Two things are now certain after rumors became fact today with regards to the University of Maryland. First and foremost, they’ll have to throw away those gawd awful Under Armor uniforms. Second, they just got an immediate infusion of cash that will surely help save a declining athletic department.
I am sure Under Armour will stay seeing how their president is a graduate of Maryland, but they’ll now have more money to spice things up even more. The Terps athletic department has been struggling of late and will benefit greatly from the more than $24 million a year they will get from the BTN contract with all schools. The Board of Governers met earlier today and University of Maryland President Wallace Loh had this to say:
“I did it to guarantee the long-term future of Maryland athletics,” university President Wallace Loh told Maryland’s student newspaper, The Diamondback. “No future president will have to worry about cutting teams or that Maryland athletics will be at risk.”
Patricia Florestano, the Maryland Secretary of Higher Education, shared her thoughts as well:
“There was certainly discussion about the tradition of the ACC. And the question is what’s the future. And we’ve got to look to the future,” Florestano said in Baltimore before a previously scheduled public meeting on education policy.
Florestano said the vote earlier Monday was not unanimous but that she voted for the move to the Big Ten. “There was a long discussion,” she said. Is Maryland’s future brighter in the Big Ten? “‘We perceive it that way,” said Florestano. We had a majority in the room,” she said. She went on to explain the status of the meeting “It was certainly an executive meeting without the public,” she said.
The speculation is running rampant as to whether this will be a premptive move for the B1G to realign their football divisions after only two seasons with the Leaders and Legends. They have already had to remove a name from the B1G Championship trophy for very unfortunate reasons, but have had to deal with backlash of the original alignment to start with. The possibility of Rutgers joining very soon (as early as tomorrow) could allow the conference to realign in a east/west format and put TTUN and the Buckeyes back together.
The B1G has scheduled a press conference for this afternoon to discuss the current events. Stay tuned to the BBC for more realignment coverage.
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