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I was musing today about Iowa’s misfortune of having to play at Ohio State again in 2024—marking the second consecutive matchup in Columbus. Curious whether this reflected a broader scheduling imbalance, I turned to MCubed to examine whether the Big Ten has historically operated as a home-and-home conference. The answer, it turns out, is no.

Iowa has faced Michigan 61 times, with 35 games played in Ann Arbor and only 26 in Iowa City.

Against Ohio State, the disparity is even greater: 67 total matchups, with 41 in Columbus and just 26 In Iowa City.

Iowa's only other Big Ten opponent with a home-away gap exceeding four games is Northwestern. Iowa has hosted Northwestern 46 times, while traveling to Evanston or Chicago 40 times.

When the College Football Data Warehouse website was up, I recall Iowa played Chicago about 4x more in Chicago than in Iowa City.

I am curious if Michigan and Ohio State have similar home and away scheduling advantages with other Big Ten schools, too.

Northwestern played a few OSU home games in the Browns stadium, back when they were just beyond dreadful. So that explains the numbers there. 

Microsoft Copilot says that in the 1950s and 1960s Big Ten teams shared 50% of their gate receipts directly with visiting conference teams. At some point this evolved, and during the 2000s Big Ten teams share 35% of gate receipts into a pool for the entire conference. I am not sure this information is accurate, but it would explain why conference schools' with few gate receipts would be okay playing more road games at Ohio State and Michigan, than home games.

The stated rationale is, "This system helps maintain competitive balance and reflects the Big Ten’s long-standing philosophy of conference-first economics. It’s one of the few leagues that still does this—most others let schools keep all gate revenue."

Frankly, from a fan's standpoint, I prefer home-and-home.

When who was dreadful, the Browns, or Northwestern?

Both

Wouldn't the "conference" be interested in having other teams being competitive on a near annual basis?  Wouldn't interest be greater if on occasion Minnesota won, or PSU, or Nebraska, or Purdue (spitballin').  Since say 1970, how often has another team won the Big Ten (Rose Bowl appearances would be OK)?  Is that good or bad?

From 1968 through 1980, only OSU or M went to the Rose Bowl.

Headquarters is not in agreement.