Should there be a proposal for athletic conferences with 10 members (like the Big East, the Big 12 and the Sun Belt) to sponsor a CCG, could it also be possible to make another criteria, such as having divisions within that particular conference? Look at the SWAC (an NCAA D-I FCS conference), it has 10 members divided in 2 5-team divisions and has its own CCG.

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Florida State Seminole fan for life (mostly on football, basketball and baseball)!

Well Tulsa is supposed to be the next school in which means they'll have 12 as soon as Navy joins in 2015.

Brett McMurphy article(previously posted in another thread)discussing BE realignment and tv deal situation at http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story ... media-deal

After reading mostly part of this thread, I believe that UMass should be THE right candidate to be the next member of the Big East, whether as for full membership on all sports or for only football membership. Besides, UMass has a rich history when it comes to great rivalries against Temple (like in the old A-10 days on basketball), and also Villanova, Pittsburgh and Boston College (for non-conference terms). And for future suggested references, I believe that FCS schools from the Northeast U.S. like Rhode Island, Maine and New Hampshire should be well-qualified to join the Big East.



However, about Tulsa being a member of the Big East. And as if it should happen within 2014 or 2015 (with the non-FBS Catholic schools out to become the Catholic-7), I believe that the Big East should have a different identity to rename it, now that it would represent the Southeast and South Central areas besides the Northeast.

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Florida State Seminole fan for life (mostly on football, basketball and baseball)!

I believe the BE shall reach 12 in due time. I don't believe the 12-team rule for a CCG is the real problem---speaking about the policy for conferences in general, not specifically refering to the BE.

I see the problem in the other direction---conferences becoming too large due to TV broadcasting rights. I'd like to see a maximum-allowed of 16 members per conference. This would apply for all--B1G, SEC, ACC, etc. It would help stuggling conferences such as the BE find a purpose, asumming there is still one, reaching stability at some point. These modest conferences stay in a situation of constantly re-building with the high uncertainty of not knowing what the future holds in terms of their own membership and related variables.

Why have power conferences be defined with minimum limits in terms of numbers, but no maximum limits in terms of numbers?

Get your popcorn for that 2013-14 basketball part. WOW.

Stop sucking up to Quinn /jk but seriously while UMass is a good candidate they would throw off any possible geographical division alignments, plus they already have UConn in New England.

And FYI, Rhode Island almost dropped to the NEC (reduced scholarships league) Maine is nowhere near even being remotely ready to upgrade...New Hampshire is the only schools that's close (and they are not that close) but they still need a major stadium overhaul to add 10K+ seats to even qualify.



That's 10 mil for 2013-14 bball from NBC/ESPN plus 2 mil from CBS which equals 12 million for 18 teams which is less than 700K per school while the Catholic 7 could get 3 million per school. Doesn't seem like a good faith negotiation.

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

Brett McMurphy article(previously posted in another thread) with update on BE /ESPN deal at http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story ... ee-tv-deal

Mark Blaudschun blog article discussing ESPN/BE tv deal and BE realignment situation at http://ajerseyguy.com/?p=5299

NCAAP...,
I believe that a ten team CCG is not right. First, the conference members play each other in a nine game round robin anyway - why need a CCG when the teams have already met and played proving who is better? Even if three teams beat one another - IE; Texas beats OU, Texas Tech beats Texas, then OU beats Texas Tech, then you go by overall record, and then strength of schedule to get the conference champ. Therefore no reason for a ten team CCG. The only reason this argument has come up is the B12 wanting a 10 team CCG to be counted as more equal to the other big conferences that have a CCG (SEC, B1G, and PAC12). They want a CCG without inviting another two teams so that they don't have to split the current income with two additional schools. Can we say greedy? Everyone at the BCS level has lived with and applied these rules but now because of the B12, we have to change? I don't think so. If they want a CCG then they must hit 12 like everyone else. The bonus for having 12 teams is a CCG. That is the reward for increasing the size and membership of your conference.
Now, I do agree that there has to be a maximum number of teams to a conference and that the best number for this scenario would be either 16 or 24. I myself would say 16 is the number to stop at. This gives stability to lower conferences and gives them time to build a cohesive and solid conference from which to compete from.

Yup, $700k for the likes of Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette, Notre Dame and Louisville, who are gone after that. The networks get a bargain and there's nothing these crybabies can do about it. I think it's brilliant, actually. Let the C7 pay its way out like it should or deal with the humiliation, instead of this "we invoke our secret junta bylaw" and "it's our namesake" crap. And force Louisville and Notre Dame to eat a big one, too, since they were such historical and political PITA.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of snobs.

Probably low balled the the BB end for next year to help force the Catholic 7 to leave in 2013 for their larger contract rather than wait for 2014. Knowing ESPN they will cut that figure then if the C7 leave early. They have it in for the BE and NBE and will continue to treat that conference like crap no matter what they do or how good they do against OOC competition.

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SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS - SEC
RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS - BIG EAST / AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE / BIG TEN

True, but most of the nBE & Aresco were not onboard, and some are still not officially, when the former ESPN offer got rejected by the BE. UCONN, Cincy, and USF were a part of it though.

It's the final stage of the long-delayed breakup that followers knew would not be pretty. The real victims may be the new batch of former CUSA schools. But they had to know to a significant degree potentially what they were heading into.

Houston, SMU, and UCF jumped first and might now be regretting the move (but still over 1 million more a year in a higher profile league isn't exactly hurting them except in travel) but Memphis, Tulane, ECU and Navy (and possible soon Tulsa) knew what they were getting into.

Hard to feel sorry for the 7 of them (including Tulsa) that left 5 of their former conference-mates UAB, Marshall, SoMiss, Rice and UTEP to play with Temple, USF, UConn, Cincy and Navyfb.

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

It seems to be the legacy of the eastern independents. Despite playing each other for years, they all thought they were better than each other and had no issues walking away from each other regardless of the tradition and blowback. But considering the Big East was pretty much a collection of "the better" eastern indies, it's not surprising this is still going on.

I don't pity them. I pity the fans who actually enjoyed the rivalries between Pitt and WVU, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Memphis, and these others who now are stuck dealing with the actions of petty, little men.