John Feinstein: In the Big Ten, Maryland sees power in numbers

So now Maryland thinks it wants to join the Big Ten. Not surprisingly, the bottom line on such a deal would be — of course — the bottom line.

There’s not a thing wrong with that.

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Here’s what the Big Ten will offer: First, and foremost, lots more money. The Big Ten TV package is already worth far more than the ACC TV package, and it is going to soar even more in 2017 when its primary rights are up for bid again. The ACC just locked into a long-term deal with ESPN that is lucrative but won’t be up again until 2027. That means the potential for growth is far greater in the Big Ten.

Those who will decry the loss of tradition and longstanding rivalries should look around. One of Maryland’s biggest problems competitively is that it doesn’t have a true arch rival. Have you ever heard a recruit in any sport say, “I chose Maryland for the chance to play in the Maryland-Virginia game every year?”

No. As for Duke and North Carolina being rivals in basketball, there are a couple of issues. To begin with, the two schools look at each other, not at Maryland, as their primary rival. Second, when Gary Williams made Maryland-Duke and Maryland-North Carolina basketball games important, the Terrapins were playing four games annually against the two schools, and frequently five and occasionally six games. Now, in the expanded ACC, one or the other will come to Comcast Center each season. Period. Frequency of competition makes rivalries great in basketball. It can’t happen for Maryland anymore in the John Swofford-redesigned ACC, where Maryland basketball is guaranteed two annual games only with Pittsburgh, which the Terrapins have faced all of seven times.

The Big Ten can offer Penn State as a football rival. Even after its horrific fall from grace, Penn State is going to be a football power, as it has proven by winning seven games in its crippled state this season. For years, Maryland played Penn State annually (and lost annually; the Terrapins are 1-35-1 all-time against the Nittany Lions). What’s more, visits by Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin and Michigan State will likely fill a few more seats in Byrd Stadium than games against Virginia, Wake Forest, Duke and North Carolina State.

One of Maryland’s biggest complaints with ACC membership was that the league was marketed and sold as a North Carolina-based business. Williams screamed about that all the time. “We might as well be in Siberia,” he once famously said in a reference to the ACC office being located in Greensboro, N.C., and its focus on the state’s four league schools — especially Duke and North Carolina.

Williams wasn’t wrong, but moving to the Big Ten isn’t going to change Maryland’s status as an outlier. The Big Ten office is in a Chicago suburb and the heart of the league is always going to be in the Midwest regardless of expansion into Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey — assuming Rutgers goes along for the ride with Maryland.

That said, the second major reason beyond money for Maryland to make this move is football. Maryland football — like at most schools in the ACC — hasn’t really mattered on the national stage since the 1950s.