(03-26-2013 11:53 AM)blazr Wrote: WTF is all this "fair" talk? There is the contract a school signed and then there is whatever the lawyers of all parties involved work out differently (if anything). NCAA credits are tied to schools...what makes you think they aren't? ...
What makes most people think that they aren't is the fact that its been extensively covered that the units for tournament appearances are received by the conferences that they were representing in the tournament. For example, when the MWC and CUSA were considering a merger, they were informed by the NCAA that they would keep the MWC units if they merged by adding the CUSA schools to the MWC, keep the CUSA units if they merged by adding the MWC schools to CUSA, and would not receive either if they shut down both and started a new conference from scratch.
The schools that would get paid their tournament money directly would be those that would be invited to compete as independents, rather than as representatives of conferences, though I do not know of any independents invited to the NCAA tournament over the past six years. I was under the impression that the big name football independents ~ Notre Dame, Navy, Army ~ are all conference members for BBall.
The "New Big East" schools had bargaining leverage, since until they put in formal notice, they had a majority of the votes. They also had the right to leave without exit fee if they left as a block. However there was a clause requiring a majority of both BB and FB schools to shut down the Old Big East. Both of those were hammered out last time the Old Big East threatened to fall apart.
So they could have used their voting power to block things, and they could have stripped D1 status from the Old Big East by leaving before the new schools were able to join and provide the required 7 men and women BB schools, 6 FB schools (for non-FB schools, 6 teams in each of two men's sports*), and 6 teams in each of two women's teams sports ... but they couldn't use it to simply kill the old Big East and then divide assets on a majority vote basis. Since they were the ones that wanted to get things done quickly, the three Big TBA voting schools were able to negotiate an exit in which the C7 would basically get "their" units and not much else.
As far as PITT getting "their" units: Changing the rules this summer would only affect the payouts for tournament appearances starting in 2014. The Pitt units earned as a representative of the Old Big East would in any event stay with the Big TBA for the full six year payout. Pitt fans can argue until they are blue in the face that its "only fair" for Pitt to get "their" Big East representative tournament appearance money, but those were not the rules in place when Pitt made its decision to go for the bigger conference payouts from the ACC.
(* The New Big East gets over the D1 sports played rules with men's soccer and baseball, and hits six baseball schools with four C7 schools that play baseball plus X and Butler, which is likely why X and Butler were always such firm picks in early reporting on schools to be picked for the New Big East.)