Carolina,

Good find. While I don't know whether having PSU in the BE would have changed anything - it certainly couldn't have hurt, IMO.

Another irony about the BE vote is that Seton Hall was a no vote (I think with St. John's too). The irony is that the BE originally wanted Rutgers instead of Seton Hall and only took Seton Hall when Rutgers declined. Do you know what RU declined? They wanted to align themselves with PSU and be part of the all sports conference he was forming.

So, if RU would be in the BE maybe there would have been enough votes?? :-/

Anyone that has every tried to get to State College Pa will understand why the Big Ten ADs did not want Penn State. I remember several stores about Big Ten ADs opening reporting the need for mule trains just to get the teams to PSU to play.

State College is probably the most remote sites of any major eastern state university. Virginia Tech is a close second for trying to get to Tech campus. Harrisburg is nearest major airport for PSU and Harrisburg is not easy and is hardly International status.

Just like the Big East, the school Presidents of the Big Ten make the calls due to money. They did not have to worry about travel, schedules, etc as they can simply fire the AD if they don't make their decisions work.

louisivillecard01, you make a very good point.

As for basketball, the new 16 member is far better than the Big Ten. With the new Big Ten network, you don't hear the topic of all conference games getting on ESPN for basketball. Probably due to trying to get to State College. Just kidding.

The Big East did not have to create its own network for basketball because ESPN already existed.

Remember just because you create a network does not mean its will be in every market in the nation similar to ESPN networks.

What the Big East lacks over the close rival conferences of the Big Ten and ACC is a solid top to bottom football conference.

Getting rid of Temple was the best thing that could ever happen for Big East football. Sadly Temple is dying a much too slow death.

Each of the current 8 Big East members have lots of potential to build in football and become very solid.

Forget about Notre Dame as this parasite is not going anywhere. Unfortunately for the Big East, the Big Ten can not convince Notre Dame to join which would be a blessing in disquise.

Forget about the service academies and the MAC other than occasional scheduling convinces.

Forget about 1AA upgrades as this is very costly if you compare upgrades to a top program like UConn that spent millions of dollars.

A couple more years of strong showing in BCS competition and the Big East football is going to get back close to its old level of football.

That is an achievement that many thought would never be possible again.

The most impressive thing, its being done without Penn State and Miami both of which the Big East is far better without.

Why do you want something that does not want to be with you.

I will take Louisville and South Florida any day over Miami and Penn State simply because both want to be in the Big East.

Penn State story should be buried and long sense forgotten for Big East membership.

Yes - Rutgers originally declined an invitation to the BE. They sided with Penn St. for an eastern all sports conference. Seton Hall was a replacement choice. If Rutgers had joined with the original invitation it is highly unlikely that Seton Hall would be in the conference today.

Rutgers, Temple, W.Vir, and VT joined the conference for FB only after Miami joined after being shot down by the ACC and the SEC.
Ironically the conference was formed as a BB conference and the FB emphasis came about when the CFA crashed. ABC / ESPN had exclusive rights with the CFA. CBS wanted back into college FB and got back in with packages to the SEC for FB and BB. CBS needed the BE to round out its programing. The CBS package for FB and BB brought the BE together but originally it was a mess because the FB schools couldn't step on non FB schools to sell the BB rights. CBS actually wanted Pitt, Miami, BC, and Cuse to pull their BB rights from the BE for their FB & BB package.

The FB schools did not want to split but they did not want to loose the CBS deal. The FB schools formulated a plan not only to stay together but to expand after meeting with CBS to get the TV coverage and package. Seven of 10 votes were needed to bring in Rutgers and W.Vir. to get to 12 members a 6-6 split. (6 FB all sports vs 2-1AA FB and 4BB schools). The 4 - 1A FB schools plus 1-AA Conn and Nova were in for the expansion against the BB schools. The directors couldn't get through the block so it was turned over to the presidents for a final decision. Actually it was Lou Carnesecca of St Johns who got the St. Johns president to switch their stance and threw the vote to 7-3 to admit Rutgers and W.Vir. This action actually saved the conference and the CBS contract then and the rest is history with ND, VT and Temple joining later. Has history repeated itself and a TV contract will hold this conference together again? We need to see the $$ numbers and the fine print. Will Temple be back again as the 9th FB only member to solve the FB scheduling problem? Will ECU be the next Temple until 2010? Will Navy solve the problem by joining for FB only? Why did the BE pick up Marquette and Depaul for the Mid West market instead of just DePaul and admitting Temple for all sports for their BB strength? Temple did have a contract through 2005 with the BE. Why do they only have a MAC contract through 2010? Were two BB schools brought in at Temple's BB expense because the split is on with ND siding with the FB schools? Were two BB schools needed to to keep 7 BB schools together for the NCAA. Will Temple be back all sports with their strength in BB and the Philly market after the split? Whats with the FB contract? Guess we will have to stayed tuned through the 2010 drama.

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

Lash,

As an alum of schools in both Big Ten and new Big East, I believe the Big Ten Channel will be a huge benefit for the Big Ten and your comments on basketball exposure are misinformed. It's not as if Big Ten games are disappearing from ESPN - in fact, its presence on the worldwide leader is significantly increasing. Part of the whole deal is that the conference is getting more basketball games on the ESPN networks since they are adding a Thursday night conference game every week along with more Saturday games (this is all in addition to the current weekly Super Tuesday games). The Big East getting "all conference games on ESPN for basketball" is what the Big Ten actually had before, where there were a number of games on the ESPN national cable networks and the rest being syndicated regionally through ESPN Plus. What the Big Ten Channel does is take the games that used to be on aired in local markets on ESPN Plus and put them onto a national network. Once again, the Big Ten is going to have significantly more games on ESPN from now on as well as having the rest of its lower tier games being televised on its own national network.

Plus, remember that the Big Ten Channel is starting out as a basic channel on DirecTV all across the nation, which not even ESPNU, CSTV, or NBA TV can claim (they are all on the premium sports tier). Not only that, each school is making $7.5 million in the first year from the Big Ten Channel alone - that doesn't even include the conference's ABC/ESPN and CBS contracts (the old contracts total $6.4 million for 2006 and they are going to up with these new contracts). The Big Ten Channel numbers by themselves are already more than what vaunted Notre Dame has reportedly received from NBC.

So, you're right in that Penn State "should be forgotten for Big East membership" since there's no way any school would be idiotic enough to leave such a ridiculous amount of cash on the table.

illinibluedemon, the Big East was a better basketball conference in comparison to the Big Ten before the last expansion to 16.

The Big Ten and ACC are going to have to face it that the Big East is top dog with basketball.

All Big East conference basketball games are going to be on one of the ESPN networks. CBS will have 14 games on that network.

It does not get any better than that for basketball.

When you discuss Big Ten and Big East football, yes you have a point, when you discuss basketball the Big EAst is new big boy in town and Big Ten needs to move over because the exposure is going to dominate even with old mainstay Big Ten markets.

On the national scene the Big East has been dominating Big Ten out west and Big Ten has lots of alum in the area.

People simply want to see the best product on TV.

Big East basketball is much better product than Big Ten basketall and has been for several years.

Its just something you midwesterns are going to have to get use to and you not the big kid in town any longer including your own region.

It just too bad that all 16 do not play football as well.

This would be laughable if it weren't so sad. :'(

It's unfortunate that we have turned into a country of whiners who want to blame everyone else for our problems. No one seems to want to take responsibility for their own actions any more. If Gene DeFilippo wants to know where to look to place blame for the problems in Eastern football, all he has to do is to look in the mirror. And I say this is someone who is a fan of Boston College, who has attended their games regularly over the years, & who paid 4 years of tuition there (for my daughter).

It took a lot of nerve for DeFilippo to make this statement at a time when BC had just abandoned Eastern football for the second time. How convenient for him to retreat to a situation 22 years earlier to find a scapegoat for the actions of himself & his university president who had just stabbed the other Eastern schools in the back - & then whined further that they shouldn't have to pay the fine that they had helped craft & had agreed to months earlier.

Unfortunately the factual record does not support DeFilippo's statement:

1. Joe Paterno is on the record as saying that Penn State was never interested in joining the Big East, that he had approached ADs at BC & Syracuse about forming an all-sports conference. What this says to me is that BC & Syracuse tried to hedge their bets by getting the rest of the BE members to offer an invitation to Penn State - an offer that Paterno says PSU would never have accepted. BC & Syracuse wanted to have their cake & eat it too.

2. What it would have taken in 1982 is the same thing that it would take now to form an all-sports conference. The football schools would have to leave the Big East with the safety & security that it provides. Nothing is gained in this world without some risk. In 1982, BC & Syracuse were not risk takers. The football schools have yet to show themselves to be risk takers today.

3. In 1982, the Big East was not interested in adding 2 schools, so if an offer had been made & Penn State were to have accepted it, Pitt would have been left hanging out to dry. Pitt was a good fit for the Big East in 1982, which is why they were admitted. Penn State was not, which is why an invitation was never offered.

4. The post further assumes that BOTH Pitt & Miami would have later been admitted. When Miami was admitted, it brought the Big East membership to 10. Later actions of adding associate members showed that the Big East was not interested in expanding beyond 10 until much later. Thre is no way that Miami would have been admitted if the conference was at 10 members with both Penn State & Pitt. There is no way that Miami would have accepted associate membership. With Penn state in the fold, the Big East would not have felt the pressure necessary to take on Miami with all of its problems.

5. The post says "everything else might have changed." That's a big "might" IMO. It looks to me as nothing other than wishful thinking.

6. The critical assumption to all of the speculation about Penn State & the Big East is that Penn State, once admitted to the Big East, would have stayed as the anchor & that everything would have been built around them. They woudl have been the cornerstone for football, the lynchpin. Well, as Miami later showed, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If you read the comments of Bryce Jordan, Penn State president (1983-1990), he had his sight set on Big Ten membership from the time he took office. And not because Penn state was not a member of any conference at that time, but because he believed that Penn State was associated athletically with a group of Eastern colleges & universities that were not their peers - his words, not mine. Big East membership would not have changed this view; it would only have reinforced it. Jordan had a vision for the university - not just the Athletic Dept. - & that vision would have brought Penn State to the Big Ten regardless of any other developments with the possible exception of ACC membership.

7. Finally, Penn State in the Big East would not have changed the basic dilemma which has exsited in this conference ever since it decided to add football. An that dilemma is its hybrid form. The same dynamics that eventually drove Miami from the conference would have haunted Penn State as well. Joining a basketball-only conference, which included 6 basketball-only charter members was never a solution to Eastern football for Penn State or anyone else.

Panther, this is an interesting insight.

Clearly Penn State was doing what was good for Penn State & was not concerned with the consequences for anyone else. This was an enormous mistake for Rutgers at the time & if they had hitched their wagon to PSU's star, they were badly misled.

This reminds me of your earlier comments about paterno delivering PSU's withdrawal from the Eastern Eight by slipping a note under the commissioner's door in the miccle of the night. If this is representative of his communication style, it shows a man who is less than forthright & direct in his interactions with others

A lack of communication seems to have been what underlay Rutgers' mistake if what you say is accurate. Discussions about formation of the Big East took palce in 1978-79. competition begain in the fall of '79. In 1979, Penn State withdrew from the Eastern Eight, discontinuing its participation in league comeptition in the fall of '79. So, Penn State's contemplation about leaving the Eastern Eight coincided exactly with the period when preparations for establishing the Big East were underway.

Enter Rutgers.

Penn State must have known that they were contemplating departure from the Eastern Eight when Rutgers was contemplating entry to the Big East. Apparently PSU chose not to share their plans with Rutgers. It made no sense for Rutgers to stay in the Eastern Eight - a basketball-only conference like the Big East - in hopes of joining PSU in an all-sports conference especially after the Eastern Eight had been denuded with the loss of Penn state & the well-known commitment of Villanova to the Big East. Rutgers was an Eastern basketball power at the time - only recently off its 1976 Final four appearance & undefeated regular season - & was a highly desirable target for any Eastern conference.

Penn state rejoined the conference, now named the Atlantic Ten, in 1983. It was during their 1979-83 hiatus from the conference that they unsuccessfully explored the formation of an Eastern all-sports conference.

In what way did the side with Penn State for an all-sports conference? They didn't leave the Eastern Eight & compete as an independent for 4 years the way Penn State did. IMO a more accurate description is that they played the role of Penn State's butt boy in this saga & paid the price for their naivete.




I fail to see the irony.




This may be true, but I find it hard to fathom why CBS would want this when they could have had the fb rights plus the rights to the bb right of the full BE conference - a much more desirable package than this 4 school bb package that you describe.




This is an excellent statement of the problem. It shows exactly where Eastern football went wrong. The football schools were unwilling to do what was necessary.




Interesting observation. So, it was the football schools who formulated a plan to keep the hybrid together. And the motive was the oldest one in the book - simple greed.




I think it's fairly obvious that Marquette & DePaul were added to satsfy bb interests. It's also obvious that trust was at a pretty low level after the ACC debacle. The bb schools were determined to meet their needs on an equal plane with what the fb schools were doing to meet their needs. More bb-schools offered them better protection in the even of a future split. I also suspect, based on reports at the time, that Notre Dame had something to do with what bb-schools were added. The Chicago market has always been a natural for ND & the addition of DP strenghtened the BE's access to that market, which I'm sure was as big an attraction to the conference as to ND. ND's future plans have always been something of a mystery, so I suspect that the BE bb schools also thought that it made sense to have a travel partner for Marquette in the Midwest rather than a single outlier in the event of a ND departure.

Yes the vote was 5-3. However only 6 votes were needed to vote Penn St in. Therefore they lost out by 1 vote - the vote that
Villanova could have placed to let them in - not keep them out.

Article also makes it clear that Rutgers was attempting to ride Penn st's coat tails by

THE CREATION
In the Spring of 1978, only a few months after my arrival in Syracuse, Dave Gavitt, Jack Kaiser and Frank Rienzo, Athletics Directors at Providence, St. Johns and Georgetown respectively, gathered to discuss newly imposed NCAA men's basketball in-season scheduling requirements. These requirements forced independent institutions like the four of us to align and schedule schools with whom we had no interest or tradition. Self determination was far better than being told who your partners would be, and so the four of us met for countless hours in countless sessions to determine the make-up of our new conference to be. We considered the quality of men's basketball programs in the northeast, regional representation, significant media markets, etc. Boston College was invited over Holy Cross, UMass and Boston University. Connecticut was then added. Rutgers was extended an invitation but declined because it was aligned in the Atlantic 8 (now the Atlantic 10) along with Penn State. Rutgers didn't feel comfortable disassociating itself with Penn State. Seton Hall took Rutgers spot. Villanova was also in the Atlantic 8, but it joined up a year later over Temple and St. Josephs. Thus, in the first year of operation, 1979-80, we had seven active members which increased to eight in 1980-81.

After only two years of existence as a conference formed specifically for men's basketball, football became an issue. Joe Paterno, head football coach and then Director of Athletics at Penn State, had been trying to put together an all-sports conference of the eastern Division IA independent schools. They included Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, West Virginia and Temple. While our football fortunes would be well served through such an alignment, it would have been a step backward for men's basketball. To enter into such an alignment Syracuse and Boston College would have had to leave the BIG EAST. With the reluctance of B.C. and Syracuse to do so, Penn State then asked for membership in the BIG EAST. This was a turning point in the Conferences history. If Penn State was accepted, our football would be protected. If Penn State was rejected, B.C. and Syracuse might have no other option but to leave the BIG EAST, and join together with the other Eastern independents. To expand membership in The BIG EAST Conference six affirmative votes were necessary. The vote was 5-3. Instead of taking Penn State, we invited Pittsburgh as the ninth member. At that time Pittsburgh and Penn State were bitter rivals, and Pittsburgh was less than enamored with aligning itself with Penn State. Pitt's membership in the BIG EAST, along with B.C. and Syracuse, checkmated Penn State's eastern all-sports conference, and gave the Conference one more Division IA school. This football issue nearly caused the premature demise of the BIG EAST. Clearly, three schools in the BIG EAST had no concept of the importance of football, but the others realized that this decision not to invite Penn State would come back to haunt us. In fact, football would dictate every future consideration of membership expansion of our "basketball" conference.

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

I agree and believe that Notre Dame (as much as I loathe the Irish, I have to thank them for this) certainly had a lot to do with DePaul and Marquette getting invited since all of those schools have been long-time basketball rivals. Please also note that calling Chicago and Milwaukee a single "Midwest market" would be like saying that New York and Philadelphia are a single "East Coast market" - in reality, those cities are very distinct and separate markets at both the college and professional sports levels. Inviting DePaul alone would have done nothing to bring in the Milwaukee market. At the same time, Villanova probably has never wanted Temple to encroach upon their territory in Philadelphia.

Carolinaknights, I'm familiar with the description of the Big East history by Jake Crouthamel that you posted.

It reinforces my point about Rutgers & Penn State. Discussions were initiated in 1978 & continued for a substantial length of time. According to Crouthamel, Rutgers was reluctant to disassociate itself from Penn State - which is a shame because Penn State disassociated itself from Rutgers & the rest of the Eastern Eight after the 1978-79 season. Too bad they didn't give Rutgers the courtesy of letting them know their pland.

This was the beginning of the end for Rutgers. Although football had never been a big deal at Rutgers - at least, not since they played Princeton in footbgall's first ever game - Tom Young may have built the best bb program in the East by the late '70s. There was the undefeated regular season & Final Four in 1976 & for the next 3 seasons they had in James Bailey the best player in the East. In 1979, Bailey graduated & Big East competition began the following fall with Seton Hall instead of Rutgers. Within 10 years Seton Hall went from a woebegone & forlorn program to the point that the national championship was stolen from them be a ref's bad call while Rutgers had become woebegone & forlorn. A simple twist of fate.

Yes, the change of a vote could have led to an invitation to Penn State. The problem is that I don't see how admission of PSU to a basketball-only league 10 years before that league started playing football would have changed the face of Eastern football.

Often when history is written long after the fact, there are some changes to the actual facts. The problem with Crouthamel's piece is that his assertion that Penn State requested admission to the conference is denied by Joe Paterno. So, who ya gonna believe? Paterno is obviously trying to be dismissive to the BE & Crouthamel is equally obvious in trying to disparage his Big East colleagues by saying that they were ignorant of how important football would become. In other words, both are trying to make themselves look good at the expense of others.

I don't know which of them to believe, but I don't think it matters. I think that there is plenty of other evidence to show that the course of Eastern football would not have been a lot different than it became. Penn state would have left for the Big Ten because that's what Bryce Jordan wanted & the East would have been back to square one.

What the Crouthamel piece does state quite clearly is that BC & Syracuse were "reluctant to leave the Big East." A little bit of understatement, Jake? They weren't reluctant at all. They down right refused to leave! And therein lies the problem. Penn state asked them to join an all-sports conference. Vote or no vote, if BC & Syracuse agreed, Eastern football is off to the races. Without it, Eastern football was DOA.

Even by Crouthamel's version of events, Penn state joining the Big East was Plan B, the hybrid plan. But we've already seen what happened to Plan B. In 1983, Penn state rejoined the Eastern Eight/Atlantic Ten & then bolted for a second time in 1990. They would just have quickly have bolted from the Big East hybrid.

The future of Eastern Football was in the hands of the football was in the hands of the football schools & no one else in those days - & they dropped the ball big time. In Crouthamel's words they were "reluctant" - just a euphemism for saying that they got cold feet. No guts. Unwilling to do the right thing. Just too scared. It was completely disingenuous for Crouthamel to suggest that the fault lay with basketball schools who couldn't see how important football would become. These same basketball schools ADs who approached him back in 1978 were smart enough to build their basketball conference into a juggernaut. In planning for the league's future, they represented their own school's interests.

It's too bad Crouthamel didn't do the same for his school. If he had, he would have left the Big East & would have joined Penn State. However, it's clear that the person who didn't understand sufficiently how important football would become was not those bb-ADs, but Jake Crouthamel himself. Revisionist history won't change that.

Sorry, IlliniBlueDemon, I didn't mean to imply that Chicago/Milwaukee is one market. I probably did a bad job in attempting to make my point.

I was trying to say that I think that the bb-schools wanted Marquette as well as DePaul to protect themselves in the event of a split. In such a case, no one would know what Notre Dame might do in such a scenario.

My reference to "a single outlier" was not to imply a single market, but rather to say that the two cities are close enough together that an East Coast school coul make a single Midwest trip & play both schools with a Thursday/Saturday pair of games as they do in the Big Ten. Without Marquette, DePaul would have been the lone outlier from an East coast perspective if Notre Dame left along with the fb schools in the event of a split.

Lash,

I'm not arguing that the Big East hasn't been better than the Big Ten in basketball. I agree that, at least in terms of producing top national championship contenders, the Big East has certainly been ahead of the Big Ten in that regard over the past few years (although I think in terms of depth from top to bottom it's a lot closer).

What I am arguing, however, is that the Big Ten has the largest fan base overall for both football and basketball of any conference in the country, which made it the top candidate to create its own national network.

As I stated previously, the Big East having all of its games on "one of the ESPN networks" is exactly what the Big Ten before. That doesn't mean that the Big East is having all of its conference games televised nationally on ESPN or ESPN2 - all it means is that there will be some games on ESPN/ESPN2 and then the rest will be shown over local syndication via ESPN Plus. That is what the Big East will be having. This is also exactly what the Big Ten has had for years.

The Big Ten is now going to have at least 60 games a year on either ESPN or ESPN2, which is up from around 40. CBS also continues to show at least one Big Ten game a week, just like the Big East. At the same time, all of those games that used to be just shown on local stations through ESPN Plus will now be nationally televised on the Big Ten Channel. That means that the Big Ten will be the only conference to have all of its football and basketball games on national television.

Look, I'm a fan of both Illinois and DePaul (hence my monniker), although I am an Illini fan first and foremost. In Chicago, where I live, DePaul and Notre Dame don't even have any of their games on local television (other than ESPN or CBS games) while all of the Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, and Purdue games that aren't on ESPN or CBS have been broadcast on over-the-air. Marquette has a decent fan base, but it's nothing compared to Wisconsin in the Badger State. Considering that each of the Big Ten schools outside of Northwestern churn out 10,000 or more graduates per year, I don't believe the conference is ever going cede its territory to the Big East.

I don't know how you can claim that the Big East "dominates" the Big Ten out west - do you live there? It's one thing to state that UConn or another particular team that might be in the top ten during the season attracts a lot of national interest, which might be true, but it's another thing to state that an entire conference is attracting more interest than another conference. I'm looking at the conferences from top to bottom from a long-term perspective as opposed to just the top two or three teams in the conference that might be atop the polls in a given season.

All I'm saying is that the Big Ten fan base is bigger which makes the TV network a potential boon. The last Big East contracts had the football schools sharing $15 million ($1.875 million per school) and the basketball schools $10 million ($1.25 million per school) for TV (see http://www.projo.com/pc/content/projo_20060531_31bigeast.17be9fc4.html). Those numbers will surely increase with the new contracts, but remember, that's the total each of the schools were sharing before. In contrast, every single Big Ten school is going to be making at least $14 million each from ABC/ESPN and the Big Ten Channel alone, and that doesn't even include the separate contract with CBS for basketball. Why is this? Other than Northwestern, the conference is composed of huge state flagship schools that have alums that are well dispersed throughout the country as compared to the other BCS conferences. The Big East has a larger number of smaller private schools and their alums don't stretch much farther past their immediate markets on the East Coast and Midwest.

Do you honestly think the largest media companies in the world (News Corp through Fox, Disney through ABC/ESPN, and Viacom through CBS) would be paying $14 million-plus to each of the Big Ten schools if they didn't have some pretty d**n good reach for both football and basketball? You may have your biases with regard to the quality of play on the court in any given year, but there is no denying the long-term economic strength lies with the Big Ten no matter what sport we're talking about.

Actually you can make the case that the Big Ten has been ahead of the Big East in "producing top national championship contenders . . . over the past few years."

While it's true enouth that the Big East has produced more actual national champions in recent years (UConn '04 & '99 & Syracuse '03), the Big Ten has done a better job of getting teams to the Final Four to contend for the championship during this same period even though only one (MSU '00) has actually one the championship.

Big Ten Final Fours - Illinois '04, MSU '04, '01, '00, '99, Indiana '02, Wisconsin '00, Ohio State '99. The Big East hasn't sent anyone to the Final Four during this same period except the 3 teams that actually won the championship. Even after you add in Louisville '05 & Marquette '03 appearances before their actual Big East membership, the Big Ten is still ahead.

Are you sure about that? I've been watching ESPN Plus for the last three years and I honestly cannot remember having the opportunity to watch every single Big 10 Penn State game on ESPN Plus. And after my Orange, the two teams I follow are Notre Dame and Penn State. (Call me foolish, but I still hold out a small flicker of hope for a northeastern all-sports conference with both those teams as members.)

At best, I would say Penn State Big 10 games are on ESPN Plus about half the time, usually when they face MSU, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio State, Purdue and Wisconsin. And the only time I can recall them making ESPN2 was against Pitt a few years back.




Well, we'll have to wait and see if the Big 10 Channel is a success before you can call it "national". But if any conference can pull this off - it is the Big 10 - mainly because of their success in both major revenue generating sports - a success rate much higher in football perception than basketball perception.

Let's face it. For the most part, the casual national fan is not drawn to the Big 10 in basketball (and the ratings numbers show this) because they play a slow, dull style.




The Alumni base is bigger and the football fans are far more numerous, but theBig 10 ratings for basketball don't show great numbers - solid, but certainly not spectacular - especially in comparison with the Big East and the ACC.

The other cool thing about the Big 10 network is the ability to show classic games from the past. But even here, football will dominate over basketball. Check out the ESPN Classic basektball vault and you will see far more Big East and ACC games from the 80s than Big 10 games.




The current CBS/ESPN/JP Sports football contract with the SEC is the largest at $50 million. The Big 10's ABC/ESPN contract is currently at $42 million. The current Raycom/JP Sports ACC basketball contract is the largest current bb contract at just under $30 million. The current Big 10 bb contract is half that amount at $15 million.

If one were to combine the two best contracts of both sports - the SEC's football contract with the ACC's bb contract, each team would be getting 6.6 million for the combined TV contracts. Don't know who fed you that 14 million each, but that simply isn't happening.





Ultimately, all that matters in terms of television and advertisers are DMAs and ratings. The DMAs of the Big 10 are nice, but pale in comparison with the Big East or even the ACC. The Big 10's ratings for football are great, but for basketball are behind both the Big East and the ACC. Here are the facts from the past season:

Regular Season: CBS/ESPN
Duke vs. Georgetown - highest rated regular season game on CBS.
Connecticut vs. Louisville - highest rated regular season conference game on CBS.
Villanova vs. Connecticut - highest rated Sunday afternoon regular season game.
Connecticut vs. Villanova - highest rated weeknight game on ESPN
Connecticut vs. Louisville - highest rated GameDay game in the short two-year history of College Basketball GameDay. - Another interesting fact here is that in the short 2 year history of GameDay for basketball, no Big Ten match-up has been featured yet whereas there have been 4 Big East match-ups already. I think that might be very telling.

Big East tournament/ESPN:

Syracuse vs. Connecticut, highest rated quarter-final game ever - with a noon kick-off no less.
Syracuse vs. Georgetown, highest rated semi-final game since 1996 (article did not say what match-up beat it out in 1996)
Syracuse vs. Pittsburgh, highest rated conference final since the ACC 1998 title game Duke vs. UNC when they were rated #1 and #2 in the nation at the time.

Also, the numbers on ESPN for the Syracuse vs. Pittsburgh final were only 0.1 ratings point down from the highest rated Sunday Conference Tourney Final on CBS that weekend - which usually always gets a half to a full rating point higher number than the ESPN finals on Saturday due to the build-up and tie-in to Selection Sunday.

None of the above is meant to disparage the Big 10 (well except for the dull style of basketball they play). But believe me, the Big East and the ACC trump the Big 10 in basketball and the SEC trumps the Big 10 in football. But without a doubt, the Big 10 has the best combination of the two.

The college sports community anxiously awaits how successful the Big 10 will be with this new venture of theirs. And when it comes to sports, this is probably a first for the Big 10 - being ahead of the curve instead of 10 years behind it.

Cheers,
Neil