penn State quickly found itself at home, a large land grant university with rural roots. Then, in 2014, the University of Maryland and Rutgers joined, expanding the Big Ten’s footprint into metro Washington D.C. and New York City’s doorstep.

So what’s driving the expansion? Money, and more specifically, TV contracts worth lots of money. Los Angeles is the second largest TV market in the USA, and the “B1G” now has a presence in the three biggest cities: L.A., Chicago, and NYC.

When new media markets are added to the Big Ten, the conference can push for its TV network, the Big Ten Network, to be added as part of the basic cable package, drumming up mountains of cash. The Big Ten Network is already in 80 million American homes, paying out up to $49 million to each university in 2021. With the Big Ten coming to California, these payouts may increase.

Currently, there are five “power” conferences in college sports: the Big Ten, the SEC, the Big 12, the ACC, and the Pac-12. Many analysts predict that soon there will be just two Power conferences, the SEC and the Big 10. If so, these two power conferences, made up of the biggest college athletics programs, will likely enjoy the most lucrative TV contracts and ever-growing coffers.