Big East Hoops Conference

[Goose85]

According to Zagsblog, if the Big East departures ended, the basketball schools would be happy to continue with the current makeup of the Big East.

Of course we know as soon as there is one more departure from the ACC all bets are off.

http://zagsblog.com/articles/big-eas...py/#more-84496

[dw3dw3dw3]

Almost seem inevitable at this point that UCONN would be the next to go. To not even have contacted the premium A-10 schools seem a little short-sighted, but maybe it's a quick thing once it happens.

Contracts are restructured all the time, are they thinking that MSG wouldn't want to work with them anymore because of the new makeup of the conference? If they dissolve the conference, why wouldn't they be able to re-create themselves as the Big East?

[IWB]

If the conference dissolves, no one gets the name and MSG would target the ACC tourney.

[TheSultan]

I think you would see a negotiated split. Basketball schools keep the conference and therefore MSG. Football schools don't have to pay a buyout. Find some sort of split of tourney credits.

[IWB]

If the basketball schools keep the conference, then the conference would not have "dissolved".

[TheSultan]

If the basketball schools keep the conference, then the conference would not have "dissolved".

Correct. That was my point. Under this scenario, the football schools are enticed to leave the conference without penalty by sharing basketball credits. Perhaps they can even work out some sort of arrangement where the basketball schools travel to the football schools for a couple years. (Think Tulane wouldn't mind having a home game v. Georgetown or MU?)

[IWB]

Under this scenario, the football schools are enticed to leave the conference without penalty by sharing basketball credits.

I understand the reasoning, but why on earth would the football teams be willing to leave? Where are they going to go, back to the conferences that they just left? In most cases, they were replaced. "Hey C-USA - we made a mistake and want back in." C-USA - "We already replaced you, what do you want us to do, tell our new members that just left their conferences to get out?"

It's just not that easy.

[Markedman]

They could just form their own conference. Not sure how attractive that would be.......doesn't sound very appealing to me.

[TheSultan]

Yeah...that is where I always get stuck!

My thought is that they would go off and form their own conference, with their own contracts, without having to deal with the basketball schools.

[BLT]

The remaining Big East Football Conference, even with an exodus of UC and UCONN, is a better footballl conference than where those new football teams came from. The ACC football conference, if their football powers then leave as rumored, is just the old Big East football conference...if not arguably weaker than what they just left in the BE because of Boise, SDST, Houston, UC, Temple, ECU. If the new Big East lets BYU have their way like ND, it is by far a better football conference remade then (if the ACC football power exile continues and if UC and UCONN switch). The Big East has urban cable markets, the existing ESPN contract, SNY/BEN, and the MSG. The ACC becomes the old BE--crappy fotoball and great basketball--and a newly signed TV deal that will be less valauble to the networks now that the best football schools left. Think about this: ESPN wasn't willing to pay the BE for its football before...but they were willing to pay the ACC for theirs. But, now the ACC=the old BE in football and ESPN has a much bigger revenue gap to fill. Irony?