Welcome to New York, otherwise known as Big Ten country. At least that’s the case this week.
The Big Ten men’s basketball tournament tips off Wednesday, a week earlier than normal and several hundred miles east of its usual home in Chicago or Indianapolis.
But ever since the conference admitted Maryland and Rutgers earlier this decade, the Big Ten footprint now includes the Big Apple, and the league is trying to drive home that point by holding its marquee basketball event at Madison Square Garden, even if the date is a little quirky — a week earlier than most other major conferences.
“We’ve been really focused on not only bringing Rutgers and Maryland into our conference, but building a seamless transition from a conference that lived in one region to a conference that now lives in two,” Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said.
For a market that’s forever been known as a pro sports town, New York has been the object of affection from college conferences working hard to plant a flag in the Manhattan concrete the last few years.
The Big East has forever had dibs on Madison Square Garden and still does, which has sent outsiders like the ACC and Big Ten in search of alternative ways to hold their basketball tournament in the world’s media capital.
The ACC opted for Barclays Center and will return to Brooklyn next week for the second straight year.
The Big Ten compressed its conference schedule so it could play its tournament a week early at Madison Square Garden. big ten conference
The Big Ten, meanwhile, decided to play its tournament a week earlier as a means to get in Madison Square Garden on the building’s 50th anniversary. The move wasn’t without headaches. The compressed schedule meant conference games started in early December.
Two other factors that would have been unforeseen in 2014 when the Big Ten scheduled this championship and squeezed the regular season: Northwestern moved out of its old arena into temporary quarters and Minnesota hosted the Super Bowl, both of which reduced scheduling flexibility and hindered practice time, Delany said.
“It’s been hard, but at the same time, the opportunity to be at the Garden is something we knew would require an adjustment,” he said. “I’m not sure we could do it again this way. But it’s part of a series of Eastern initiatives. It’s important that we not only play there but also live there.”
The conference is expecting a full house at MSG, what with its 88,000 alumni in the New York area and close to 1 million in that stretch from southern Connecticut to northern Virginia. The Big Ten played its tournament in Washington, D.C., last year.
If those alums in New York don’t know about this week’s tournament at MSG, it hasn’t been for a lack of effort on the Big Ten’s part.
Led by Deputy Commissioner Diane Dietz and Robin Jentes, the conference’s assistant commissioner for branding, the Big Ten has flooded the zone with advertising that includes the dates of the tournament and how to get tickets across a backdrop of the Manhattan skyline. Other ads flash “March is On” and “Big Ten in the Big Apple.”
The signage runs in Times Square, MSG Network displays and digital displays at Penn Station and on bus stops, phone booths and street kiosks throughout the city.
The conference also has made media buys on Altice Media and local radio, TV and print.
Returning to New York would be tough, Delany said. The Big Ten returns to its usual rotation of Chicago and Indianapolis next year through 2022, and the women’s tournament is locked up through 2022 as well.
“It’s something that requires a lot of adjustments,” he said. “I’m not sure we could do it again.”
The ad buys in New York were made by the Big Ten office; an outside agency was not used. An Indianapolis firm, Sport Graphics, did the design.
