BTN.com staff, December 1, 2012

The Big Ten Conference made a little more news recently when it announced Maryland and Rutgers would become the conference 13th and 14th members, respectively. Now, for the entire month of December, BTN will discuss the very questions stirred up by conference expansion and we want you tell us where you stand, too.

The staff at BTN.com hears about it all the time via our customer service inbox, reader mailbags and comment forums. That's why we created a Big Ten expansion section on BTN.com/expansion to house all of our latest posts  Some of these new expansion questions will sound very familiar if you have ever kicked the topic around with friends, family and fans. And yes, there's a question about Legends and Leaders.

They include:

  • Should the Big Ten form new divisions or just add one school to an existing Legends and Leaders division?
  • If the divisions change, how important should competitive equality be?
  • How important is geography when it comes to divisional alignment?
  • How strongly do you feel about keeping rivalry football games? Should they be "protected games" or should they drive divisional alignment?
  • Should in-state rivals be in the same division? Should specific schools be in the same division?
  • What about "Legends" and 'Leaders" as divisional names? Should the Big Ten keep them, or change them?
  • Where do you stand on the number of conference games a Big Ten football team should play?
  • What is the impact of expansion on basketball?  Should divisions apply to basketball, and should all 14 teams make the conference basketball tournaments?

In short, we want to hear about all of it. So now's your chance. Why? Because part of the reason the Big Ten Network exists is to give fans of the Big Ten and their member institutions the platform to be heard. So to borrow a phrase used at many press conferences, the microphone is now yours. Give us your answers in the survey below. We're collecting responses all month and spotlighting selected ones on TV. And please share this post with others via Twitter, Facebook, email or any other means.

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