Sunday, May 27, 2012

A Big East Confederation Leading to a Split

The Big East is an overgrown behemoth.  In 2005 they expanded to 16 members and at the time it was done to facilitate a split between the football interests and basketball interests down the road, because at the time neither the football nor the basketball contingent had enough members to satisfy the since abolished NCAA rule that to be a conference with an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament a conference had to have at least 6 members who had played together for 5 years or more. In other recent developments, the schools that formerly played the role of intermediaries between basketball and football interests have all left: Boston College in 2005, West Virginia (perhaps more aptly described as a football-first school) in 2012, and Pittsburgh and Syracuse in either 2013 or 2014.
Today the Big East is on track to reach 18 full members in 2013.  At 18 members they are essentially the size of two conferences.  In my opinion I think that they should consider starting to act like two conferences.   Of the planned membership line up for 2013, 10 members, most which have spent time in C-USA, play football in the Big East and 8 do not.  So let's add 2 more basketball schools---my favorites, when considering television markets and success on the hardwood, are Xavier and St. Louis.  Here is where I am going with this:


  • The 10 non-football schools function as a semi-independent division (or sub-conference) within the Big East.  Their basketball conference games are exclusively against each other in a double round-robin format.  I'll refer to them as the BE Heritage Conference from here on since a few of these schools are Big East founders.



  • The 10 football playing schools function as the other semi-independent division (or sub-conference).  They too play an exclusive conference schedule, also double round-robin.  I'll call this group the BE Metro Conference, which was of course a precursor to the aforementioned C-USA that many of these schools were involved with but I think that for the sport of football they should compete under the banner of the Big East.



  • The two sub-conferences meet annually in a conference challenge, similar to what the Big Ten and ACC play.  I would like to see this be a two game challenge as opposed to a one game challenge though where annually each team would play one home game and one away game in the challenge, against different opponents of course.  (i.e. BE Heritage Conference #1 and #2 would both play the BE Metro Conference's #1 and #2, HC's #3 and #4 each play MC's #3 and #4, etc.).



  • I have contemplated whether or not to have a combined conference tournament in Madison Square Garden for the two leagues.  Seeding would have to be cross-pollinated to make things fair.  But do we invite all 20 schools or to simplify things does each league's #9 and #10 get left at home?   It might just be easier to have two separate tournaments and truly be two separate conferences.



  • Contract negotiating and revenue sharing---the football division (and their football only affiliates) negotiate their football media contracts separately and without the input of the non-football playing members.  They also don't have to share a cent with the non-football schools.  As for basketball media rights, those will be negotiated together but when networks submit their bids for those rights they will be asked to submit a breakdown of how they valued the BE Heritage Conference's and the BE Metro Conference's rights.  BE Heritage Conference splits their share amongst its 10 schools and the Metro does the same with it's 10.  The Conference Challenge tv money gets divided evenly among all 20 schools.  For any media contract for the Big East Confederation's basketball rights must have the approval of 2/3rds of each conference's members.  (7 MC and 7 HC schools would be needed)



  • Replacing members---With the changing landscape of college athletics the BE Metro Conference has a number of schools that are very clear flight risks should another conference extend an invitation--Louisville, UConn, and Rutgers top the list but Cincinnati and South Florida are also hopeful.  I think to ensure the integrity and competitiveness of the football conference that the football schools need to be free to fill the void left by the departure of a school with a candidate that MAKES THE MOST SENSE FOR FOOTBALL.  Therefore the BE Metro Conference members should have the final say on who they restock with.  I would suggest that they prepare a list of possible schools that they would be interested in and submit them to the BE Heritage Conference as a courtesy and simply to say "Here is who we are going with should something happen."  The BE Metro Conference should also be free to add any football-only affiliates that it deems appropriate. 



  • Duration and potential split---I firmly believe that this will be a short term arrangement and that one side will eventually want to pull out.  I would negotiate this as a 10 year deal and that the league's will have the ability to renew at the end of 10 years if they are still interested.  This is where, should they be dissatisfied with the composition of the BE Metro Conference, the members of the BE Heritage Conference could terminate the arrangement and strike out on their own, expanding a little if they wanted to, and arrange their television agreements strictly on their own terms.  Something would have to be arranged regarding finances as only one league, in the eyes of the NCAA, could claim to be the heir of the Big East and the other would be forced to forfeit their NCAA BB Tourney money---I would propose that the BE Heritage schools maintain the Big East name and auto bid but would hand over all monies that were earned by BE Metro teams and that the BE Heritage schools would be oblidged to petition the NCAA to provide the BE Metro Conference their own auto bid.



  • Non-revenue Sports---in most non-revenue sports both the Heritage and Metro Conference's would sponsor them separately unless one conference falls below the minimum for that sport, in which case members of both conferences would play under a unified Big East banner similar to the way the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation operates on the west coast.

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