I agree that they'll gain more in TV revenue with the 3 "mega weekends", I'm just not sure that counterbalances the losses from losing the CCG, what with the sponsors, tickets, concessions, parking, etc. The estimates of that value are in the $12-15 million-a-year range, and I just don't think that the increased television contracts will make up that difference, especially since ABC/ESPN would already get at least 4, and more often 5/6, of those 6 games every year.

I also agree in that I don't want OSU-UM to be reduced in importance, and I'm all for new ideas.
All in all, I'd love to see your idea implemented, I just don't think it'll happen. I didn't mean for my earlier comment to come across as overly negative- I've been told that sometimes that happens with my writing style. Unfortunately, I haven't come up with a way to add a team, keep The Game once a year, every year, and allow for it to still have the potential to decide the conference championship. It's certainly a tough problem.

The big problem with this is $$. Adding a team to the conference only really benefits the whole conference monetarily if it increases everyone's revenue, and the only way that happens is with the estimated $15 million the Big Ten gets for staging a conference championship game. If that doesn't happen, bringing in Texas isn't going to add enough money to the pool to offset the addition of another team sharing the money.

Cassius-

The Big Ten has a new rule outlawing night games in November, which means that OSU-PSU won't be played at 8PM....it will probably be the ABC 3:30 game that day, though.