Big 10 looking at summer baseball

[MizzouShockerFan]

http://www.ncaa.com/news/baseball/article/2012-02-29/big-ten-mulling-summer-baseball

Interesting article regarding the Big 10 and an idea floating around that has them thinking about moving baseball to a summer sport. They would not be eligible for the CWS, but hell, they haven't had a team in Omaha since Michigan in 1984.
Obviously they are realizing that money can be made on men's baseball and they have historically had no shot at getting the top HS baseball players in the country.
They can't compete with the rest of the country, so they try to change the rules, and when that does not work, they want to take their ball and do their own thing....so the Big 10 Network has something to sell and make money from.

[SPEShockAlum]

I'm not sure that sits well with a team like Nebraska which has had some very good teams in the past 5-10 years and made a handful of CWS appearances. Even Ohio State has been very competitive and made deep runs in the NCAA tournament in recent memory (I believe that's who Missouri State beat back in 2003 for its bid to Omaha), but I guess any team can get hot at the right time.

NU knows that baseball is a money maker, although not nearly as much as what they do across the street.

[shox1989]

http://www.ncaa.com/news/baseball/ar...ummer-baseball

Interesting article regarding the Big 10 and an idea floating around that has them thinking about moving baseball to a summer sport. They would not be eligible for the CWS, but hell, they haven't had a team in Omaha since Michigan in 1984.
Obviously they are realizing that money can be made on men's baseball and they have historically had no shot at getting the top HS baseball players in the country.
They can't compete with the rest of the country, so they try to change the rules, and when that does not work, they want to take their ball and do their own thing....so the Big 10 Network has something to sell and make money from.

I wouldn't think that UNL would like that idea, but they haven't sniffed the CWS for a few years now so they may be looking at the dollars they could make playing in front of a full stadium in the summer.

The BIG 10 is looking at holding their conference tourney at TD Ameritrade so I suppose they could hold their own mini CWS in August in Omaha.

[rrshock]

Why don't they just do this for all the schools? Start late spring and play through the beginning of august. That would allow the students to load up on credit hours in the fall and only take like 3 or 6 hours in the summer. It would even out the cold vs hot weather schools as well.

[SB Shock]

The southern power conferences don't way to give up their advantage they have.

[SPEShockAlum]

The southern power conferences don't way to give up their advantage they have.

Wasn't that the point of the uniform start date a few years ago? Not that they still don't have an advantage (i.e. playing in Tallahassee in February/March is usually more pleasant than playing in Wichita).

[SB Shock]

But they fought it pretty hard (an they are still trying to get relief). They complain they have to play mid week games and that is not fair. Of course their concern is for the students.

[shocker3]

If the Big 10 pulls out of winter/spring ball and goes to summer ball it might lead several other northern conferences to follow them. In the future we might have 2 CWS one for the southern schools and a later one for the northern schools.

The Big 10 is powerful enough to lead to this kind of split.

[shox1989]

If the Big 10 pulls out of winter/spring ball and goes to summer ball it might lead several other northern conferences to follow them. In the future we might have 2 CWS one for the southern schools and a later one for the northern schools.

The Big 10 is powerful enough to lead to this kind of split.

That could be very interesting if it happened. It sure would make college baseball more popular in the northern half of the country if the games were played in the summer.

TD Ameritrade Park isn't getting much use, so they probably wouldn't mind hosting both CWS's.

[BenWSU]

If college baseball moves to summer, you can pretty much kiss the NBC World Series goodbye

[Ta town]

If college baseball moves to summer, you can pretty much kiss the NBC World Series goodbye

Seems to me the NBC took a nose dive about 10 years ago and isn't anywhere near what it use to be anyways.

[KC Shox]

There is some b.s. to that argument. Northern program Oregon State won back-to-back CWS titles a few years back. Am I missing something with Oregon weather?

[billybud]

The average daily high in Corvalis Oregon in March ranges from the middle to high 50's.....Ann Arbor forthe first half of March has a high of 43 and the low gets cold. Madison is much the same only a little colder.

[shox1989]

If college baseball moves to summer, you can pretty much kiss the NBC World Series goodbye

It has been dying a slow death for about 20 years now. It is nothing like it used to be. But if the southern and northern schools split so that the southern schools still played in the spring, the NBC could still exist with southern players while the northern schools played summer ball.

[shocker3]

If there were to be a split season then maybe some of the northern schools that have dropped baseball in recent years might consider bringing back their progams. In this area alone I can think of UNI, Drake, Iowa State and Colorado.