August 2, 2021

BIG 1👀??

As you’re reading this, I am stationed in Stamford, CT, where I am writing a daily Olympics talk show called “Talkin Tokyo” with hosts LaChina Robinson and Adam Rippon. It’s a fun show! It airs at 10:30 ET every day, live on Twitter. My involvement in this program means I have the hours of Nandor the Relentless, which might explain why I haven’t been tracking the Big Ten drama as closely as I might like to.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion about it!

I’ll shoot it straight—a Big Ten invite would be a gift to Kansas. It would instantly rejuvenate the school as an academic institution—which would be great, as it’s sinking like a brick in the yearly US News rankings—and maybe even reverse a lot of troubling trends at KU. The Big Ten gets a national power basketball program with a national following, and KU football gets thrown a bone. I’m not sure if we deserve it, but if the invite comes, I’ll take it.

Now, the purview of this newsletter is our basketball program. In the greater basketball landscape, if the Big Ten doesn’t end up inviting Kansas, I am confident that the program will have options. This is not the first time I’ve pitched independence, and there’s just a typhoon of money in basketball right now. It wouldn’t surprise me if KU was able to negotiate record rights fees, whenever that negotiation is back on the table.

It feels like we will hear more soon. If it happens, I’ll be demanding 10% more money on any work project, because I just so happened to have attended a Big Ten institution, and I have the diploma (and the well-crafted jpeg at the top of the program to stamp onto stuff) to prove it.