Contendah Number Four: Missourah

First off, great job on the write-up. Nothing I can really argue with here.

Second, this moving thing obviously comes around for us every couple of years as well. In the end, a lot of the pro and con arguers come down to where the person actually lives. For instance, I am not a Mizzou fan by birth (born in CT), and I am for a potential move to the Big XI. However, many long-time, Missouri-bred fans would be against this, though many for the reasons of keeping rivalries over anything tangible or business-related.

From our (my) standpoint, I’d love to see this because it would re-elevate our academic prestige, plus the move is not some ridiculous jump of geographic faith (ahem…looking at you ACC). The rivalry with Illinois exists, one with Iowa would start (again) very quickly and other schools would fall in line. If anything, the moving of the kU game to Arrowhead in KC proves we could swap Illinois and kU (especially with the new Sprint Center in KC for basketball as well). And let’s face it, the money (both academic and athletic) would be better.

From your (Big XI) standpoint, I see this making sense because it would extend your TV markets perhaps more than with any other move. The completion of a split STL market, moving across the state and taking a chunk of the KC market is about as many sets as you might be able to add. Let’s face it, (and I know this from experience of growing up in CT), you already own the northeast completely (thanks to the Penn State addition), so adding Rutgers or ‘Cuse does not gain you anything. Pitt is the same since you already extend to Happy Valley. L’ville…eh…I dont see how much you would add but that one makes the most sense to me of all the other options (sans ND and probably us).

I don’t see where this move makes any sense to the B12, the B11 or Mizzou. Not only does this make the B11 now 12 teams and the B12 now 11 teams, but Mizzou is going to give up some long-standing rivalrys against Iowa State (since 1908), Kansas (since 1891), Kansas State (since 1914), Nebraska (since 1892) and even a fairly longstanding rivalry with Colorado (since 1934). That’s the B12 North, and those teams have been on the schedule every year since the dates mentioned, with a couple game sporadically before that. Even in the South, we maintain rivalries with Oklahoma (since 1910) and Oklahoma State (since 1949), though those games aren’t played annually anymore.

The Big 12 is the latest in the evolution of conferences going back to the Big 6, which became the Big 7, then Big 8. Before that was the old Missouri Valley conference.

There’s a ton of history with Mizzou where it is, and it doesn’t make sense to move the B11 because we have a newer rivalry with Illinois (which may or may not be renewed beyond the current contract in football), and a possible J-school rivalry with Northwestern. Outside of those two schools, and the natural Iowa rivalry that would form, what does Mizzou care about Michigan, Ohio State or Penn State?

The big thing is money. I have don’t know and don’t have the inclination to look and see what Mizzou’s take is from the TV contracts the B12 holds with ESPN/ABC/FSN/Versus compared to what the take is in the B11 from ESPN/ABC/Big 10 Network. From a national perspective (I live in San Diego), I can watch Mizzou at an 11am kickoff on my local FSN, but I never see any of the B11 games on the Big 10 network. I’m sure that has an effect on recruiting somehow.

Just my 2 cents.

From a football recruiting standpoint, Mizzou would lose a lot of its pull with Texas High Schools. Now they can come in and say, “I know UT and OU didn’t pick you, but we’d love to have you play and you’d get to play a few games a year in Texas, and would be on TV in Texas all the time.” They couldn’t make that offer anymore, in the big ten.

Who do they have, from a rivalry standpoint, in the Big XII North? Kansas? Iowa State? MIzzou?

Their only real rival from the old Big 8 days was Oklahoma, and that went away with the birth of the Big XII. The thought at the time was to put them in different divisions and they’d play for the conference championship every year.

They are another powerhouse program on the way to redemption, with only a faded rivalry with Oklahoma keeping them where they are now. And the ruination of the great Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry was the prime reason that I feel you need to keep OSU-UM in the same division. They only play every few years now, and at one time it was one of the top three rivalries in the country.

There’s also an undercurrent of resentment in the northern schools of the old Big 8 days. This conference has a decidedly Texas/southern bias towards it now; the conference headquarters and conference championship game moved from KC to Dallas, and I could see Nebraska being lured away easier than I could Mizzou. Mizzou has Kansas, and that’s a rivalry as real as OSU-UM.