This was on Clemson tiger net & seems to be insider on one of the B1G teams. Take it for what you will. He sure sounds authentic relative to the info and it makes a whole lot of sense. Long read but worth it………………. Big Ten information. College football fan @Genetics56 1: Clemson and Florida State are waiting for the "signal" to leave. I don't know when that signal will be sent. The signal is essentially the Big Ten and the network partners telling Florida State and Clemson that they are ready to add a southern swing of schools. Big Ten commish can't just call and say "hey, it's time for your offer." FSU has a "home." The presidents of the schools will tell him to go and add the others after conversations with FOX/NBC/CBS. The networks want it. It isn't going to be just two schools down south when this is done. Target should be anywhere from 2 at first and then up to 4 or 5. The additions outside of FSU and Clemson will have to come in at a very low number like OR/WA did. so they will go to 20, but it isn't known how quickly they will go to more than 20 because of the GOR issues/cost that other schools will have. so this may have to be a long, bleeding process before it is in it's completed form. I'm told that the Big Ten would like to get UNC but they know that may not happen. The talk of UNC and UVA as the top targets or moved onto those two schools is not true. UVA has no shot at a Big Ten invite right now because FOX will not pay for it, just like they are not willing to pay for Cal and Stanford. FOX wants regional brands and rivalries in all regions to broadcast on their channels and the same with CBS and NBC. FOX is going to try and retain all content under their "umbrella" so they own the assets. From my understanding, rights will be acquired. What the expense is and who has to send the check, I don't know. 2: I was told several high level decision makers at Clemson would prefer to go to the Big Ten. They will have no issue of going to the SEC if they can't get into the Big Ten. There have been several back channel communications. Of course the Big Ten presidents want to move slower but FOX wants it done as quickly as they can. 3: FOX already knew the Pac-12 was going to implode several weeks before Colorado announced for the Big 12. FOX was ready to communicate to the Big Ten to get things going. Go back to when the Big Ten commish spoke at media days. He didn't say anything about not adding anymore schools for a reason. He just said the presidents didn't authorize him to do it (yet). The presidents of the Big Ten schools did not want to add those two schools for several years but had to do it now or lose them for the long-term. Many in the Big Ten are very, very happy with the last 4 conference additions. Now it's a matter of timing for when they add the southern wing to the conference. They want to be THE national conference and outside forces are not gong to be able to prevent that from happening. 4: The OR/WA ordeal was closer to falling apart than the public knows. They estimate that it will cost $10M annually in travel costs alone and having a payout of $30M, they will have fewer dollars to spend on other resources. FOX would only give them 1 million dollars annually for travel expenses, which is not the normal process. Usually a network will never agree to something like this. That goes to show how strong the relationship is between FOX and the Big Ten. It's a very healthy relationship. 5: There was no push back from USC and UCLA leaders for adding OR/WA even when they are not voting members. They don't view OR/WA additions will impact USC's ability to be the dominant brand out west. 6: There are serious conversations, at least at the athletic department level, for going to 10 conference games. 7: ESPN does not want to lose the ACC. That's been made clear by many communications among people. But they will also not pay a boat load of new money because they don't have the money to do it and don't have the authorization to do it. 8: The Big Ten isn't viewing Notre Dame as a must get to accomplish the national conference goal. That wasn't the case last summer as they tried to get Notre Dame to join. The Big Ten and network partners are not worried about what the other conferences and networks do. They have complete control of the biggest brands out west, have the big brands in the Big Ten, will get their southern swing accomplished, and then later will get into Texas. There's nobody paying anyone to try and get any result. ESPN can't do anything unless their bosses sign off on it and right now they don't have authorization to make any new tv deals, etc.