Home Depot, Motorola CEO’s are Rutgers grads, could help with Big Ten move

If Rutgers was invited to the league and merely looked as if it had a chance to compete for a Big Ten title, its TV numbers would be competitive with any current member. A good part of the reason is its size. Rutgers not only has a comparable enrollment (37,000) with Penn State, its living alumni base (380,000) stacks up with the highest in the nation (PSU’s 475,000 is among the very top). You can make a compelling case that RU football is the proverbial “sleeping giant”. It appears the infrastructure is ready to handle the action. Since Greg Schiano arrived at millennium’s outset, he has turned the program into a consistently competitive one. More important, he has demanded and received pretty much every upgrade in the RU football infrastructure he’s requested. Just completed for last season was a $102 million stadium expansion that added 11,400 seats, 968 loges, with club and luxury box enclosures, personal bars inside and overhanging heaters outside. Left open was the possibility of adding a third deck, much like Louisville’s Papa John’s Stadium. Opened before the final 2009 game against West Virginia was a $5 million recruiting lounge. In one end zone stands the largest scoreboard relative to stadium capacity in nation. Trendy electronic message/advertising ribbons ring the second-deck facade. Potential sugar daddies are plentiful. CEOs of Home Depot and Motorola are Rutgers grads. Johnson & Johnson world headquarters is next door. – Patriot-News

Report: Big Ten wants Rutgers

The consensus among Big Ten sources, officials from other conferences and TV executives is that Rutgers offers the best package. Missouri is second and Pittsburgh third. Why Rutgers? It doesn’t hurt that the New Brunswick, N.J., campus is less than 40 miles from midtown Manhattan. Or that the state of New Jersey alone would be the nation’s fourth-largest television market - after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Fans wonder: Does New York care about Rutgers? The simplest answer: When Rutgers wins, yes. During Rutgers’ football nirvana season of 2006, its game against Louisville on ESPN drew an 8.1 rating in the New York market, a “phenomenal number,” according to one TV executive. That night, the Empire State Building was lit up in scarlet. The New York market has 7.5 million TV homes, and the Big Ten Network would love to get them on expanded basic cable rather than forcing subscribers to pay extra via a sports tier. Rutgers just completed a $102 million renovation of its football stadium that added more than 12,000 seats, 1,000 club-level seats, a $5 million recruiting lounge - and earned the ire of opposition groups. Capacity is up to 52,454 with an option for building a third deck. – Chicago Tribune

Rutgers moving Army game to the Meadowlands would millions

Rutgers is in line for a big payday — possibly as much as $2.7 million, most of which will be clear profit — if negotiations to move next year’s home football game against Army to the new Meadowlands stadium are successful. Head coach Greg Schiano acknowledged Wednesday following practice that the school has “had discussions” with the New Meadowlands Stadium Corp. (NMSC) to make next year’s scheduled home game against Army the first college game at the new facility. The possibility that Rutgers was seeking to move the game to the new Meadowlands stadium was first reported by The Record. According to Rutgers officials, the school projects a profit of $1.5 million per home game in newly expanded Rutgers Stadium, which will have a capacity of 52,454 once the $102 million construction project is completed in time for the Sept. 7 opener against Cincinnati. – Newark Star-Ledger