Big East Attendance Analysis

[CaribouJim]

I would still like to add UCONN and Cincy. I know I am in the minority, but they add much more than St. Louis, Wichita State, Richmond, VCU, Dayton, etal. Get a commitment from them with some teeth to it. That would solidify the Big East at MSG, as well.

I'm still all over that as well. I don't think the dust has settled on realignment and I think the next shuffle will be even more football centric and UCONN and Cinci will be on the outside looking in - AGAIN - and the $ #'s from a football program might make them more flexible to an arrangement like Goose is suggesting.

It's a long shot, but not crazy to kick the idea around like we are on this thread. Just as ESPN threw around money and influence that helped lead to the realignments maybe FS1 decides they want to do something on the b-ball side to beef up the BE.

I'd hang my hat on a BE with those 12 teams - could compete with anyone while shoring up MSG affiliation.

Nothing would surprise me.

[TheSultan]

I'm still all over that as well. I don't think the dust has settled on realignment and I think the next shuffle will be even more football centric and UCONN and Cinci will be on the outside looking in - AGAIN - and the $ #'s from a football program might make them more flexible to an arrangement like Goose is suggesting.

It's a long shot, but not crazy to kick the idea around like we are on this thread. Just as ESPN threw around money and influence that helped lead to the realignments maybe FS1 decides they want to do something on the b-ball side to beef up the BE.

I'd hang my hat on a BE with those 12 teams - could compete with anyone while shoring up MSG affiliation.

Nothing would surprise me.

I know enough about conference realignment to never-say-never. And yeah, a scenario like yours could turn out to be the case when you look at 10 to 15 years from now. I just don't think it's going to happen anytime soon to resolve the MSG issue.

[TheSultan]

An article on the BET from the Post:

http://nypost.com/2014/03/09/revampe...at-the-garden/

"But it also will be interesting to see what kind of interest its marquee event draws without so much star power. There are still individual tickets available, but a source said the league “is in good shape” with the amount of seats it has already sold." (If the source is outside the Big East, that is likely excellent news!)

Also on expansion:

"First-year commissioner Val Ackerman said she is pleased with the first season of the new league. Though she admitted there is a possibility of expansion down the road, Ackerman said the league’s presidents favor the 10-team, round-robin format in which everyone plays each other twice during the regular season."

(My guess is that expansion is at least another year away by the sounds of this...likely more.)

[MUMac]

I have never seen a school voluntarily downgrade its football conference affiliation. I really think we need to realize that UConn, UC, ND...none of them are about to do so at anytime soon.

Is the MAC a downgrade? Louisville is gone after this year. I am not so certain that the remaining teams make much of a statement for football.

[TheSultan]

Is the MAC a downgrade? Louisville is gone after this year. I am not so certain that the remaining teams make much of a statement for football.

Yeah, the MAC is a pretty big downgrade. I mean we will have to see after a couple of years how it pans out, but the only conferences worse in FBS are the Sun Belt and CUSA...both of which have been reduced to "entry level conferences" for teams making the jump from FCS.

http://realtimerpi.com/football/ncaaf_conf_Men.html

EDIT TO ADD: Also, the current MAC bowls pay out a total of 1.825. The current AAC bowls payout a total of 7.3M. I know this will change a little for next year, and things are going to change with the new playoff, but the AAC bowls are much more lucrative than the MAC ones are.

[Halo]

I would still like to add UCONN and Cincy. I know I am in the minority, but they add much more than St. Louis, Wichita State, Richmond, VCU, Dayton, etal. Get a commitment from them with some teeth to it. That would solidify the Big East at MSG, as well.

This. Been saying it for awhile also. Cincy and UConn may be desperate enough and the BE may as well. Would be a great balance of teams.

[Goose85]

Yeah, the MAC is a pretty big downgrade. I mean we will have to see after a couple of years how it pans out, but the only conferences worse in FBS are the Sun Belt and CUSA...both of which have been reduced to "entry level conferences" for teams making the jump from FCS.

http://realtimerpi.com/football/ncaaf_conf_Men.html

EDIT TO ADD: Also, the current MAC bowls pay out a total of 1.825. The current AAC bowls payout a total of 7.3M. I know this will change a little for next year, and things are going to change with the new playoff, but the AAC bowls are much more lucrative than the MAC ones are.

Of the 5 "have not" conferences, the MAC is behind the Mountain West and AAC.

Intersting on the bowl payouts. I do think that gap may be getting closer as the 5 have not conferences are establishing bowl ties together, with some on a rotating basis, because the Big 5 conferences keep squeezing them out.

[TheSultan]

KenPom on Big East:

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/web...big_east_log51

"The Big East has been unfairly maligned this year basically because, from what I can tell, it doesn’t have enough teams. More specifically, it doesn’t have enough good teams, and really what that means is enough tournament teams. Heading into this event, the conference only has three teams considered safe by the nation’s bracketologists and those are top three seeds of Villanova, Creighton and Xavier, and even Xavier is no certainty should they drop a quarterfinal game with Marquette. (The bid thief calculation assumes those teams are in.)

St. John’s, Providence, and Georgetown are lurking and with two wins maybe they join the party. Providence and St. John’s are matched up in a quarterfinal game, so one of them will get helped by that. Anyway, back to my original plan for the Big East. Get three or four more teams into your league. Maybe you get another bid or two, and that’s what the national media tends to value when judging conferences."

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

I think two more would be enough. The only question is do you want to add a St. Louis and Richmond (for example) combo that adds solid basketball programs but further increases the side of the middle of the league, or do you want to add maybe Duquesne and Detroit that may not be basketball powers but do add sizable markets as well as wins for the bubble teams?

The A-10 is probably going to get 5-6 bids and I would be surprised if we got more than they did. The reason is the bad teams that give easy victories. The same goes with the AAC. People perceive that league to be stronger than the Big East, but it is basically 5 pretty good teams and 5 miserably bad ones. I think if you put any of the top-7 Big East teams in the A-10 they would be a top-35 RPI team, in the top 3 of the conference, and a lock for the tourney. Honestly, even Seton Hall might contend there. In the AAC, swap any top-7 Big East team for any top-5 AAC team and they'd be a tourney lock as well.

Adding 2 more highly competitive teams could just mean you have 6-7 bubble teams in the future instead of 4-5. Adding 2 weaker teams, on the other hand, would likely solidify those bubble teams as tourney teams. Might seem counter-intuitive, but I do think it would be worth it for the league to look into.

[warriorfan4life]

The Big 12 is also about to put 7 of its 10 teams in, with an outside chance of 8 of 10 if West Virginia made a run to the tourney finals. I also would not be surprised if the A-10 gets the same 4 bids that we will get. If St. Joe's beats Dayton/Mason, then loses to SLU, then I think it will be just 4 bids on Selection Sunday (Dayton would have too many losses, and there is really is little depth to St. Joe's profile).