IOWA CITY, Iowa — With Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA joining the Big Ten in August, the league has already finalized new scheduling models for football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball that prioritize competitive balance, geography and rivalries. The next scheduling phase involves Olympic sports with the same key tenets steering the process as their higher-profile colleagues, but cost and travel have an even greater impact.
On Feb. 19-20, Big Ten officials and school athletics administrators will meet at league headquarters in Rosemont, Ill. to discuss and perhaps finalize scheduling principles for fall Olympic sports. The spring sports likely will settle plans in May. With different priorities guiding each sport, scheduling ideas have ranged from true rotations to regional preference to even some sports on the same campus traveling together to save costs.
“In terms of some of the efficiencies, I don’t think that has been discussed as much because you’re talking about principles right now and not dates,” Iowa athletic director Beth Goetz said. “So if you’re going to figure out if there can be shared travel, you’re going to have to have the actual schedule in front of you to do that.”
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