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<p>What a scam! The report says Maryland expects its travel costs to double once it joins the B1G. Why? Are they now going to fly first class?</p>
<p>I can see some increase in travel costs. It’s a short hop (2 hours, maybe 3 with traffic) from Maryland to UVA, plus VaTech and the 4 North Carolina schools are maybe a 5-hour bus ride away. But beyond that, the ACC is not exactly a geographically compact conference, and it’s becoming less so with the addition of Syracure, Louisville, and Notre Dame.</p>
<p>At around 200 miles, Rutgers and Penn State are actually closer to Maryland than any ACC school except UVA. Ohio State is closer than Boston College. Michigan is closer than Clemson. Michigan State, Indiana, and Purdue are all as close or closer than Georgia Tech (and Notre Dame and Louisville are closely bunched together with that group). Illinois, Northwestern, and Wisconsin are all closer to Maryland than Florida State is, and Iowa is closer than Miami is. That leaves Minnesota and Nebraska as the outliers, and Minnesota is only about 50 miles farther from Maryland than Miami is, a negligible distance when you consider those pretty much need to be plane trips, and both are served by major airports. So Nebraska, at 1200 miles, is the true outlier, but depending on how conference divisions break down, Maryland will probably play football at Nebraska at most once every fourth year, if that.</p>
<p>Yes, there are travel costs for other sports besides football but they usually travel with a much smaller squad. The biggest difference is probably fewer bus-range schools (losing VaTech and the North Carolina schools) and picking up a few more flying-range schools: 6 ACC schools in the 400-miles-or-less range, versus only 3 in the B1G. But it’s hard to see how that doubles your travel cost.</p>
<p>Besides, the last time I looked it was just as far from Lincoln to College Park as it is from College Park to Lincoln, and Nebraska’s not getting a travel subsidy from the conference. In fact, Nebraska might very well have higher travel costs than Maryland; the Cornhuskers have only one conference opponent less than 400 miles away (Iowa, at 300 miles).</p>
<p>But my guess is this isn’t really about travel costs at all. It’s just a way to shovel some conference money at Maryland’s financially challenged athletic department.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it helps feed the myth that Maryland is somehow going from geographically compact and contiguous ACC to a B1G that knows no bounds of geography. Which is utter nonsense, because even with its latest additions the B1G is much more compact along an East-West axis than the ACC is along a north south axis, it being about 1300 miles between Nebraska and Rutgers, versus 1500 miles between Boston College and Miami.</p>