CHICAGO - After creating a buzz last week by saying the Big Ten would revisit the issue of expansion, Commissioner Jim Delany wanted to make one thing clear yesterday: The league has no impending plan to add another school.

"It’s interesting as it gets out there and gets reiterated that you might think that the Big Ten is going to expand when really that is not the case," he said at the league’s football media day at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. "What I said is every three to five years we look at expansion and we will continue to look at it."

Delany’s remarks stemmed from a story that appeared last week in the Des Moines Register. When asked if his view of expansion changed because of the launch of the Big Ten Network, he told the paper that "we need to look at it in the next year." Although he didn’t dispute his comments in the story, he thought they were misinterpreted by some writers who followed up on the story.

A week later, he said expansion ranked low on his list of priorities.

"We have a lot of issues on our table," he said. "This is not one that we have to deal with now, but it is certainly one that I think anybody who is running a conference needs to be aware of and up to date on."

It’s no secret that the Big Ten would love to have Notre Dame join. The Fighting Irish were invited to join the Big Ten in the late 1990s but declined. They have a deal with NBC to broadcast their home games through the 2010 season.

Notre Dame, which is independent in football but a member of the Big East for its other sports, reportedly gets about $9 million a year from its TV deal. Teams in the Big Ten are guaranteed to get at least $7 million a year from their TV deals, a number that could rise depending on the success of the Big Ten Network.

Adding a 12th team would allow the Big Ten to split into two divisions and play a lucrative conference championship game. Delany said, however, that wouldn’t be the reason for expanding.

"We’re not looking for a championship game. If we were looking for a championship game, we would have had one 15 years ago," he said. "We’re looking for a stronger conference, a conference that works better for all 11 members. ... Our goal from our 11 institutions is how can we get better."

When asked about the lack of deals with major cable providers to broadcast the Big Ten Network just a few weeks before the start of football season Sept. 1, Delany said there was still plenty of time to get agreements in place.

Mark Silverman, president of the network, said yesterday that it was currently available to 20 percent of cable and satellite subscribers in the conference’s eight-state region and that 30 percent of the cable providers in the region were carrying the network.

Silverman said he expected negotiations to pick up in the coming weeks. But he also stressed that the network would stick to its guns when came to demanding the network be placed on expanded basic cable.

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