Who are you suggesting the Big Ten add, if not the remnants of the Big 12?
Alston would have revolutionized recruiting if everything had stayed the same. The blatant cheating schools like Auburn and Alabama had a massive advantage in a world where other schools were not cheating or just pushing the envelope on the edges. Now, everyone can pay their players, and literally any school can compete for top talent if it has a good marketing department. It is no longer about selling tickets or tradition, it is about turning high profile athletes into spokespeople, even on a local level, and then monetizing that in real time.
It is important to note that the ruling does not allow schools to pay players directly, it just says that the schools can not stop them from making additional income on their name, image and likeness. The schools still have a standing agreement between themselves to not pay players, for what that is worth.
What brand business isn't looking at a massive school like UCF and wondering how do we get more access to that customer base? One thing is for certain in this new environment, you got to play to get paid. The days of 5*s sitting on the bench for 3 years with the hope of playing their junior or senior year are OVER. It will be much more difficult for schools to stockpile talent, because recruits are leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table by not playing. It appears that a lot of the blue blood football schools reached this exact conclusion as Alston was working its way to the Supreme Court, because now we have the Super-SEC. The SEC is making a power play to wipe out its competition under the old recruiting model before their competitive advantage evaporates under the new recruiting model.
In a world where advertising and brands dominate, schools that have new or untapped markets can compete for talent with the top programs in the country. UConn and UMass both reside in big, wealthy markets that are very attractive to advertisers. It is very realistic that players at those two schools can attract big time talent that will get paid very, very well. Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd are about to prove that. If you are a 4* cornerback from Florida, do you want to go to FSU or UF where you can ride the bench and maybe get on the field in your 4th or 5th year if you are lucky, making maybe $25k a year along the way, if that, or go to UConn or UMass where you will be a 4 year starter, earning $100k+ a season for 4 years?
Anyone who says kids will go to the major programs to sit on the bench with the hope of playing their senior year when they could be making 3-4x that starting at a lower tier program is an idiot.
If I were the Big 10, I would add Kansas, UConn, UMass and maybe OSU or WVU, offering $10MM a year at first, and putting them all on an earn-in program where they have to show that they are additive on a revenue basis before they get full shares, if they ever get full shares. On some level, put them on an earn-in, performance based revenue split and tell them it will be revisited in 10 years. 10 years is an eternity, but the Big 10 needs to broaden its footprint now.
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