Two More For Big Ten

The tentacles of the big boys struck again yesterday with the announcement that Maryland and Rutgers will join the Big Ten Conference.  The conference is focused on making even more money for its members via future television deals as the primary reason for offering these two schools is access to Eastern markets.  I guess that is a good enough reason to water down your conference talent level (on the football field as they will certainly be a boost to other sports like women's basketball), but will ad sales continue to improve as the number of mediocre games increase?  Will a Wisconsin-Maryland football game excite anyone?  Keep in mind that the Baltimore-DC marketplace is pro oriented.  The Terps have to have a good team to attract attention and being that they stink in the worst BCS conference, how do we think that they will be any good in the Big Ten?  And does anyone really believe that the ratings of other Big Ten games will really improve by that much simply because a bad Big Ten squad plays nearby?  Getting people in Maryland excited for a Iowa-Nebraska game will take decades of promotion.
As a fan of Rutgers sports I must say that I have seen this all before.  Before joining the Big East Rutgers had a solid independent football team and one of the better sports programs in the Atlantic 10.  The football team, after bottoming out in the mid to late 1990s is now in good shape although hardly that much better than the better teams of the 1970s and 80s.  They have not even sold out every football game this season despite having an excellent season to date.  As for basketball, the program had its ups and downs before joining the Big East and made the occasional NCAA tournament--even advancing to the final four in 1976.  Since joining the BE they have been pretty awful and have not secured a tourney berth in that time (17 years), so I am unsure of the benefits for Rutgers athletics.  This is especially the case when considering that a lot of the increased money earned by being a member of the BE has had to go back into the programs with middling results.
This is be the case for both Rutgers and Maryland as they enter the Big Ten as a great deal of the extra money secured by joining the conference will be poured into the football programs to allow them to remain competitive while aslo being wasted on the increased expenses of away games to Lincoln and Madison, etc.
So, then, how does any of this help the Scarlet Knights and Terps?  I doubt they will be helped on the field.  All of the other Big Ten teams will now recruit New Jersey and Maryland better while taking advantage of the difference between their athletic programs and those of RU and Maryland on Saturdays the way UConn and Syracuse, etc, took advantage of the Rutgers basketball program.  Playing in the Big Ten should help the national stature of both schools but there are easier ways to do that.  My alma mater, Fordham, has bettered its national standing over the past 25 years without doing too much athletically.  So let me be on the record as saying these moves are ridiculous.  they remind me of the playground when the cool guys allow a nerd to join their game and the nerd dumps his friends only to get his ass kicked by the cool kids.  Just stick it out with the ones you know.