Jim Delany talks 9-game league schedule

"You're going to lose six cumulative wins," Delany told ESPN.com. "That might mean somebody's not [bowl] eligible. It probably makes it a little harder to get to a second BCS [bowl] game, with the addition of the [Big Ten] championship. So those are negative considerations, which were all evaluated. But when everything was evaluated, in terms of what a conference was supposed to be, the value to our fans, the building of the brand, the change made sense."

Rittenberg