After angering the entire Midwest, Big 10 commissioner Jim Delany will reconsider the division names Legends and Leaders for the Big 10 Conference. The conference was divided after it expanded to 12 teams this past summer. The division names were revealed earlier this week. But for starters, the new logo looked as if Delany made it during his free trial of Photoshop, and teams like Indiana, who has never won a Rose Bowl, is in the Legends division. Now, Delany wants to fix what was wronged by renaming the divisions. The commissioner made the announcement on WGN Radio this morning:
“We’ve had enough experience with names and expansion and development of divisions that we know that you rarely get a 90 percent approval rating. But to get a 90 percent non-approval rating was really surprising. It showed that we didn’t connect with our fans in a way that we wanted to. It’s humbling, to say the least, because we’re trying to build fan bases, not push them away.
In the interview, Delany revealed the names “Great Lakes” and “Great Plains” were considered as possible alternatives, but they would not have accurately described all of the schools geographical locations. Another name was also “Stars” and “Stripes” but was turned down because it was too general.
Special congrats to Greg Jarrett who interviewed Delany. Greg is a great friend and a former boss, when I interned on his show at WGN. Greg is the only person I know who would ask the commissioner if Legends was a Gentlemen’s club. To hear the full interview click here.
