Much to the dismay of college sports fans everywhere, the Big Ten unveiled their new logo (above) and the division names this week. Immediately following the conference’s announcement, an uproar lit up just about every form of media across the country, as people voiced their displeasure and hurled insults at what the Big Ten had just released.
The conference’s expansion to twelve teams necessitated a move to a divisional alignment. Rather than giving the divisions names based on geographic directions, the fine folks at the Big Ten office tried to be original. In their attempt at originality, they went a little too far, given that member schools will now find themselves in either the Legends or Leaders division.
A few years ago when the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) expanded, I thought they went a little unorthodox when they split into the Atlantic and Coastal divisions. That appears to be incredibly tame, now, when compared to what was released this week. I get the whole ‘trying to be cool and original” thing that they were going for, but sometimes it’s best to be simple. Someone at the Big Ten office obviously obsessed over the division names for far too long, and now there will be a Legends champion and a Leaders champion playing for a conference title. How ridiculous does that sound? I can’t wait to see someone like ESPN’s Chris Fowler, or any other sportscaster for that matter, try to break down the Legends and Leaders divisions, on camera, and try to keep a straight face.
As for the new logo, I can’t say that I hate it, although they clearly could’ve done a lot better. What they came up with looks like it easily could’ve been put together using Microsoft Word, in roughly fifteen seconds. The Big Ten’s old logo was much more clever, given that it took me about ten years to discover the “11” hidden in the script’s negative space. While I wasn’t banking a hidden “12”, something a little more interesting wasn’t too much to ask.
While the divisions and logo are legitimately bad, the Big Ten luckily won’t be defined by these, but instead will continue to be defined by their member institutions and the student-athletes that compete for them. That is certainly good news for commissioner Jim Delany, who will soon be answering questions about bowl games and college basketball, as the initial shock over these announcements blows over. Delany and the Big Ten might be regarded as losers when it comes to their recent work, but the conference will continue to produce winners year after year.
