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Message: [QUOTE="Orangeman, post: 417027, member: 972"] MONEY It's been on the periphery (at least perceptually), but Business has finally invaded College Sports directly. Referring to Under Armor...what possible motivation can there be to pony up $50m to pay for your team to leave one conference for another? Why not just fund that department so that it competes better in the one it's in, the one you were a founding member of? This is most worrying point...that maybe MD did leave because they see more cracks in the foundation. But, there's also the chance that this is a business opportunity for UA...how many Big 10 schools had they cracked? Where does UA fit in all this? Maybe they get more deals as a result? Big 10 does probably have more alumni/etc given all the state schools...I wonder if there will be any blowback on the Consumer side in the Southern states to UA's business...unlikely cause they're good products, but would be interesting. WEST VIRGINIA Sure they had no defense, but they just played their first season with arguably one of their best teams and they'll be lucky if they get to a bowl...not to mention I'm very curious about the wear & tear to their sports programs on the whole from a fall of jetting off to all these places. So far I think it was Texas, etc who used distance as a reason (excuse?) to not join a place...what has WVU's experience been, and is the friction enough to get them to consider joining a Conference with so many of their former conference partners? Losing MD but adding WVU would be largely a lift athletically... MARYLAND Can you imagine being an athlete there, perhaps outside of Football, and now you're not flying to Miami or Tallahassee to play basketball, but rather Madison, WI and somewhere in MN in the dead of winter? How about the Volleyball team...someone correct me here, but my understanding was that while the Big 10 is no slouch in "Other" sports, the ACC is better and competitive w/ the Pac 10, etc. Man would that make me reconsider...but, it's all about Football (certainly the Big 10 is no step up in Basketball) and business. ACC should add Louisville and WVU to get to 15...find out of ND is really a "never", in which case you add CT and move on from there. [/QUOTE]

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