IOWA CITY, Iowa — With Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA joining the Big Ten in August, the league has already finalized a new scheduling model that prioritizes competitive balance, geography and rivalries for football, men's basketball and women's basketball. . The next stage of the schedule will see Olympic sports operating the process with the same key principles as their illustrious colleagues, but with greater cost and travel implications.
On February 19 and 20, Big Ten officials and school athletic administrators will meet at league headquarters in Rosemont, Illinois, to discuss and potentially finalize scheduling principles for fall Olympic competition. Plans for spring sports are likely to be finalized in May. Each sport has different priorities, so scheduling ideas range from actual rotations to regional preferences and even moving some sports on the same campus together to save costs. It will span.
“I don't think some of the efficiencies are being discussed as much because you're talking about principles now, not dates,” Iowa athletic director Beth Goetz said. “So if you're going to think about whether carpooling is possible, you need to have an actual schedule in front of you to make it happen.”
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As the Big 10 spreads across the continent, cost becomes even more important in travel. According to financial documents obtained by The Athletic Big Ten public schools spent between $7.6 million and $16.5 million on travel during the 2023 fiscal year, according to open records requests. Football teams that competed in College Football Playoff or Final Four events spent the most, including Michigan ($16.5 million), Ohio State ($14.2 million) and Iowa State ($12.3 million). The lower end included Illinois ($7.6 million).
Starting this fall, expenses will skyrocket for new teams on the West Coast, with teams in every sport likely heading to the Pacific time zone at least once, and even more for Big Ten holdovers. For some sports, a way to keep costs down is to convert some discretionary travel to conference travel.
For example, a baseball team from a central or eastern time zone could fly west for spring break, stay an entire week, and play a combination that includes several nonconference games at USC, UCLA, Oregon State, and Washington State on consecutive weekends. There is a debate. middle. Big Ten baseball clubs currently play eight league series, all played over the weekend.
Softball has additional challenges, in part because USC doesn't have a softball program. Currently, the softball team is playing a three-game weekend series with seven games and a two-game midweek series with one game. Another series could be added to softball in 2025, with multiple single games played against each other in locations in Arizona, Florida or Southern California.
“Let's say we play Washington and UCLA, and then Rutgers plays Michigan and Minnesota,” Iowa State softball coach Lenny Gillispie said. “We will all be in the same venue and playing at the same time.
“I just hope they don’t take me to the East Coast and the West Coast in the same year.”
For softball, the current geographic schedule is subject to change. For example, Iowa State plays Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska every year, all of which are played by bus. This spring, the Hawkeyes will travel to Michigan State for the first time since Gillispie took over as head coach in 2019, but Gillispie has yet to play at Ohio State during his tenure. A future goal is for every softball player to visit every Big Ten campus in at least his four years.
That comes at an even greater cost. In the case of sports such as baseball and softball, non-conference flights may be eliminated in favor of long-distance bus travel in favor of adding conference flights in order to maintain balance.
“Is it worth investing the extra time and resources to send you there instead of saying, 'I can go to Nashville?'” Goetz said. “It may not be sunny and 80 degrees, but the opportunity exists.
“We're working with our coaches to try to make that happen. We're not saying, 'There's no travel.' Must stay in this area. ” But there needs to be more dialogue about why we make such decisions and the schedule of no meetings. ”
(Wisconsin Volleyball Photo: Jamie Schwaberow / NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
