Stanford brings real rivalries with USC and UCLA and likely brings the end of year Notre Dame game to the Big Ten EVERY year (v. USC or v. Stanford). Worldclass academics. Games like Northwestern-Stanford, Purdue-Stanford, and even Rutgers-Stanford carry some academic-heavy-weight potential (for the Big Ten network).

ASU is now AAU and is an easy road trip for USC and UCLA...and tons of Big Ten fans and alumni in the Phoenix area.

With the 6-team Pacific group, the Big Ten sends 12 out of 14 legacy schools to the Pacific time zone each season and the new schools travel to Big Ten territory twice. Play those games in September and early October. Late October through November are full of traditional games, which helps to solve the Big Ten's November Prime Time kickoff/weather issues because you can stage games like USC-UCLA, Oregon-Stanford, UCLA-ASU, Oregon-Washington, etc. plus Notre Dame @ USC/Stanford at 7/8pm ET in November without any issue.