Iowa AD reportedly opposed to the Big Ten expanding to more than 16 teams
We are are in unprecedented times in college football right now due to the transfer portal running rampant, NIL deals everywhere, and of course the latest rendition of conference realignment.
USC and UCLA have followed suit of Texas and Oklahoma (SEC), and left their former conference to join what is expected to be one of the two or three mega-conferences of college football, the Big Ten. As a result of their move, the Pac-12 conference has been in a constant "will they, won't they" scenario, as at one point the conference was expected to collapse, but now expansion is trending upwards.
There have also been constant murmurs of schools looking to leave the Pac-12 as schools such as Oregon, and most recently Washington, have met to determine their compatibility with the Big Ten. However, in what has been a very unexpected response, multiple Big Ten teams have been opposed to the idea of continued expansion.
On Wednesday, Pac-12 insider John Wilner reported that there was a belief that Ohio State was opposed to further expansion. Now on Friday, according to reports by The Athletic, Iowa's athletic director Gary Barta seems to be content at 16 teams. In an interview with The Athletic, Barta expressed that he doesn't think there's additional value in expansion saying:
“I feel like when we added the two that we added, it made sense. It had a lot of momentum behind it,” Barta said Thursday. “I’ve not yet heard anything that would get me at Iowa — I’m just speaking for Iowa — excited to say, ‘Let’s continue to expand more.’ So, I don’t feel like it’s a hot button. But that’s one person’s opinion. I won’t speak for the conference.
He continued saying:
“Whatever upside Iowa will receive from the new TV contract, I’m certainly not going to be interested in supporting additional expansion, if that means Iowa would get less. That’s just one criteria, but that’s an important one.”
If more schools, especially of the magnitude of Ohio State and even Iowa continue to come out against the Big Ten expansion, it could very well result in schools like Oregon, Stanford, Cal, and Washington staying put in the Pac-12.
The Pac-12 has been receiving inquiries from teams wanting to join the conference, and is also in the midst of media rights negations. According to Canzano, there likely won't be any movement until after Labor Day but the more Big Ten teams that oppose expansion the better the Pac-12's chances are of staying afloat and expanding.
