Bearhawkeye
The King of Breakfast
Posts: 13,743
Joined: Mar 2004
Reputation: 588
I Root For: Zinzinnati
Location: |
RE: Maybe Cincy should stick with Catholic 7?
Lengthy analysis of the basketball break-up:
Quote:How Big East's basketball schools decided to finally break off to form their own conference
Published: Monday, December 17, 2012, 6:00 PM Updated: Monday, December 17, 2012, 7:49 PM
On Sunday night, December 9, in an undisclosed location in New York City, Mike Aresco stood in front of a room of seven men -- all of whom wanted to know what was being done to save their institutions. Just 10 days earlier, the latest iteration of the Big East Conference had come to open its arms to Tulane University, another school from a smaller conference replacing a large and powerful football-playing member.
The seven schools -- Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova, Georgetown, Marquette, DePaul and Providence -- had been wary of the addition but were still willing to stomach it based on the promise of a lucrative television rights contract Aresco was supposed to be delivering. But three days before the meeting, a CBSSports.com report broke the news that a TV rights deal with the decaying league could be worth as little has half of what the Big East was estimating it would command.
It turned out to be the final straw for the league's basketball schools.
This past Saturday afternoon, in a press released issued jointly by the seven presidents, the schools -- four of whom were Big East founding members in 1979 -- decided to break off from the league.
"Earlier today we voted unanimously to pursue an orderly evolution to a foundation of basketball schools that honors the history and tradition on which the Big East was established. Under the current context of conference realignment, we believe pursuing a new basketball framework that builds on this tradition of excellence and competition is the best way forward
We are grateful to our Commissioner, Michael Aresco, for his exceptional leadership of the Big East Conference. We have been honored to be associated with the outstanding group of institutions that have made up the Big East. While we pursue this opportunity for our institutions, we believe the efforts of the past two years have established the foundation for an enduring national football conference.
We look forward to building this new foundation with an emphasis on elite competitions in intercollegiate athletics. That is where we will now spend our energy as we move forward."
The consensus around the league from the seven schools was: Enough was enough.
*****
PART I - THE PAST
*****
BREAK NO. 1
Several people The Star-Ledger spoke to throughout its reporting of the story over the past week, said that the move was based on acquiring a level of stability these schools felt had been lacking for much of the past 18 months. Ever since Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced their intentions to leave the conference in September of 2011, it broke the mold of what could be possible within the Big East.
Syracuse was a founding member. Pittsburgh has been a cornerstone since arriving in 1982. Rutgers, West Virginia, Louisville -- none of those caused the shockwaves that the defections of Syracuse and Pittsburgh did. The feeling among the seven basketball-only schools was: If they can leave, anything is possible.
Even though they had Football Bowl Subdivision programs as part of their athletic profile, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Connecticut had always felt like brothers to the seven schools. The Huskies have won three national championships (and seven in women's basketball), the Orange have won one. The Panthers were three-time conference tournament champions and six times captured the regular season crown. They were basketball schools that also had football. Not football schools that happened to have good basketball programs.
Their move to the ACC -- and UConn's very public flirting with the league after the departure of Rutgers and Louisville in the last month -- were the first cracks in the foundation.
"Talk to Syracuse and Pittsburgh -- they started it all," Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard said on Sunday when asked about the latest realignment moves. "If Syracuse and Pittsburgh had stayed in the conference, I don't think anybody would have gone through this. Everybody should go ask those two schools if they feel sad. I don't think they do. I don't think they care. I do, but that's irrelevant."
BREAK NO. 2
With the Big East struggling to keep its teams within its borders, the seven schools closely monitored the ever-changing landscape. Yet, they still remained fiercely loyal to the conference that had given them the platform to transform from locally-based, Catholic-centered institutions to nationally-known. Play a word association game with any smart basketball fan.
Georgetown? Syracuse.
Villanova? Miracle.
Seton Hall? 1989.
Providence? "Slick Rick" and "Billy the Kid."
St. John's? The Garden.
Even a newer addition like Marquette quickly rose to become one of the top programs in the country. And while DePaul has seen its program struggle since joining the league, there was a sense of camaraderie with the Chicago schools from their more Eastern brethren.
But when the league's makeup started to change, the seven schools began to feel less secure in their future. Boise State and San Diego State were added for football purposes to boost the league's advantage in upcoming television negotiations. Central Florida, SMU and Houston were added for all sports, with the intention of further bolstering the football product. And while the Big East's basketball schools weren't thrilled about mid-January games between Providence and Houston or a Tuesday noon tip between UCF and DePaul at the Big East Tournament, they were still along for the ride.
Increased TV deal money was riding shotgun on this excursion, which made everything better.
The basketball schools even got a bone thrown in their direction: Temple and Memphis -- two strong basketball programs -- were added as all-sports members, but would help solidify a weakened hoops product. All seemed to be balancing out, even as Rutgers and Louisville bolted the league. As one official inside one of the seven schools said near the end of Novemeber: "We're going to be fine."
Then the Big East added Tulane, on Nov. 29.
The initial reaction among the seven schools was suspicion. Tulane was another school from Conference USA -- the fifth to be asked to join the league since December 2011 -- with a mediocre football product and an even weaker basketball one. Tulane's football team has two bowl game appearances since Mack Brown left in 1987. The Green Wave have had 10 consecutive losing seasons.
They were in essence, a warm body.
But the basketball schools looked at Tulane's hoops history and did not like what they saw: Nine of the last 12 seasons with a losing record; No NCAA Tournament appearances since 1995; Major NCAA sanctions from a points-shaving scandal, which resulted in a four-year disbandment of the program between 1985 to 1989. The only asset Tulane would bring to the basketball product was that they would play their games at the New Orleans Arena.
After two weeks of putting a good face on the move, Marquette's athletic director Larry Williams -- who's daughter Kristin works in Tulane's compliance office -- couldn't hold back any longer, blasting the addition of the school to ESPN Radio 540 AM in Milwaukee.
"I was not pleased that we issued an invitation to Tulane without any diligence to what effect that would have on our basketball product, the draw on our RPI and other such things. I was disappointed that I wasn't able to participate as a member of the conference in the deliberation that went into adding that.
There might be well articulated and very deep reasons why you would do it otherwise. But dog-gone-it, I'm not concerned about that. I'm concerned about making sure that Marquette is in a position that it can take advantage of the great investment it's made in being successful in basketball."
With Tulane in the conference's fold, the basketball-only schools first began to seriously consider the concept of breaking out on their own. They wouldn't make any rash decisions right away, but slowly began to put out feelers to take the temperature of what their value might be if they left the Big East Conference behind. The supposed-to-be-increased TV money was still sexy enough to keep them in place, however.
That was about to change.
BREAK NO. 3
"It's the bottom of the ninth and we're at bat. We need to get the best deal we can get to help secure our future."
Former Big East commissioner John Marinatto admitted this to the Boston Globe in May of 2011 as a way to explain the curious thing that had just happened. The Big East conference, consistently at the center of expansion talks -- from other conferences -- had decided to make the big gamble. It's current television rights holder at the time, ESPN, had knocked on the door and offered up a nine-year deal worth a reported $1.4 billion -- or nearly $11 million per school, annually.
The Big East said, "No thanks."
Seeing how much other conferences were making in their television deals -- shortly before ESPNs offer, the Pac-12 announced its deal, worth $21 million per year per school -- the Big East decided to hit with 19 on the board.
They busted.
Four months later, Syracuse and Pittsburgh would leave. A few weeks after that, incoming member TCU -- which had yet to even join the league -- left for the Big 12. The next month, West Virginia followed suit. Things quieted down for a year until September when Notre Dame took all of its sports except for football, to the ACC, as well. Rutgers left for the Big Ten right before Thanksgiving, with Louisville leaving right after to the ACC.
When Marinatto stepped down in July as commissioner -- a move which delighted and relieved many of the remaining member institutions -- the Big East brought in Mike Aresco. A veteran of the television industry and most recently with CBS Sports, Aresco was supposed to give credibility to the league as it entered into its two-month exclusive negotiating window with ESPN. Beginning on Sept. 1, the two sides could begin the process of trying to hash out a new deal.
"We're talking," Aresco said at media day for Big East men's basketball on Oct. 17. "Talks have been good and constructive. We're nearing the end of the negotiating period, but we're optimistic about getting something done. They value our product immensely, we value them. We're continuing to talk. We'll see."
On Nov. 1, the exclusive window with ESPN expired without a deal. Other parties could move in, such as Fox, NBC/Comcast and CBS. The thought -- even among the basketball schools -- was that being a free-agent on the market wasn't necessarily a bad thing. So many of the networks have so many different channels, that it meant a home somewhere.
As of Dec. 17, 2012, the Big East Conference does not have a television contract beyond the 2013-14 season.
The main component keeping the seven basketball schools tethered to the Big East was the promise of that TV deal. Privately, all of the schools acknowledge that being associated as part of a football conference helps sustain them financially. But when word began to leak earlier this month that the Big East could likely receive only $60-$80 million, when it had been seeking upwards of $100 million, the seven schools finally decided that conference stability would trump financial stability.
So on a conference call early Saturday morning with the presidents of the seven schools and Aresco, the decision was made to walk away from the conference.
"Stability in terms of our model of intercollegiate athletics, our broad-based model of intercollegiate athletics that's basketball-centric, that's something that's important to us," Georgetown athletic director Lee Reed told reporters after the Hoyas' game on Saturday afternoon, following the announcement of the break. "That has defined us for well over a generation. We're committed to doing that. We're committed to pursuing that."
*****
PART II - THE PRESENT
*****
REPERCUSSIONS
After being the concrete that the Big East Conference brand was built upon and after being chipped away for the cash-grab that became college football, basketball was finally at the center of a conference shift. Even if they were stepping out onto a battlefield without armor and arrows whizzing all around them, the seven basketball-only schools of the Big East finally felt relevant again.
"There was a concern on all of our part on where the conference was heading," Villanova president, Rev. Peter M. Donahue told reporters after the Wildcats' game on Saturday, "and where basketball was playing a part in that conference."
But in its own rush to the exits, the Big East abandoned its own "No School Left Behind" principle.
And in particular, one of those brothers that had all the shiny toys the basketball schools didn't: Connecticut.
The Huskies were a founding member and until 2004, were just like their basketball counterparts. Huskies football was a small-time endeavor, playing as a member of the Yankee Conference and Atlantic 10 Conference. But when the Big East lost Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College in 2004, the conference needed a replacement to help fill the ranks and UConn volunteered to upgrade its operation. They even had success, being co-champions in 2007 and 2010, with a BCS bowl berth to show for it.
But even though UConn is so closely associated with its basketball product, it had little choice but to align itself with the football members. And because of that, it was abandoned by the Big East 7, as longtime Hartford Courant columnist Jeff Jacobs wrote on Sunday:
"Let's also face some facts. As soon as the Catholic schools caught wind that the new deal Aresco has been working on wasn't the windfall they expected, or wanted, it didn't take long to put a bullet in the head of their beloved Big East. UConn, like the other football schools, found out about the Catholic school meeting Sunday after the fact. Heartlessness, as Big East defections have shown, is a two-way street."
But Connecticut wasn't the only casualty. Cincinnati, which has won 52 games and made back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in the last two years, was also left in the dust.
"I don't blame them," Bearcats head coach Mick Cronin said Saturday. "It's a shame that football, one sport, has dictated all this and the money that one sport apparently is swinging around and swaying universities to make the decisions. We're sitting here in a state where the state school is 800 miles from its closest road game. it's ridiculous. Don't tell me that people care about student-athletes.
"Lost in the shuffle in all this is our volleyball team, our soccer team, Marshall's tennis team. It's all ridiculous. Let's call it what it is. I've thought about this long and hard and I've waited to say this. If it's all about this much money and money-grabbing, the players need to get paid."
Even members that hadn't arrived at the Big East's doorstep yet -- ones that were supposed to strengthen basketball and prevent the schools from leaving -- were greeted by a "VACATED" sign at the gate.
Temple, which could've brought its Big 5 rivalry to an even higher level inside the Big East, is now left without Villanova. Memphis, which was supposed to have brought the budding series against Louisville to the conference, but then at least face off regularly against a Georgetown or Marquette, will no longer have the chance.
"Probably nobody in FBS has been more resilient," Temple's athletic director Bill Bradshaw told the Philadelphia Inquirer over the weekend, after the break-up. "We're pretty good at getting back up."
REVERSE REALIGNMENT
The most ironic piece to the seven schools' plan to break away from the rest of the Big East is that in order to survive, they must expand themselves -- thus, doing the same thing that necessitated their departure in the first place.
Individuals who are familiar with the thinking of the basketball-only schools have already begun to identify potential targets to bolster their ranks as early as the middle of last week. Atlantic 10 schools -- Xavier, Dayton, Saint Louis and Butler -- are on the list. As is Missouri Valley Conference member Creighton. Even Gonzaga -- which is located in Washington state and plays in the West Coast Conference -- has already taken the temperature of the seven schools.
The seven schools are most high on Xavier, which has long been a target of expansion talks of the Big East. But with Creighton's emergence as a consistent, national basketball power, the Bluejays are expected to have a large amount of support.
"Selfishly, I think it'd be great for recruiting," Xavier head coach Chris Mack told USA Today Sports on Friday -- the day before the break-up. "It'd be great for our program. But at this point, it's all speculation. We just keep our head down and worry about today's practice. The great thing about our program is that for 30 years or so, we've done an amazing job of putting ourselves in a great position to be a desired commodity."
Gonzaga, perhaps, is the most intriguing option.
Two highly-ranked individuals within the contingent of the seven defecting schools say that if the coalition is seriously committed to creating a nationally-relevant and financially-stable basketball conference, the Bulldogs have to be strongly considered as a partner. Despite the tricky logistics of having a lone team on the West coast in a mainly East coast league, the seven schools would not be opposed to having Gonzaga as a member.
There have even been scenarios tossed around that should Connecticut and Cincinnati want to find separate homes for its football programs elsewhere and shack up with its former conference-mates, those schools would be welcome. And given their rich basketball histories, it -- in some cases -- is the preferred option. But given the college sports landscape being severely tilted towards college football, that option would require a complex and delicate amount of maneuvering.
And if that were to happen, it's not out of the realm of possibility to see Temple or Memphis -- both with historically struggling football programs -- to barter a similar arrangement.
However, before any invitations are extended, there must be a decision on the size of the new league.
The current consensus is to have a 12-team league. The feeling among the head coaches of the seven schools making the move is that it allows the league to be able to still draw a sizable portion of automatic and at-large NCAA Tournament bids, while still keeping all teams relevant. There is a chance that a 14- or even 16-team league could be an option, but, as one person put it: "That puts this league right back into the same situation we have in the Big East -- it's too big."
*****
PART III - THE FUTURE
*****
WHAT'S LEFT?
With the seven basketball-only schools having left the Big East, the league is now down to a scant number of teams.
For football: Connecticut, Cincinnati, South Florida (all three fully-vested members); Temple, Houston, SMU, Central Florida, Memphis (non-fully-vested members, all sports); Boise State, San Diego State (football only); Tulane (2014, all sports); East Carolina (2014, football only); and Navy (2015, football only).
For basketball: Connecticut, Cincinnati, South Florida, Temple, Houston, SMU, Central Florida, Memphis and Tulane.
Under the assumption that the league survives to the 27-month exit date for the seven basketball schools on June 30, 2015, the Big East would currently stand to have a football conference of 13 teams and a basketball conference of nine teams. A logical expansion candidate has been thought of to be UMass, which just completed its final transition season of FBS (formerly Division 1) football and has a solid basketball product. That would give the Big East 14 football-playing schools and 10 basketball-playing members.
However, getting to that June 30, 2015 date to see the seven basketball-only schools off is not a guaranteed thing.
In fact, the setup of the Big East could crumble incredibly quickly if certain schools get nervous.
Last month, CBSSports.com reported that Houston has a clause in its contract with the Big East that it can leave at any time without penalty if the compensation from the still-being-negotiated television contract isn't what the league promised. The other new member institutions -- Temple, Memphis, SMU, Central Florida and Tulane -- are believed to have the same opt-out options.
According to one person familiar with the new football makeup of the Big East, Boise State and San Diego State "have standing, open invitations" to return "anytime they want" to the Mountain West -- their former conference home.
A doomsday scenario could wipe out the Big East with one fell swoop before 2015, leaving Connecticut, Cincinnati and South Florida as the only remaining full members of the conference. And should the seven basketball schools still be around when that happens, the unthinkable could happen: The Big East could end up ceasing to exist as a conference.
DISSOLUTION
According to the last available public copy of the Big East's bylaws from the 2011-12 school year, the hard-to-image fate of one of the country's once-great conferences is coldly spelled out.
ARTICLE XII — DISSOLUTION
12.01 Dissolution. The Conference may be dissolved upon a vote of at least two-thirds of all Directors. In the event of dissolution of the Conference, the Board, by a vote of a majority of all Directors present and eligible to vote, shall determine the basis for liquidation of Conference assets, if any, and the allocation, following the satisfaction of all Conference obligations, of net assets, as provided for in the Articles.
Yes, there exists a possibility that some of the members who founded the Big East on a handshake from Dave Gavitt, might be around to deliver its final blow.
Currently, the Big East has 10 fully-vested members with voting privileges: Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova, Georgetown, DePaul, Providence, Marquette, Connecticut, Cincinnati and South Florida. (Temple, while holding voting privileges on other league matters, cannot currently cast a vote on dissolution.) Should a scenario arise where the new members of the league never arrive and the basketball-only schools want to create their new league earlier than the June 30, 2015 date, the league would almost assuredly be dissolved.
For the first time since conference realignment began in full almost 18 months ago, the Big East's basketball schools finally hold the power.
DIVISION OF THE ASSETS
The most complicated part of the seven schools leaving the conference is that there will be a lot of valuable commodities that will be clamored for. That will certainly be the case if the league is dissolved and those assets become tossed up into the air to be grabbed by the tallest entity -- which would be the basketball schools.
When talks to break off from the league began to accelerate a week ago, one Big East insider said: "A lot of lawyers are going to make a lot of money on this thing."
And with good reason.
Despite being one of the most persecuted leagues in the country, the Big East has a lot of desired items that schools will covet.
There's the name itself, "Big East Conference." It's believed that the defecting seven schools will try and keep the name and take it with them and rebrand it using their new league.
"St. John's would love to keep the Big East name," school president Rev. Donald J. Harrington said at a news conference Saturday. "I would like to hear what the football schools think and then try to make a compromise."
An estimated $70 million due to come to the Big East in exit fees being paid by the departing football schools -- Rutgers, Louisville, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame, in addition to the already-departed West Virginia and TCU. Disbursing that money equally to the fully-vested schools would still leave the defecting basketball schools quite a bit of money to invest with.
The deal with the site of its men's basketball conference tournament -- Madison Square Garden -- which is incredibly lucrative to the league and extends through the 2025-26 season. The current deal expired at the end of the 2015-16 season, but Aresco worked to re-up the deal for another 10 years this fall, saying in October: "That's where we belong."
However, reports indicate that MSG can back out of the deal if the conference makeup shifts away from its liking. The selling point for MSG was that it could bank on large groups of alumni fan bases from Syracuse, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Villanova, St. John's, Rutgers and Connecticut filling the building for five days and nights during the conference tournament. When all is said and done, only UConn could be left.
Perhaps, one of the least-discussed, but potentially critical assets are the NCAA Tournament units. Those are the way NCAA Tournament teams are compensated for making the Big Dance. But it's more than just one big lump sum, as a team wins each game in the tournament and advances, it earns another unit. According SI.com's reporting, the value of each NCAA Tournament unit is $245,000. Multiply that by six wins for a national champion -- such as UConn in 2011 -- and you've got a total of $1.47 million.
Figuring out who gets those -- especially the teams that earned them for the league and have since left -- will be central to the break-up of the conference.
* * *
Any new league in any new iteration is far off. The end for either the seven basketball schools or the Big East Conference -- will likely not come quickly. Legal wrangling will have to occur and the rest of the puzzle pieces be sorted out and fit in their proper places.
Each of the seven schools have announced their intentions and have made follow-up remarks or statements backing up their decision to buck the trend of conference realignment and move away from the college football product at a time when everyone seems to be running towards it. The success (or failure) of the to-come college football playoffs in 2014 will determine if the idea for the seven schools to break away was the right one or just the first step towards confirming their programs were never suited for the big time long-term.
Like his six other fellow presidents, Seton Hall's Dr. Gabriel Esteban believes it is, issuing a statement Monday morning.
"Over the weekend, we announced to the press the new path Seton Hall has taken with our intercollegiate athletics program. After 33 proud years as a charter member of the Big East Conference, we have decided to join seven of our like-minded colleagues and pursue an orderly evolution to a foundation of basketball schools with common interests. DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John's and Villanova are joining Seton Hall in this endeavor that we hope will evoke memories of how the Big East started back in 1979.
This decision by my colleagues and me was not made hastily. Since the college athletics landscape began to shift dramatically in the last couple of years, Seton Hall has been diligent in exploring which options would provide our student-athletes with the best opportunity to reach their goals. My fellow university presidents and I have met several times with our basketball-minded brethren, our football-sponsored colleagues and the Big East Conference before coming to this unanimous decision on Saturday.
With the foundation we have in place, we look forward to a continued commitment to healthy competition, the development of our student athletes and academic excellence. In time, our new group will take its place as one of the marquee conferences in the country.
You already know that it's a very exciting time to be a Seton Hall alum, parent or fan. Our athletics programs are enjoying success; significant facility enhancements are under way; and there is a true, renewed sense of pride for our Pirate teams.
I sincerely hope you share in the excitement as we embark on this new chapter of intercollegiate athletics for Seton Hall University."
It's hard to escape the irony what happened Saturday. Thirty-three years ago, a group of like-minded schools with common bonds decided to start a basketball conference to showcase what they felt was the best product they had to offer to the college sports world. Saturday, a new group of schools did the same.
"I don't hold anything against the football schools and what they've had to do," Seton Hall athletic director Pat Lyons said Saturday. "When you have football, you have a whole other thing to think about. This wasn't just a move, but it was a chance for us to get back to what has been the core of our institutions for so many years."
Brendan Prunty: bprunty@starledger.com; Twitter: @BrendanPrunty
|
|
/
Maybe Cincy should stick with Catholic 7?
