On ESPN's NCAAM site, they have a couple of articles about the Big East's TV Deal. Normally, I wouldn't care at all about something like that, but about once per week or so for the last few months, I have checked out both boards just to watch the train wreck (it has a Jerry Springer or Maury Povich type of effect on me). Anyway, as we all know now, the Big East is now a group of the CUSA schools from a year ago. When they all moved, I mean changed their name to Big East, they were talking about getting this huge TV deal and some were guessing it would be 7-10M per year per school and most were guessing 6-7M on the light side. This didn't make sense to me because if you are currently making about 1M per year per school and you all simply change your conference name, your worth isn't going to miraculously going to jump 6-10x because of it. It's like taking a lamborghini logo and putting it on a Kia and expecting to be able to sell it for $250,000.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketba...ghts-deals

Quote:NBC Sports Network verbally offered the Big East between $20 million and $23 million per year for six years to acquire the league's media rights, sources told ESPN.

Quote:Before ESPN's exclusivity window to renew the Big East's rights expired in November, the Big East sought a $300 million-per-year deal from ESPN, which would have been the largest in college athletics. However, the network declined, a source said, putting the Big East's media rights on the open market.

Quote:Just two years ago, the Big East turned down a nine-year deal from ESPN worth $1.17 billion, an average of $130 million annually. Since then the bottom has fallen out for the league, which has had 16 schools announce they were leaving during that time.

In April 2011, former Big East commissioner John Marinatto recommended the Big East accept ESPN's nine-year, $1.17 billion deal, but the league's presidents voted to turn it down. That deal would have earned full members $13.8 million a year and non-football members $2.43 million a year.

If UC, UConn, USF, and the basketball schools are among those that voted "no"...wow, what a mistake they made.