Big Ten Conference

On June 11, 2010, the Big Ten Conference announced that its member schools voted unanimously to accept the University of Nebraska as the conference’s 12th member beginning on July 1, 2011.

The Big Ten Conference is a union of 12 world-class academic institutions who share a common mission of research, graduate, professional and undergraduate teaching and public service.  The conference’s 100-plus years of history, strong tradition of competitive intercollegiate athletic programs, vast and passionate alumni base, and consistent leadership in innovations position the Big Ten and its entire community firmly on the Big Stage.

The Big Ten has sustained a comprehensive set of shared practices and policies that enforce the priority of academics and emphasize the values of integrity, fairness and competitiveness in all aspects of its student-athletes’ lives, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that each individual has the opportunity to live a Big Life.

• www.bigten.org
• Big Ten universities provide approximately $120 million in direct financial aid to more than 9,500 men and women student-athletes who compete for 25 championships
• Conference institutions sponsor broad-based athletic programs with 298 teams. Other than the Ivy League, the Big Ten has the most broad-based athletic programs in the United States
• Big Ten fans are some of the nation’s most supportive, with nearly nine million patrons attending conference home contests for football, men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball during 2010-11. In 2010, the Big Ten set attendance records for overall and average attendance in conference football games. In men’s basketball, the Big Ten led the nation in average home attendance for the 35th straight season, while Big Ten women’s volleyball also led the nation in total home attendance.
• Over the last 32 seasons, the conference has ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 nationally in football, men’s basketball and wrestling attendance.
• Big Ten institutions have approximately five million living alumni and nearly 350,000 undergraduate students attending their universities.
• Based on the U.S. Census projected population for 2010, the nine-state Big Ten region accounts for approximately 70 million people, which ranks second only to the Big East and well ahead of the ACC, SEC, Pac-10 and Big 12.
   

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• Membership in the Big Ten also gives Nebraska coast-to-coast television exposure on the Big Ten Network, meaning the friends and family of a Nebraska student-athlete can see a majority of their athletic competitions.
• Headquartered in Chicago, the Big Ten Network is the first internationally distributed television network dedicated to covering one of America’s premier collegiate conferences.
• With more than 350 live sports events, and virtually all of them in high definition, the Big Ten Network is the ultimate destination for Big Ten fans and alumni across the country. The network is on the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
• The network is available to an estimated 75 million households, through agreements with more than 300 cable/satellite affiliates and appears in 19 of the nation’s top 20 media markets. It is available in all 50 states and Canada. That includes existing distribution agreements with each of the nation’s 10 largest cable, satellite and telco providers.
• In 2010, every Big Ten home football game was nationally televised. Including road and neutral games, 99 percent (87 of 88) of Big Ten games were televised nationally. In 2010, the ACC (29 games), Big 12 (23) and SEC (10) combined to have 62 games go without live national television coverage.