The Big Ten Expansion part 643 - An 18 team Big Ten?

I jest in the title a bit but it is amazing how much press Big Ten Expansion gets every time it is mentioned.  The conventional wisdom now is that the Big Ten is looking to go to 16 teams.  I wonder why they don't goto 18 teams as it makes more sense.  Currently the Big Ten has 8 conference games a year and that won't increase as the  fans and administrators for these schools don't want to lose a home game.

So why would they goto a 16 team conference? 



A 16 team conference would be split and leave two divisions of 8 teams.  That would give you 7 conference games a year meaning that you have one conference game left over.  The only real options would be to either 1) add a game meaning taking conference games to 8 so you'd play each team in the other division once every 4 years or 2) reduce the number of conference games to 7.  As I stated earlier I seriously doubt they add a game because that would mean .5 less home games a year and the bigger schools don't want to lose a payday (100,000 fans x $50++ ticket plus parking and concessions).

They could avoid that by going with an 18 team conference.  This is what it would look like:

East
Boston College (a)
Rutgers (b)
Pittsburgh (c)
Syracuse (b)
Notre Dame  (a)
Penn State (c)
Ohio State (d)
Michigan (d)
Michigan State


West
Nebraska (e)
Missouri (f)
Iowa (e)
Wisconsin (g)
Minnesota (g)
Northwestern
Illinois (f)
Purdue (h)
Indiana (h)

I realize that this is probably fantasy but I love the thought of the natural rivalries of Pitt-Penn State, Iowa-Nebraska, Notre Dame-Boston College, Illinois-Missouri, and Rutgers-Syracuse (ok that one doesn't excite me).  Both conferences look equally difficult with historical powers of Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State in the East to match up with Nebraska, Wisconsin and Iowa in the West.  Each team would play the other members of their division one time and the team with the best record would play in the championship.  The above isn't perfect as the east is probably a bit too powerful but I love the concept (you can't move Notre Dame to the west without affecting their long time rivalry with Boston College and Michigan).

On the money side of things you have added the following markets ... New York, New Jersey, Nebraska, St. Louis, Kansas City, Boston.  The only possible school we are leaving out would be Connecticut.  I could see them replacing Pittsburgh if the leaders were only after money/power.  The resulting conference would own the college sports in those markets.

This would help even in educational research as they'd cover a huge part of the population of the United States.  The Big Ten covers 8 states currently.  This would expand their influence in the states of Nebraska, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and possibly even Rhode Island.  That's a voting bloc that few could ignore.

It's fun to think about but the downside would to never being able to play Iowa/Wisconsin/etc except in a championship game.  I'd miss that.