I have been trying to gather info on possible additions. I like the system we have, and if we never have to expand then we have a league that can build itself. However, anything can happen with the BCS at this point. So I am asking for your help. I am creating a huge database of current BE school info and prospective school info. That’s the first part of the evaluation. I have some questions about the BE and prospective schools:

What teams should we consider?
What TV markets dose the BE have now?
What TV markets will the prospective schools bring?
What is the enrollment of these schools?
What are the stadium capacities of these schools?
Where their alumni are located and how big is the base?
What recruiting area will be influenced by them?
What is their current budget?

A listing of TV Markets:
<a href='http://www.tvb.org/rcentral/markettrack/US_HH_by_DMA.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.tvb.org/rcentral/markettrack/US...S_HH_by_DMA.asp</a>

A Map of TV Markets.
<a href='http://ekb.dbstalk.com/TVMarkets/' target='_blank'>http://ekb.dbstalk.com/TVMarkets/</a>

Here is a good thread that gave me a lot of our info.

I was considering how to save eastern college football in the BCS system, like most of us eh? The most ideal plan would involve Notre Dame and Penn St. It would take a great deal of effort and an intriguing argument to lure either of these schools from the Big 10 schools. If we can get one then the other will come. That’s what the ACC did to us. They wanted Miami. Miami wanted to take at least one more partner to feel safe and to lessen the national pinpoint. We need to go after Penn St. and hard! JoPa is really old and although has descent recruiting classes and fanatically strong support at Penn St., something must be done to change the course of Penn St. football. Moving to the Eastern Athletic Conference would allow Penn St a more even conference schedule than the Big 10 cannibals produced. If Penn St. continues to fall flat in Big 10 play these next few years, then we might have a shot at getting them.
Being able to go ND and say look what Penn St is willing to do, then producing the right financial and scheduling situation could be workable with the natural rivals ND would be connected to in the Eastern Conference. They have also overscheduled themselves. Pitt is on their schedule for years to come, I believe. So that’s an addition.
My original idea was to have a 12 member conference using the New Big East schools and Penn St, because a twelve member conference is the national norm and since we would be scum if we left any of our current members behind. This would require us to get two more schools to join. I personally would choose Army and Navy because of tradition. This conference would look something like this:

Syr WV
Uconn Lois
Pitt Cin
Rut USF
Penn ND
Army Navy

I don’t think this is a good enough proposal to actually accomplish though. What would produce a complete revitalization of Eastern football? IMO, expanding the anchor of North Eastern teams to produce a more D-1 interest in the NE. Secondly, expand the idea of Eastern football from just the North East to everything east of the Mississippi River. I came to the idea of a conference that is comprised of two divisions. The divisions would then be comprised of two smaller divisions called “cups

Well the computer screwed up my formatting:

North Division:

Colonial Cup

UConn, Army, UMass, Delaware, Penn

Central Cup

Syr, PennSt, ND, Rut, Navy

South Divivsion:

River Cup

Lois, Pitt, Memphis, Cin, WVU

Dixi Cup

USF, UCF, Troy, ECU, SoMiss

WVUCoffey Wrote:What teams should we consider?&nbsp;
What TV markets dose the BE have now?
What TV markets will the prospective schools bring?
What is the enrollment of these schools?
What are the stadium capacities of these schools?
Where their alumni are located and how big is the base?
What recruiting area will be influenced by them?
What is their current budget?

Forget all of these questions, the only question should be: What team will give the Big East quality football and help with the perceptive the country will be looking at us with?

Please, no more talk of Notre Dame and Penn State. Sure it would be great to get one or both of them, but they are just not coming.

And please, more talk of Army and Navy. Army just plain stinks, and while Navy has fielded an occasional good team, they will disappoint more times then not.

I realize the pickin's are slim, but we have to find schools in between these two categories I just discussed, that will both realistically join us and have the potential to excel in football.

The reason I and everyone else still talks about ND and Penn St. is because those are the first teams that come to mind when you ask the question CardHouse posses? That question should defiantly be asked first and should be top among the criteria. However, the questions I asked will definitely be in the minds of our AD s if we ever have to expand. So CardHouse, who would you like to come into the league if we have to expand? I am trying to make real database on potential schools. I just threw the idea out about the big league because none of my friends had thought about it and we wanted the other BE fan ideas. Thanks for your help and thoughts.

20 teams simply for the sake of having a HUGE conference is not a good idea. Plus, 3 of the 5 teams in your Colonial Cup Division are 1-AA schools. That will not do anything to help the BEAST. You really think Penn would leave the Ivy League anyway? It is a bold idea, but not realistic. Why would anyone join a league where the revenue is so diluted? 12 is the max we should have.

WVU
Pitt
Syracuse
UConn
Rutgers
Louisville
Cincinnati
South Florida

Guaranteed spots if they would ever take it:
Penn State
Notre Lame

And teams to look at:

Southern Miss
Memphis
East Carolina
Marshall

Whatever combination gets you to 12, is the way to go. But I don't think expansion happens for a little while.

The very first thing we should do is getting the all-sport conference up and running. We can dream all we want about future but unless that is secured nothing else mater.

If we start to BELIEVE that Penn St. and Notre Dame are too good for us or that our conference is not worthy of their association then we can forget about competing for national championship. All of our members should invest in their program to level that is needed to compete at that level. If you don’t have the resource to that then you should volunteer leave the conference. I don’t believe ND or PSU will compete for National Championship any time soon. The question should be how long should we wait for them.

I don’t want us to rush into thing and pick a member/s that doesn’t have the resource to compete and bring down the whole image of the conference. Temple and Rutgers are examples we don’t want to repeat. You try to kick them out. Temple was asked to leave back in 2002 but fear of lawsuit we waited until after 2004. You have to be very careful. Rutgers spend about 12-15 millions dollars upgrade their facility. Every program goes through up and down. If they going up, could they keep it in that direction? By spending a lot of money to keep the coach. And if they going down, can they go out and spend top dollar for the right coach?

Minimum of eight members is required to be a conference for division IA, not 9 or 10 or 11 or 12 just 8. I understand of the schedule difficulty but haste does made waste.

I really don't understand the fascination with 12 teams. It is not the national norm, 3 BCS conferences are 12, 3 are not. 2 mid-major conferences are 12, 3 are not. Unless the Big 10 and Pac 10 were to suddenly go to 12, the Big East has absolutely no outside pressure to expand at all.

There are not 4 viable candidates for expansion either. Heck, there isn't even a clear leader if we were to expand by 1.

Here is my ever changing take on it (which I'm sure I've stated a million times already). The football and basketball schools will split, I really think that'll happen. I don't know if they will split at the first opportunity or if they will wait until a 9th all sports candidate arises. Then...

If the USF gamble turns out successful, meaning they recruit well with the BCS affiliation and their attendance rises significantly, then UCF should be the 9th all sports member.

If Temple does a major 360 while in the MAC (assuming the rumors are true) and becomes a successful program with decent attendance (30k+), then they should get the nod. The Philly market is hard to ignore, too.

Most everybody here seems to think Memphis and/or ECU are candidates, but I just don't see either ever being invited under any circumstances. I think you'll see the All Sports Conference staying at 8 before either of these schools get in.

If Villanova makes the financial commitment to 1-A football on the level that UConn did, they are in above anybody else. UMass or Delaware would be in a similar position, but they would probably be slightly less likely to get in because of a lack of ties to the conference. I also don't know how Nova going 1-A would affect the split or if it would at all.

They should go after all the northeastern schools that left Independent status for conference affiliations that are outside the region. In other words go after Boston College and Penn State.

Can anyone pick out their school's traditional TV Markets? Thats what I really need to know.

A listing of TV Markets:
<a href='http://www.tvb.org/rcentral/markettrack/US...S_HH_by_DMA.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.tvb.org/rcentral/markettrack/US...S_HH_by_DMA.asp</a>

A Map of TV Markets.
<a href='http://ekb.dbstalk.com/TVMarkets/' target='_blank'>http://ekb.dbstalk.com/TVMarkets/</a>

UConn = Market #27 (Hartford/New Haven)

Quote:If the USF gamble turns out successful, meaning they recruit well with the BCS affiliation and their attendance rises significantly, then UCF should be the 9th all sports member.

If Temple does a major 360 while in the MAC (assuming the rumors are true) and becomes a successful program with decent attendance (30k+), then they should get the nod. The Philly market is hard to ignore, too.

Most everybody here seems to think Memphis and/or ECU are candidates, but I just don't see either ever being invited under any circumstances. I think you'll see the All Sports Conference staying at 8 before either of these schools get in.

If Villanova makes the financial commitment to 1-A football on the level that UConn did, they are in above anybody else. UMass or Delaware would be in a similar position, but they would probably be slightly less likely to get in because of a lack of ties to the conference. I also don't know how Nova going 1-A would affect the split or if it would at

-- Villanova is not moving up...they have declined the BEs offer twice and to my knowledge are not even considering the jump anymore...the BE would probably have a better shot with Umass...but even if Umass announced today they were moving up to D1a...there is a good chance there program still wouldn't be read by 2010 for EAC play

-- The #1 issue this league has is fans...or lack there of.....we have the smallest fan base of any BCS league by far and we have the worst traveling fans of any BCS league by an even wider margin...Once we split from ND the Gator and Insight.com bowls go away immediatly....How are we going to replace them? This league needs to stop worring about TV markets and starte being concerned about adding some schools that have fan bases already in place....If in 2010 ECU and Memphis both have respectable football programs I would just add them both and be done with it....both schools have some unique qualities that would help solve our fan base/bowl problems

-- Its going to be interesting to see what happens with UCF....Obviously there football program is trying to make some strides by building the new staduim etc....but here is the question I have for the board....If the USF program does take a major step forward...wouldn't we be risking there success by giving them another BCS recruiting rival? The USF fans who visit this board and others that I have spoken with seem to not approve at all of the UCF to the BE stuff....Would you still be in favor of adding UCF if the South Flordia administration was not? I can see USF/UCF keeping each other in medicority just as easily as I can see them both becoming Top 40 football programs

Jackson

BE was built on TV markets, to keep BCS berth might to improve TV markets. BE proably has to move south for bowls. Also need programs that can grow. Memphis would be lock, UCF improving BB, atten., has TV market, 2 BE schools in fla should help atten in bowls. Temple must make huge strides, Tulane[always tought ACC would go after Tulane before raid] Sugar bowl is in NO & smaller bowls in area, also Tulane Pres is making waves about BCS.

If, we can chose then, I would add:

East Carolina
Memphis
Notre Dame
Penn State

This would yield a solid 12 team all-port conference.

East Car brings nothing to the table. ND & PSU are not coming. make 3 more picks

What will the Big East do if South Florida turns into another Temple?

They will not invite them to the new conference when the split happens.

Why would USF become the new Temple? Couldn't you say the same thing about Cincinnati or Louisville? Why do you single out USF?

While the Hartford, New Haven "market" is ranked @ #27 , this is a very distorted picture. Hartford and Springfield-Holyoke (#103 with 267,000 TV households are less than 35 miles apart, abut each other, and SHARE common TV channels. These two neighboring markets combined exceeds the markets of St. Louis,Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Indianapolis, and San Diego and ranks at 21, just behind Orlando/Daytona Beach. In addition to this MAJOR discrepancy, the Southwestern Counties of Connecticut including Fairfield (which abuts New Haven County and is one of the richest per capita income counties in the USA) are placed in the New York metro area. Believe me (having lived there) those additional 500,000 sets attributed to Spr/Hol. and NYC are tuned to UConn sports whenever they are on!

templefootballfan, What do you know about ECU? ECU is the 3rd largest university in North Carolina. Within the next 10 years ECU will become the second largest university in North Carolina. ECU has been ranked in the top 10 in football as well as the top 25 multiple times over the past 21 years. ECU has won multiple bowl games. ECU is a football first school that has fans that travel. ECU doesn't have much of a history in basketball, but many posters on this board can confirm that ECU is a very tough place to play. As far as tv markets, my question to you is this:Is it more important to be located in a large metro area & still not attract viewers or is it better to be in a smaller market & attract more viewers than the larger market schools? As far as markets are concerned, ECU would attract a good chunk on the Tidewater Virginia market if it became a member of a BCS conference since it is the closest D1a school.

In the end templefootballfan, ECU has a lot to offer the Big East or any conference. I'm just glad to finally have come in contact with a Temple football fan. I feel special, since there are so few of you. It's my understanding that Temple football fans have been placed on the endangered species list. :D

nflsucks Wrote:Why would USF become the new Temple? Couldn't you say the same thing about Cincinnati or Louisville? Why do you single out USF?

I believe he is a Central Florida fan.