Big Ten Expansion Round 2: Television Market Share

In the first round of Pac-10 expansion talks, I posted the reputational academic bonafides of the current Big Ten Schools and their potential new brethern.

In this round, we will look at the television markets that are currently being utilized and what a newcomer would have to offer.

Now, when talking markets, we are going to refer to the specific regional markets for these teams. The market sizes are done based off of data from Nielsen Media Research.

As with the Pac-10 television markets exercise,  note that some markets may contain more than one city. With the Big Ten, the largest market may not necessarily be the city where the school is actually located (see Penn State):

Illinois (Champaign-Urbana/Springfield/Decatur): 84
Indiana (Indianapolis): 25
Iowa (Cedar Rapids): 88
Michigan (Detroit): 11
Michigan State (Lansing/Jackson): 115
Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul): 15
Northwestern (Chicago): 3
Ohio State (Columbus): 34
Penn State (Altoona/Johnstown): 101
Purdue (Lafayette): 191
Wisconsin (Madison): 85

Not a lot of large markets. At least, not as many as the Pac-10. But that's also because of the nature of where the campuses are located and how the conferences evolved.

So let's look at the schools that the Big Ten has an eye on (allegedly):

Missouri (Columbia/Jefferson City): 137

Notre Dame (South Bend/Elkhart): 91
Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh): 23
Rutgers (New York City): 1
Syracuse (Syracuse): 83
Texas (Austin): 48

Now it looks interesting, doesn't it?

If the Big Ten wants to pull in a new market, why not try and tap into the largest market that is still out there in New York City?

Michigan and Penn State have huge alumni bases in the city already, and New York is the unconquered final frontier as far as college football goes.

And if the NFL locks out its players for the 2011 season (and if Rutgers can find the magic of the 2006 season again....)