Rachel Bachman and Laine Higgins:
For almost all of its 129-year existence, the Big Ten has positioned itself as a moral custodian of college football.
This was a conference of hulking stadiums and buttoned-up traditions that was older than the NCAA itself. It bragged about the academic prestige of its schools and reminded its athletes that they were students first, sneering at all those other schools that had the audacity to win at all costs.
The Big Ten was so wedded to its own way of doing things that Ohio State undergraduates still hear about the time that a bunch of professors kept the Buckeyes out of the Rose Bowl to punish a coach for paying his players.
But in recent decades, Big Ten leaders have appeared less concerned with maintaining its particular heritage and more interested in squeezing every last dollar out of the business of college sports.
What was once a hallowed collection of 10 Midwestern universities has nearly doubled in size, to 18 schools, including those in the New York and Los Angeles TV markets. The Big Ten now generates more than $1 billion a year from its media rights.