I don't know why it's taken the BE so long to invite UCF.

Does the Big East have an uphill climb? Sure it does.

But, it also some strengths:

It's strengths include:

1) It has market 'reach'
2) It already is NYC's college basketball town
3) It has 'the potential' to be NYC's college football town
4) It has size producing not just quantity of product, but quality of product
5) It's an excellent league in both men's and women's bb
6) It's resilient - it withstood the ACC raid (which most thought would be a death blow)
7) It's adaptable - it can think out-of-the-box when it is forced to
8) It has a fine mixture of academic institutional types (private, state flagship, metro public)
9) Because of the above, it is better suited for the Academic Consortiums of the future where the federal government is looking for cross-disciplines cross-educational institutional type - in other words - diversity of approaches to research projects

(NOTE: Yes, I know that the last strength will be lost on most of you Sports fans - but Panther fans will likely know where I am heading with this ;) )

The Big East weaknesses:

1) Perception of Football League (#1 sport, so #1 problem)
2) Weakness #1, leading to lack of market pull in the significant markets the league reaches
3) Fan support for football attendance
4) Northeast apathy for football games
5) Lack of self-esteem - sometimes a "Woe Is ME!" attitude that sometimes makes it inert when it needs to be forward-thinking

If the BTN becomes a success, how does the Big East address it's weaknesses and accentuate it's strengths?

Not only are the solutions there for those with the vision to see it, but the solutions for the first time actually have a 25% or higher chance of coming about.

Cheers,
Neil

a 12 team BABE (Break Away Big East) is not going to work financially unless the 4 'new' teams are from an existing BCS conference - so that chance is extremely small. I just don't see it happening unless the BCS forced them to goto 12. A split BE with 9 teams - yes - that's a possibility but not 12.

Excellent Summary Neil! Thanks for compiling and posting it!

I hope FriarFan, Lash and others can address this question in light of Omni's above post:

If the BTN becomes a success, how does the Big East address it's weaknesses and accentuate it's strengths?

It makes for an interesting discussion.

A split and the desire would be to keep the basketball side of things strong----then Memphis and Alabama-Birmingham. Both have strong bb reputations. Their football facilities have excellent capacity-The Liberty Bowl and Legion Field. Both cities have hosted bowls. With a school from Tennessee and one from Alabama, the Big East would actually be contiguous by States--though spread out. UCF and ECU could fit right in there if further expanded, geographically, though their bb traditions are less strong.

Thankfully the Army/Navy 4x4 BE schedule alliance is dead. This idea has been discussed on this board for years and is just not workable.

Can someone have the BE officials review this board for research material.

I agree with a couple of the post on this thread and the Big East does think out of the box. The ACC could have used some out of the box thinking a few years back on expansion ideas. Adding Louisville to the old Big East to bring a 9x9 alliance for ACC/BE would have made the old Blockbuster proposal proud. Just think what could have been?

The first thing the Big East needs to come to terms with is a split is inevitable to allow flexible moves for the Big East football schools. This is partially the reason an alliance could never been created with the old ACC.

I don't care what the Big East folks say in public on split issues, we have proved the reason they will in fact split.

It came true for the ACC expansion and was one of the first major debates on this board.

First out of the box option. Both Utah and BYU are very frustrated in the Mountain West conference primary due to the bad move of going with CSTV over ESPN.

Both of these schools would most likely look at any BCS alternatives and could become the 9 and 10 member of the BABE conference.

University of Hawaii is another school that could be a candidate for the 9th all sports member. The NCAA already allows exceptions for schools traveling to the Island.

If these options are way out of the box type of thinking, there are several options close to home that have long term benefits..

The Academic consortium discussed has many benefits for long term revenue potential.

The 8 BE football schools could go after the top two 1AA flagship schools in the east in a breakaway conference that could have long term benefits for academics.

Just add UMass and U of Delaware.

Both contain very good 1AA football programs and Delaware is a haven for Corporate America. Along with the federal government both have potential for grants and revenue generation for colleges.

Of course we have discussed the value of both of these flag ship schools for many years as well.

When will the Big East get past Notre Dame and needs of eastern basketball only schools and think more like the Big Ten.

Adding two more flagship state universities in the east may be what the Big East really needs more than any thing esle including football schools.

Academic Consortiums are changing all over the nation thanks to new federal guidelines that are calling for more diversity of institutional types (bringing different viewpoints to the table), more cross-disciplinary approaches, and more collaboration with businesses, local and state agencies, and local and state governments.




There is only one state flagship program out there not currently in the conference that interests the Big East - and that is the obvious one.

UMass and Delaware do absolutely nothing for the Big East. Neither would SUNY Albany, University of Maine, University of Vermont, etc.

The northeast isn't the midwest or the south. The Big East contains three of the four state flagship it needs.

Instead of taking the Big Ten approach of trying to get all state flagships, the Big East, like the newer academic consortiums, needs to go for balance between state flagships, privates, and metro-public institutions.

Forgetting about which institutions that they should be, the goal might be to have 4 state flagships, 4 privates, and 4 metro-public.

Now, looking at the Big East football schools as they currently exist, all of the metro-public slots are full - Pitt, Louisville, Cincinnati, and South Florida. Three of the 4 state flagship spots are full - Rutgers, West Virginia and Connecticut. And one of the private slots is full - Syracuse.

So, an approach might be to fill in one state flagship and three privates. Now let's try and fill in the slots with the most logical candidates, keeping in mind the idea is to improve to the point where the league is on a par with Big Ten, SEC, and ACC.

Well, the only state flagship that makes sense for the northeast is the one that got away - Penn State.

And the three privates that make sense for the Big East are the two that use to be part of the Big East, Boston College and Miami, and the one that is already part of the Big East for all sports but football - Notre Dame.

Yes, I hear the groans now. ::)

Pipe dream. Can't happen in a million years. :-/

Well, if the BTN proves to have a successful launch, then the Big Ten conference may very well have given the Big East a possible solution to their dilemma. A dilemma that wasn't about the quality of northeastern institutions, but rather about not having all of the major northeastern athletic programs in one conference in the way that the Big Ten has all of the major North Central athletic institutions in theirs.

There are approximately 11 million TV households in the state of New York and NYC DMAs. The national average for cable/DirectTV/Dish subscribers is 84%, the remaining 16% are OTA (Over-the-Air) TV households.

NOTE: I have to use TVHH since I don't have a separate figure that would weed out housing complexes that come with cable units in them and whether or not these units get a discount (I'm assuming that do) for multiple cable TVHHs. Still, I've crunched similar numbers for the Big Ten and they are coming out in the ballpark of between 14-15 million (with their ABC/ESPN contract) per school - which is close to the 13 million estimate I am seeing on Big Ten boards.

Eleven million times eighty-four percent means that there are likely 9.2 million subcribers in New York/NYC DMA total. At $13.20 a subscriber that totals over $120 million right there for this state alone to be divvied up between a network and a conference. Assuming for the moment that the Big Ten/FOX deal is like a 50/50 split, a similar split for any conference able to claim the NY State total could be as high as $60 million.

When you throw in the states of New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and West Virginia that totals to $190 million, with a conference total of $95 million.

When you add in the state of Pennsylvania, the total jumps to an obscene $120 million for the conference take.

Unlike the Big Ten that is using its regionality and alums to try and win the day in the Midwest. The Big East would have to use a combination strategy of the alums and the huge Catholic population of the northeast to pull this off. And it wouldn't necessarily limit itself to the states of its members, rather it would extend it to all the states that are part of the region it represents.

Obviously this all keys on Penn State and Notre Dame being interested. So why would they be interested when one is already in the Big Ten and the other only needs to join the Big Ten to get similar benefits.

Well, this is where accentuating the strengths of the Big East comes into play - particularly adaptability.

A weakness of the Big East in the past has been its willingness to treat its 'special' members differently than others in the conference.

Now that weakness can become a strength. This league can do what no other league seems willing to do. It can offer a bigger piece of the pie to Penn State and Notre Dame.

Think such a proposal wouldn't pique their curiosity to at least consider it? Do you think Penn State might be willing to consider going to a conference where its alum are located and where it has a chance of being the equivalent of Ohio State/Michigan instead of being an after thought for a much bigger piece of the pie than they will receive from the Big Ten?

Assuming that the changing college landscape has ND come to the conclusion that the days of independence are over, think the more balance of academic institutional types in the Big East won't be more appealing to them? Or the fact that the regionality of the league spreads over more areas - New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the North Central, the South Atlantic, and the South Central regions - giving the league more variety of reach than does the Big Ten?

And if Penn State and Notre Dame can be hooked, I have no doubt Miami and BC would come back as well. They'd have too.

Then add in the Tampa-Orlando, Miami, Louisville, and Cincinnati markets and the conference total jumps to $150 million. Add in the national TV contracts that such a league would command and you're up to at $200 million. Give Notre Dame, Penn State, and Miami 10 million each off the top of that and divide the rest equally amonst all twelve and you have the ND, PSU, and Miami receiving just under 24 million each from the Big East Network and the ABC/ESPN contracts while the other 9 receive just under 15 million each.

So, taking 2 million off each due to my note above and you come out with ND, PSU, and Miami receiving 22 million each and the others receiving 13 million each.

Perhaps the power isn't truly in state flagships, after all. Maybe Gavitt and Tranghese will be proven right - it's all about the markets.

Cheers,
Neil

Neil.

These are such tired lame excuses. No wonder the Big East remains a mess. Its a mess or we would not be discussing it.

Gavitt and MT have been wrong on so many occasions everyone stop counting long time ago. Why would the future be any different than the past?

The only real value to come for the Big East football will only happen after a split.

I think it's an awesome idea. The discussion begins and ends with money. If the money isn't there, then there is no way any 'BCS' school listens - other than one from CUSA.

If the Big 10 network works, then you may again see another round of exansions. If you don't think that maybe so, here's an article from usatoday from yesterday:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/bigten/2007-07-25-network-expansion_N.htm

You, as a viewer, may be forced to pay for this channel, whether you want it or not - IF it is goign to be on basic cable.

Think about this, the BTN is guarenteeing its members $7.5 million EACH. That's about the same amount money as the members are getting for the ABC/ESPN TV contract. So, you don't think the Big10 and perhaps the ACC are eyeballing the NY/NJ/NYC markets? Think about how much money that is just in subscription fees just in upstate NY and NJ! Throw in a piece of NYC and the total amount of money is mindboggling.

Yes,

It appears that the Big 10 has given up on ND for #12 and is looking at Rutgers (who would have believed it?) and Syracuse.

As much as I would hate to see the football schools lose Rutgers to the Big Ten, it may be what it takes to get these schools to see the light before its too late.

If the Big Ten takes Rutgers which is a good fit, then maybe FriarFan has the correct idea for the remaining football schools to take the rest of the non BCS eastern states and form the final 12 team BCS conference with regions not controlled by current BCS type exposure and schools.

East: Connecticut, West Virginia, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, UMass.

West: Utah, BYU, New Mexico, UNLV, Colorado State, Boise State

This would provide 8 states with four in each division that do not have any BCS or TV cable conflict competition.

Many may think this idea is crazy or too far fetched, however, in today's TV cable driven world, this may be the only way the remaining Big East football schools can survive long term.

I just don't see what value the Providence, Seton Halls, DePauls have to offer to compete in the high stakes BCS world. Non of these small private catholic schools are reseach type univeristies and non have large state wide type exposure of fans.

Finally, recent article from Navy country with quotes by Navy AD indicating that Navy is not interested in joining the Big East.Link at http://www2.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2007/07_18-05/NAS

In the strictest sense, Notre Dame does not bring a new state to the BTN table. Bringing in another state school makes it easier to justify charging $1.10 throughout a New Jersey or a New York (or even a Missouri, Maryland, or a Nebraska).

That is true. However, ND - along with PSU - are the two most popular teams in the NE and NYC. Perhaps the angle of the Big10 is that they would argue the BTN should be on in the NYC DMA? I'm not sure whether they could argue a 'reduced rate' but larger than the $0.10 rate for out of BTN footprint for Boston either - say $0.50?

Perhaps Omni can chime in here.




Nebraska is definetely out because they only have 2 million people. Missouri at least has the 6 million plus the St. Louis and KC markets. Plus, maybe politcs enters the equation with respect to the western Big 10 schools - who knows?

Either way, the Big 10 may lead the expansion craze again - just like they did in 1989. This time, expansion is about getting the conference TV networks onto cable/dish into homes of schools in their footprint.

PatnerSC97, you make a very good point.

Notre Dame would help open the Big Ten to other markets for the BTN including the dish networks etc.

Notre Dame may not be able to resist the urge to think about Big Ten membership this go around.

The BTN would probably overtake the money ND is making on NBC in the future.

This could become the best thing to happen for the Big East.

Notre Dame would open up a much needed 9th football spot.

Let the debate begin on which school could come in to replace Notre Dame.