http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/sports/s_312890.html

Big East basketball goes on steroids next season. The conference will swell from 12 to 16 teams, as Boston College flees to the ACC while Louisville, Marquette, DePaul, Cincinnati and South Florida climb aboard.

Is a 16-team superconference a good thing?

Depends on whom you ask.

Some believe the conference will be too large and thus will ruin the home-and-home rivalries that are the lifeblood of any great league. Others worry that adding too much quality will cost deserving teams at-large NCAA Tournament bids.

The remedy, many suggest, is to lop off the seven basketball-only members.

It's an idea that has some merit, but to hear Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese tell it, folks shouldn't waste their breath discussing it.

"Our presidents aren't going to do that -- period," Tranghese said.

Certainly, no split will occur in the next two years. That's because of the league's contractual obligations with ESPN.

Tranghese insists there won't be a divorce after that, either. The football-playing members, he says, will not wave goodbye to basketball-only members Marquette, Georgetown, DePaul, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall and Villanova.

"If this was going to break up, it would have happened when Miami and Virginia Tech and Boston College left (to join the ACC)," Tranghese said. "Others could have left, but they sat for three months and didn't want to do it. They said, 'Reconfigure this.'

"We need to get as good as we can, to where we're so attractive that nobody wants to leave."

Tranghese also pointed out that if the football-playing schools formed their own conference, they would lose a New York City presence, including the Big East tournament. That could seriously hurt a program such as Pitt's, which relies heavily on Big Apple recruits.

In recent years, conference officials have met with ESPN before the season to try to determine the top four teams. Those four were then scheduled to play each other twice each and to appear on national television more than all the other conference teams combined.

This year, the four teams were UConn, Syracuse, Pitt and Notre Dame. Tranghese said ESPN likely will want to spread the exposure among six teams next season.

You can probably include Notre Dame as a "basketball only school" as they will be a football independent until they join the Big 10 or hell freezes over.

I don't see anything wrong with an all Catholic Conference, it will be the best CYO league in the country.

ND is a BE hybrid.They told the b-10 NO in 1999.Their agreement to play 3BE games per year makes their position clear.

It's not really an "agreement", merely an indication of interest in the next decade. By then, many expect Notre Dame to be fully ensconced in the Big Ten South.

M. T.'s comments, as usual, express the interests of one school in particular: Notre Dame. Nothing new there.

Shall anyone suggest that BE College Presidents are gullible?

Boston College sure didn't buy it!

Based on his record, if he says it won't happen, you can be assured it will.

Actually, he doesn't really have any choice but to make it sound like his league is stable. That's his job. He is the least reliable person you could quote on the BE future.

Tranghese is not the spokesperson for Notre Dame football.

MT says what is needed to say about BE football and ND.He,carefully watches his words.Kevin White speaks for ND.

M.T. can make all the comments he wants on stability of the Big East remaining together, however, we would not have a five year agreement if everyone were so happy. After five years all schools can go seperate ways without an exit fee says it all. Within the five years there is now 5 million dollar exit fee so two years is a good predicted that nothing will happen. Less wait until five years and see how every is thinking on keeping an unwieldily group of unrelated schools in the same league.

It will come down to the eight football schools making a decision on a future spit. Notre Dame has no say and not much influence on the bottom line outcome.

If football improves and keeps BCS membership as predicted and football improves to attact or maintain good minor bowl deals, it would be hard to keep 16 schools together with such diverse goals.

Originally my thoughts were such that the schools are united and would remain together, howerver, it due ot recent football meetings etc. I am now in agreement with Friarfan. The football schools will make a great basketball league and will no longer need the basketball schools or rivalries. Remember that Syracuse had its bags packed and WVU and Pitt were all but ready to jump to the SEC and Big 10 if an offer came along. Only UConn would have some benefits as a charter member, however, the school was in favor of a 10 team all sports leage.

So my prediction on the future of Big East will be two conferences:

Big East: Notre Dame, St Johns, Providence, Seton Hall, Villanova, Marquette, Depaul, Georgetown

Bigger East or Eastern 10, or Big America or whatever:

The Big East football schools should look to follow the old Big East pattern on selection schools with potential big arenas that have equal potential in football. No eatern football footprint and more a big US so geography will not be necessary especially if schools keep to the Pac 10 model and do not play a football championship game requring schools to travel long distances. Nothing says mid major more than a football conference championship playing at the highest ranked home team.

Back to future expasion of football schools. When ACC expansion first announced that Syr, BC, and Miami were in, a idea surfaced to include Va Tech, WVU, Pitt, Rutgers, UConn and bring in South Florida, Memphis, Houston, TCU, Cincinnati, Louisville, East Carolina.

This idea has merits and keeping to 10 members to avoid an unnecessary championship game. 9 conference games would more than make up TV revenue from a championship game. Anyone want to no why the ACC was so against the 12 regular season because they new they made a mistake by expanding with 12 when they could have just settled for Miami and had the same national perception.

Houston and Memphis both have good potential and minor bowls. Texas requiting would be enhanced by Big East football schools and the Houston bowl could become a target in this scenerio.

new bigger east all sports conference prediction:

Syracuse, UConn, Rutgers, Pitt, WVU, Cincinnati, Louisville, South Florida, Memphis, Houston

Lash, your analysis makes a lot of sense. Assuming the football schools were to make the decision to exit after the 5-year agreement, the mechanics of decision making look very different now than they did when Big East Football was still geographically eastern. Once the Big East made the decision to stick with its original decision to jettison Temple & once the ACC made the decision to come back for BC a second time, the heart of this football conference became the Ohio Valley. Memphis doesn't look so far away when the view is from Pittsburgh as it did when the view was from Boston. And South florida would certainly have no objection to the 2 additions you propose, given that they are farther west than Pittsburgh. Expansion meant that UConn, Rutgers, & Syracuse lost control of the voting process. If any of this matters to them, they may have some regrets for not insisting on one more school in the Northeast such as Temple just to block such a direction in expansion.

The only question remaining in such a proposal is whether the other BCS conferences have any opinions about the viability of Big East Football when it has very little left of eastern representation. If they have been maintaining BCS status for the Big East for political reasons & for reasons of national representation & national appeal, then they might try to encourage the conference to move in a different direction. Otherwise, your proposal makes perfect sense.

It's interesting that such a proposed grouping would represent a merging of the remaining programs of the old Big East with the strongest programs from the old CUSA. Interesting also in light of the fact that CUSA was in some ways modeled on the formula that the Big East made successful, i.e build a following for each member in a large urban area rather than around the state-wide appeal of the flagships.

I will definitely look for rumors as time goes on to see if your specualtion begins to see the light of day.

Cheers,
Friar

PS - You make a great point about the dubious financial benefit of the conference championship game with the 12 game schedule. Everyone in the conference can get a 9th conference game which combined should have a bigger pay-off than the single championship game. In addition, the more conferences that add the championship game, the more watered down its appeal becomes, leaving only regional audiences rather than the national audience that the SEC once had & less money. Of course, they'll probably schedule them at different times, but only shut-ins who have no life will book themselves in for a whole day of that plus the NFL the next day.

If the BE splits ND will be the pivotal force.The end of the 5 year period is 2010.It seems likely that the start of the ND 3-4 game series in 2011 shows that ND will remain either as part of the current 16 team grouping or as part of a split going with the football schools.I expect ND to continue to be an affilated BE football member.Also last week MT announced that the active process of making Army and Navy affilated members of the BE football league has begun.

If there is a split in the BE(16) I see Providence,Seton Hall ,Marquette and DePaul to be broken out.I assume these schools will form with the strongest programs of the A10(Dayton,Xavier,St.Joes,etc) and the weaker programs in the A10(St.Bonaventure,Dusquene,Fordham merging with other leagues)
I see the broken out BE football schools plus ND to include Villanova(Philadelphia),Georgetown(DC) and St Johns(NYC).The other decision comes as to whether Villanova will remain 1AA,become an affilated football member or a full football member.Appearantly this 12 member grouping is favored by ND.

". . . affilliated members . . ." ???

I don't thinks so. ::)

But thats the process with Army and Navy becoming affilated members of BE football.Army last week already cancelled a home game at Iowa State for 2006 and replaced with a game versus Rutgers in 2006.

I'm not grasping. Honestly, I don't see how the 9th conference game = the same/more money than a conference championship. At least, not for a league that can get $5+ M for said game.

a) If the 9th conference game is so valuable the Pac 10 would've moved in that direction long ago and the Big Ten wouldn't have recently turned down the measure. The Pac 10 is now moving to a 9th game but they said they were doing so only because it could allow for a clear champion without costing them a non-conference game now that the 12th game was available. Plus they're not high on match-ups with the WAC and MWC and have fewer minor teams to schedule against compared to the east coast, where travel costs are cheaper for La Monroe to visit Bama.

b) A 9th conference game doesn't equate to a bigger TV contract. Not much bigger, anyway. The SEC was hard pressed to move from 6 to 8 conference games, let alone consider 9. Securing a 7th home game can yield an additional $3+M... for each school. No TV contract can compete with that.

c) A 9th conference game equates to a 5th road game in conference every other year. This means most name programs, who we know will NEVER have 6 road games, will only have 1 road date every other year to offer for inter-conference home-and-home contests. When you consider that many teams already have an annual rival out of conference (FSUvUF, MichvND...) that further prohibits the options for non-con games for most clubs. So in lieu of a requirement for 5-6 road games per year, this wouldn't pan out, IMO.

d) That it was the ACC that made the objection after their expansion is indeed hypocritcial, but it did have some (veil thin) validity. The concern was that having the 12th game IN ADDITION to the growing post-season would have negative results. Conf championships involve only a few teams rather than everyone, and the 12th game would elminate a free week often used for recuperation. One coach assumed everyone was gravitating toward a conference championship and that would be the mechanism of choice for raising revenue, not the 12th game. An error in their thinking.

e) The Conference Championships are a very powerful marketing tool. CUSA expanded to 12 for the purposes of such a game despite the fact they won't make near as much money off of it. Why? Exposure. Britton Banowsky(sp?) said (roughly) that it would be good for CUSA to have a showcase game on national TV right there with the name conferences.

That first Saturday in December has almost become a second New Year's Day in terms of quality football, and I can assure you most every sports bar in the country will have some type of celebration or promotion tied in with spending the day watching the games. Moreover, the SEC and B12 make multi-day festivals of the event, something the ACC hopes to mimic. The host city is usually littered with banners and promotionals similar to a super bowl, while a convention center hosts exhibits, games and other stuff for visiting and local fans to stop in, learn of the conference and its members and celebrate all things SEC/B12/ACC. It does the same for football as the conference tourney's do for basketball.

Which is an interesting comparison. ACC introduced the conference tourney for basketball despite not having a need since the regular season produced a clear champ. Now even the Big Ten does the same, and we all know what the value of the BE basketball tourney is.

I agree that expanding to 12 just to hold the game can be ludicrous. MWC didn't find a model worth the $, and CUSA and MAC are gambling with the viability of theirs. We'll see how those pan out. But for the power conferences who can secure multi-million paydays I wouldn't dismiss the value of the games, either.

The value of a conference playoff seems to be overated.For the non-BCS conferences that have them the value to CUSA or MAC in terms of dollars is limited.The effect of the conference title game seems to lessen the possibility of a second BCS nod or to reduce the chances for that conference to get to the BCS national championship.(that is an upset in a conference playoff).Having a 12th game each year seems to be a fine money making idea for all 1A schools.Having an equal number of home games and away games each year also lessens the problems of scheduling in odd years.That is the one of the main reasons why the MWC conference doesit and is why the BE is adding affilates or possibly upgrading Villanova from 1AA.