Thanks, guys.

I don't see how MAC schools help Pitt, WVU, etc.

It's all about television, and those schools, several of whom have good football programs, just don't bring enough TV sets to make it worthwhile. None of the MAC are in a Top 30 market. As for Northeast Ohio, the interest is the Browns and OSU, not Kent or Akron. BGSU is in a little town. Toledo beat Pitt, but it is not in a big market. Miami (Ohio) is overshadowed by Cincinnati.

Cincinnati, Louisville, and South Florida (Tampa) have TV potential, more than Virginia Tech has ever had. Yet, with the imminent BC defection, the remainder of the BE really won't have a Top 10 TV market of its own.

What is needed is legislation that regulates the power of the conferences. The Supreme Court screwed that up years ago by giving more power to the conferences to negotiate their own TV deals, just as the courts screwed up the NFL by allowing teams to move at will.

In a better world, the NCAA would have control of the conferences. They don't have that now. There would also be a playoff - with or without the bowls. The big conferences don't want that, either. Just as the NFL controls what team plays in what division or conference, the NCAA should be able to control it in CF, too, but that's a pipe dream.

While the ACC raid certainly hurts UConn, WVU, Rutgers, the biggest reason it hurts Pitt the most is bacause of the high school football talent that Western Pennsylvania produces, even a generation after most of the steel mills closed. In the 1970s, Johnny Majors recruited a national championship team with 75% of its players growing up within 50 miles of Pittsburgh. Without Panther football, or with marginalized Panther football, Michigan, OSU, Notre Dame, PSU, Maryland and other schools will just take away the talent this area produces.

Because the Northeastern colleges put more emphasis on basketball than football (except Penn State, Pitt and WVU) and refused to get together to develop a real all-sports Eastern Conference that could have delivered millions of TV sets and big dollars for both FB and BB, we are now left with chaos and long-time successful programs such as Pitt and WVU are in a world of hurt.

good assessment, jw...

welcome...

8-)

The ACC has completed the meetings this week in Virginia and established schedules for 11 teams for both football and basketball. There were no discussions for a 12th team.

Not sure the BE law suit had anything to do with it. ACC has to be more concerned with national publicity. This has a direct impact on TV.

The BC rumor to the ACC should convince most BE fans that the 8 team eastern football conference is the best approach for expansion at this time. Keeping a close geographical aligned conference has a lot of merits.

Not sure it would be a good idea to expand outside of the eastern/midwestern geographical regions.

The ACC lies too. Plus South Florida does not draw that many TV viewers they are overshadowed by FSU, Miami and Florida.

UCF, FIU and FAU along with Florida A&M is drawing more and more viewers.

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The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

footballgod, the difference is BCS vs non BCS for South Florida which translate into better exposure and better requiting. And a few more years of solid football experience and the fans will tune in Tampa.

Better be careful, South Florida BCS membership could hurt the Bama schools in requiting the deep south.

Big East will stay in one piece
Football-basketball split rejected; talks turn to realignment
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From Courier-Journal and AP Dispatches

The Big East Conference officially decided to remain together as a larger entity rather than split along football and basketball lines during a meeting yesterday in Newark, N.J.

"Our current members have been extremely supportive over the past several months and have recommitted themselves to each other," commissioner Mike Tranghese said after the talks.

He added that the league's discussions now will turn toward realignment and expansion, determining how the divisions will look and which schools will be invited to join.

Initially, the Big East schools that play NCAA Division I-A football had entertained the notion of breaking off into a separate all-sports conference. That move faced many obstacles, including which faction would retain rights to the Big East name and the question of how NCAA Tournament profits would be split.

Instead, the league now will look toward a large future, with a likely 16-school roster that includes eight Division I-A football schools and eight that play Division I basketball but not I-A football.

The University of Louisville has been widely reported as a leading candidate to join on the football side, along with fellow Conference USA member Cincinnati. Marquette and DePaul, C-USA members, are reported to be the favorites for basketball.

"Our primary objective is to develop a model that keeps everyone together, provides stability and best serves the diverse interests of our various constituencies," Tranghese said. "We will specifically focus our sights on retaining our status among the top six football and basketball conferences and maintaining our automatic berth in the Bowl Championship Series."

More meetings will be held throughout October, with a formal meeting of league presidents set for early November. Tranghese said yesterday that the expansion and realignment process should be complete by Dec.1.

_________________
The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

Anyone else notice how the timetable keeps slipping? Now its December 1. Originally its September. Obviously, it won't come easy.

They're actually betting into the period where it will start hurting this year's recruiting.

Bullet, I think that the plan is still for it to happen by November 4. But the BC situation has created some uncertainty. I think that the December date is a hedge in case BC does leave & they need a few extra weeks to work out the details for Plan B.

Friarfan, could a plan B call for UMass. Adding UMass to the Big East would kill the Boston TV market theory or a least share the market as a 50/50 compromise.

If BC leaves the Big East could consider adding UMass and Xavier as bb only members.

Football could add Louisville, Miami of Ohio, South Florida.

Xavier along with Miami of Ohio would compliment the Cincinnati metro area and provide the Big East a good academic football school.

UMass would provide the Big East another flag ship state school that includes the Boston TV market.

Too many teams.Just replace BC withCFLA.Then keep Temple for football only along with adding Army and Navy for football only.Then ND already agrees to play3-4 BE football games plus add Army and Navy and ND is a full member of BE football.

KingCal, this thread will not show all the pages on the thread topic heading. There seems to be a bug in it which will only show the first four pages... This has been occuring for about three weeks--thought it would straighten itself out, but it hasn't...

:(

Boston College could really create a nightmare scenario by joining the ACC. UMASS could reconsider joining 1A football too. They could go to Big East and tell them we will upgrade and play a few games at the Patriots stadium to get them exposure in Boston. Most likely this won't happen but if it did Boston College's recruiting would be very tough with the two Uschools being in a northeast conference together.

This is a perfect scenario, but it will not happen. UMass Athletic Dept., funding, & internal politics are a mess. Their basketball program, which went to the Final four just 7 years ago had an RPI of over 200 this past year. There is interest among the alumni in an upgrade, but they fired the chancellor over the summer, it just ain't happenin' right now.

Use the navigation at the bottom of the page and click on the most recent page. This issue might be related to the your system/browser alone. The site is best viewed using IE.

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