A historical look at Big East split: the Penn St snub, Temple voting power, 2003/2011 mistakes when non-football schools had voting power, 2012 conference split options:

http://collegesportsinfo.com/2012/12/11/history-of-the-big-east-split-concept/


Also included is report that A10 is open to adding all 7 Big East schools to expand to 21.

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ESPN is reporting that Temple does indeed have a vote when it comes to disbanding which is a serious issue for the basketball schools unless of course they can buy Temple's vote:

Temple's vote might be bought for a price. The 7 basketball schools could offer to let Temple come with them (and the 7 bb schools would pay Temple's fee to get their fb back in the MAC). This might jeopardize the 21 team A-10 plan but with Temple (and maybe even UConn) in the fold it might become a matter of simply cherrypicking the A-10 programs that consortium wants to have with them--Xavier, UMass, St. Louis, Richmond, etc rather than a full merger and having to include the likes of Rhode Island, St Bonaventure, and Fordham.

Going with the basketball schools could very well be preferable for the Owls due to the far flung travel for bb and olympic sports they would endure in C-USA 2.0. Also, in the order of things with the playoff the new Big East has no real advantage over the MAC and, as this season has demonstrated, when the MAC has a good year it can break the glass ceiling.

Cover the Temple situation in the article above.

But I don't think there is any price for Temple. I'm sure (can almost say I know) Temple would rather be with the Big East schools for all-sports rather than goto the MAC again for FB only and be with catholic schools for basketball. Temple would have joined CUSA years ago if invited for all-sports but got a better deal. So even though the Big East now looks like CUSA and will likely look even more so in the future, it's still all-sports stability. What happens if the MAC kicks them out in the future? They'd have no home versus staying in a better football conference (this year the MAC is indeed better, I get that).

The deal is done. The nonFB schools can leave to form something new, lose all the tournament shares, wait years for an autobid...or they can join the A10 (A21) and hope that the $350k per school rises...or stay with the football schools and keep the tournament money.

My money is on them staying...it's a ton of money to give up just from the tournament shares...a ton. Add to that, all the exit fee money they plan to get from Rutgers, Lousiville, Syracuse, Pitt, TCU, WVU. We're talking more money per school than they'd make over 1-2 decades as a new conference or in the A10.

BUT...if as part of a deal, the Big East football schools got to keep the name and in return paid out all the tournament share money and exit fee money to the nonFB schools, I think they leave and form something new with their "seed" money. Maybe even join the A10 in that case. But it would be better for them to just start something new and grab Xavier, Butler and either VCU or Richmond for a 10 school conference.

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If they stay, I would imagine they might try to negotiate their share, but would they have any leverage?

The vibe i get is that the 7 Catholic schools A) want to make sure they still are making good money B) don't want to be associated with or have their RPI affected by ex-C-USA schools C) feel like they are in control of the league.

If going to the A-10 proves to be untenable due to the dead weight of URI, Fordham, and St Bonny I think the BE should consider behaving like two conferences under one umbrella since they can't split and retain their shares. What if the 7 Catholics, Temple, and UConn operated as one division while the others (and lets add in say ECU as a full member and Tulsa to get to a grand total of 18) operated as the other? Rather than playing full found robin with the WHOLE conference you play double roundrobin within your division. We'd have more Georgetown vs St John's and Marquette vs Villanova, the football league would still be salvageable, and neither side with have to associate with the other much.

The more I read about the Big East, the more I see two very opposing forces. Not basketball vs football, but "What's going on in the Big East vs Accuracy of Reporting."

And I'm thinking most of this is a load of crap. I don't dispute the Big East basketball schools met to talk about the direction and the future. But everything that is being reported sounds like "They Don't Know."

Which makes me ask "WHO doesn't know? The SCHOOLS who are involved in all these discussions AND DECISIONS? Or the REPORTERS finding this story, who aren't involved in these discussions/decisions?"



That's exactly what makes no sense.
-- The Big East basketball schools are upset about adding Tulane, as if they are passengers along for the conference ride? They are active voting members which had to cast a vote for or against Tulane.

-- Worried about what Tulane will do to their RPI?
The Big East has been brilliantly manipulating the RPI for years. The idea that its members don't understand the role of conference play in RPI is insane. Tulane basically did what Providence did last season:
Providence: 11-2 OOC, .4139 OOC SOS (#331) -- Total SOS: .5295
Tulane 10-2 OOC, .4052 OOC SOS (#340) -- Total SOS: .4690

Being in the Big East ALONE raised Providence's SOS helped 0.0605 (or about 56 RPI places). Granted, it's not going to be the same Big East. But that's not the point. It doesn't matter WHO is in your conference, if you all go 10-2 OOC, you are golden. That's 160-32 OOC, better than the Big East in 2011-12 (153-47).

That's exactly what you want from your conference rivals: "Beat the crap out of everyone OOC to help our RPIs, but lose to us so we can go dancing."

The RPI is math. And can be rigged. And the Big East Basketball Seven know it. Because no one has done it more than them.



That's not accurate. The story says: "One Big East source said Temple has a vote on football issues but wasn't sure whether the Owls could use that vote for membership."

It's the SOURCE that doesn't know. And that's what I mean here: How much can we trust these sources when they don't know if Temple has a vote or not?

The idea that the longest-tenured schools in the league are the ones who don't know their own conference rules? St. John's, Providence, Seton Hall, and Georgetown have been in the conference since 1979 and Nova since 1980. They should have a firm understanding by now. Even if Marquette and DePaul don't, look around the damned table: How many hands went up for Tulane?

If Temple was confused on the Big East by-laws, that would make some sense. They're realitively unique in this alignment. Everyone else joined all-in on one date. Is Temple a full member now, with the rest of their sports a year from competing? Or are they a partial member now, and a full member once those sports move?

It's also ridiculously poor journalism to say "A source doesn't know if Temple is a full voting member" and have no reference to what happened when the reporter CALLED THE BIG EAST AND ASKED. Don't you think the conference would answer? They don't want to look like idiots who don't know their own rules!


Finally, let me go a little Oliver Stone:
Wouldn't it make a TON of sense if TEMPLE was "the Big East source" here?
They have the most to gain from a basketball/football split -- usurping their bitter rival Villanova as Philly's top dawg. They have no loyalties to anyone in the league, a long-standing contentious relationship with the Big East Basketball Original Five Catholic Schools who've tried to make them lesser-class since the 1980s.

It also explains how the inexplicable "The source doesn't know about Temple's status" with no questions asked/answered line is in the story: throws people off the scent that they are the source.

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yeah, these journalists don't always take the time and effort to get the facts correct.

It's easier to quote a "source", who may be another lazy journalist, or may be an entity with a vested interest.

Go back into the archives and read about the NCAA tournament units... not sure that is the stumbling block !
Were they mentioned at all, as part of the cost when Pitt, Syracuse, WVU, ND, Rutgers left the conference ?
NO - just the exit fees !

The money being discussed is more likely (in my guesstimation) the shares of exit fees and entrance fees that these 7 schools receive, every time the BE's revoling door turns.
If the conference is dissolved, many of those fees may have to be refunded or cancelled.
But I'm just guessing, so again, it would be helpful if Aresco or someone would grant an interview and present the actual facts.

But it's not how the conference divides up the NCAA money that's the issue. The two different means of distributing NCAA money you just described are actually the same.

Plenty of conferences are "make it, take it." (Most with a rainy-day fund cut to the conference).

The NCAA pays the CONFERENCES for what they did in previous tournaments. Declaring the NCAA units as property of the school doesn't change anything: They still have to wait for the check to reach the Big East before they get their money. There's no way the Big East is floating advances on six years worth of NCAA payments to the schools.

If you dissolve the Conference, the NCAA says "the Big East earned X units, but the Big East was dissolved and doesn't exist. Therefore, we don't pay the Big East." All that money would make everyone else's shares bigger, go into the NCAA's coffers, or vanish for those schools.

THAT'S the issue.



Disbanding was, and always is, a horrible idea for the Basketball Only Schools. They have three ways out:
#1 - a power-play move while they having voting power to make football want to leave them.
#2 - an amicable split between the two sides.
#3 - Someone else (ACC) decides to add BE Basketball Only Schools for a hybrid.

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Another Mark Blaudschun blog article with more insight on what the BE BB schools "may" be thinking at http://ajerseyguy.com/?p=4202

At this point, it almost seems like it would be best for all parties to find a way to have a clean split. The Big East name is probably best suited for the basketball side at this point since it's been a running gag, the whole San Diego being in the Big "East" thing. It will cost the basketball schools some money, but if it's not too much, it might be worth it:

* The 14 football schools (10 all sports, 4 FB only) go off to create their own league (Metro Conference anyone?)
* Basketball schools give up half their claim for recent exit fees from defections
* Tournament shares are split as they would be if the conference split this year.

The 7 basketball schools then just slide in Xavier, St. Louis, Butler for a 10 school conference, the "Big East" and see how it plays out. After the initial years under their new TV contract, they'll know if expanding beyond 10 is financially beneficial. Then you have a pool of schools like Dayton, Creighton, VCU, Richmond, Boston University, UMass, GW, George Mason, etc to fill in 2 spots if it will generate more money.


Problem is the football schools have the leverage. So the non-football schools HAVE to give something up in EVERY situation. Maybe it's the conference name. Maybe it's the tournament shares. Maybe it's the recent defections exit fees. It's definitely going to be some TV money. Maybe it's 2 to 4 of these losses. The only thing they know is that if they leave, they pay no exit fee...which means little if they are losing tens of millions via the loss of revenue shares, TV money, exit fee claims.

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Article out of Philly with comments from Temple AD and others regarding a possible BE split at http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/col ... plit_.html

Reading the Associated Press distribution on the meeting, Marquette AD, L. Williams, said it would be "premature" to assume the 7 bb schools are prepared to secede from the BE & form their own conference. Marquette deputy AD, M. Broeker said "bb games bring in one dollar for every three generated by fb games" (today's THESTATE.COM).

There's also a potential implication for schools such as Marquette, perhaps, that exploring conference affiliation could possibly be an independent endeavor, meaning that among the 7 BE bb onlies, there could be a break among the 7 in the "all for one, one for all" positioning.

Since more BE discord is on the table, and it is about exploring how to break-out, rather than re-affirming solidarity; I believe they have come to the conclusion they shall do so if "financially" they can determine they can afford to do so, and the "splitting" terms shall not be judged as destructive for the BE bb schools.

Aresco has got to be earning his pay; and the clean-up job he was left with had way too much scattered debris to re-assemble and then re-cycle to the ole' buyers for lucrative profit.

Let's suppose that the Catholic 7 are able to negotiate a split with the 4 football schools who currently have voting rights. What does their new conference look like? I'm guessing they go with 12 teams, meaning they need 5 more. I think these 7 schools are the best candidates:

Xavier
St Louis
Dayton
Butler
Richmond
Duquesne
UMass

Which 5 would you all pick if you could make the call? Do I need to add Creighton to the the list or is Omaha too small/far away to be in serious consideration?

No offense to Quinn but I'd definitely drop UMass, they are an FBS team and will drop this new conference in a heartbeat for CUSA or the Big East. After all the Big East bball schools have been through I think avoiding big time fb teams is priority #1.

I think Xavier and Dayton are in no matter what (long time expansion candidates)

and St Louis is right behind them (with the history with history between DePaul/Marquette/Dayton/Xavier)

and I'm pretty sure Richmond (or VCU) is in for #4 for that market (neither have a ton of history with these schools Richmond plays FCS ball with Nova so that could help or hurt as VCU has no fb team)

#5 would be between Butler and Duquesne (Duquesne has more history but Butler is a hotter name right now)

I also think Davidson shouldn't be overlooked, they didn't want to make a lateral jump to the CAA but to this new league with great programs I think it would be worth it.

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SDSU, BSU come on back. Those #s are w/ the bball schools

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootbal ... aky-future

"CBSSports.com reported last week that a Big East contract could be worth as little as $60 million per year. Industry sources are saying now that number could be as low as $40 million per year. If that's the case, that's an average of $1.85 million per year per school. Seventy percent of that number would be football revenue, or $1.29 million. The Mountain West currently pays between $2 million-$3 million per year to its schools, according to sources."

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