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A $139 million research budget is pretty pitiful for a P5 school.  Maybe Phil Knight sweetened the deal? 

Right.  But of course all these B1G moves are "about the money-- the research money."

LOL

Like we keep saying, we understand why Oregon and Nebraska and Rutgers would want to be in the B1G and gain more access to larger research funding.  That's a no-brainer.  But the reverse isn't true, the B1G wasn't thinking about academics or research when targeting these schools. The conference administration wasn't somehow, illogically tempted, by their well-below-B1G average research budgets (and in Oregon's case its absolutely pitiful research budget).

The fact that UCLA and Washington are such heavy research schools certainly is nice for the B1G, of course.  But it's not why they were targeted.

It's an athletics conference.  The academics are irrelevant when choosing targets for acquisition. If it mattered, Oregon would never have been considered.

Apparently you are right because otherwise Oregon wouldn't be a member.

That said, I think it was the wrong decision.

It's just so baffling.  Oregon doesn't make sense by any metrics I can imagine.

list of research spending by institutions:

• 3, 1.6B Michigan
• 5, 1.5B, Washington
• 6, 1.5B, UCLA
• 8, 1.4B, Wisconsin
• 9. 1.3B, Stanford
• 12, 1.2B, Ohio State
• 17, 1.1B, Maryland
• 22, 1.1B, Minnesota
• 26, 971M, Penn State
• 28, 956M, USC
• 30, 913M, Northwestern
• 37, 731M, Illinois
• 39, 710M, Michigan State
• 40, 695M, Indiana
• 41, 679M, Purdue
• 45, 644M, Rutgers
• 50, 554M, Iowa
• 87, 307M, Nebraska (their Medical center is another $201M, reported separately)
• 149, 139M, Oregon

the list of athletic spending is obviously much different
I know TV money is spread pretty evenly amongst programs within the conference athletically 
is research money spread evenly at all?
I assume Nebraska is benefiting with more research dollars than back in 2010.

I previously posted on this thread that the Big 12 had a clause in their TV contracts that gave them more cash if new teams joined the Big 12, and that what I read online is that the Big Ten's contracts did not have such a clause.

Well -- Ohio State's Gene Smith just let the cat out of the bag -- Fox Sports paid more to allow Oregon and Washington to come into the Big Ten receiving $30-35M per year, less than the full share of the other Big Ten teams, until the TV contracts expire circa 2029 as I recall. Ohio State AD Gene Smith says Fox paid the tab to bring Oregon, Washington to Big Ten (msn.com)

I previously posted on this thread that the Big 12 had a clause in their TV contracts that gave them more cash if new teams joined the Big 12, and that what I read online is that the Big Ten's contracts did not have such a clause.

Well -- Ohio State's Gene Smith just let the cat out of the bag -- Fox Sports paid more to allow Oregon and Washington to come into the Big Ten receiving $30-35M per year, less than the full share of the other Big Ten teams, until the TV contracts expire circa 2029 as I recall. Ohio State AD Gene Smith says Fox paid the tab to bring Oregon, Washington to Big Ten (msn.com)

That's weird since Fox has the noon ET game every week and it's not that likely Wash and Ore will play in the noon game. You would think NBC and CBS would be the ones paying more.

On the other hand,  I guess it does create more overall games for NBC and CBS and Fox and FS1 to choose from.