The sparkly new Increasingly Inaccurately-Named Big Ten logo has been released to general antipathy via the Big Ten Network, and lo! There's a hidden numeral in there, as if to remind casual viewers that no matter how much the conference expands without changing its name, the number of teams contained therein will always be a double-digit number starting with "1" (for now):
[Via.]
Other news from the announcement show: The winner of the Big Ten Championship Game will be awarded something called the Stagg-Paterno Trophy, which sort of reads like their way of trying to shunt JoePa off to his well-earned retirement by sending a needling reminder every year he doesn't win it, or of reminding Jay Paterno of his pale chances of ever living up to his old man.
All of that, however, pales in comparison to the new conference divisions, which have been named "Legends" (the division with Michigan in it, is how you'll come to remember this) and "Leaders" (the division with Ohio State in it). Bruce Feldman, you speak for all of us this day:
This development is apparently neither a joke nor a typo, and cruelly denies the conference such loftier titles as Ranch and Blue Cheese, Natural Light and Natural Ice, Ro-Tel and Barbasol, or ELCA and Missouri Synod. Let this atrocity stand as a lesson to our children on the dangers of allowing disciples of the Cult of Ladyhawke to ascend to positions of power.