MORGANTOWN - The Big East can probably rest easy for a while and not have to worry about looking over its shoulder to see doom, gloom and the Big Ten approaching.
Will the landscape eventually change again? Sure. But not this year and probably not next if the presidents have their way, which they will. And by the time those same presidents are receptive to hearing further arguments, who knows what else will have happened to reshape the playing field and alter the participants?
All of which brings us back to the original question: While the Big East can afford to relax, should it?
The answer, of course, is easy: No. Whether it be in a year or two years or whenever, the same issues are going to arise. As inarguably the smallest and most vulnerable of the six BCS conferences (vulnerable precisely because it is the smallest and without much football star power, and because of its location woven into the Northeastern media markets), it will be a target. In fact, it will be a much more exposed target should the Big 12, as expected, come out of this round of expansion even stronger.
How to strengthen the Big East, though, is the tricky part, and not only from the perspective of its presidents, who also are loathe to disrupt and adversely affect other institutions. But hasn't that always been the case? No one wants to destroy what the league has going for it on the basketball side, but that is at odds with what's best for the more lucrative football side. Everyone seems to have what they think is the logical solution, but those are usually simplistic formulas that fail to address all the issues.
Sure, adding football members seems smart, but how much would East Carolina or Memphis or Central Florida really add? Perhaps any or all or those schools (or any others that would seem available; Army, Navy, luring back Boston College) might add value, but enough to increase per-school revenues? Doubtful, and certainly not significantly, if at all. And while it would help the scheduling side of football, would any of those schools make the Big East any less vulnerable the next time the Big Ten comes calling? Not likely.
How about tossing Notre Dame to the curb if it doesn't sign up for football? That does absolutely nothing for the football side of the league (which is the issue) and diminishes (although to what degree is arguable) the basketball side. Kicking out Notre Dame might be wise if it forces the Irish to then join the Big Ten and satisfy that league's hunger, but for how long?
Oh, and convincing Notre Dame to simply become more involved in the football side (perhaps by increasing the number of games it plays against league schools) is questionable, too. The Irish have already agreed to do that once and the most significant result was a power play to try and get Connecticut and Rutgers to play series that included no games at Connecticut or Rutgers, but instead in South Bend and at neutral sites. Gee, thanks.
Of course, there is always talk of a split between the football and basketball schools in the Big East (and then forming some sort of alliance between the two), an idea which seems to be picking up steam. Perhaps that is ultimately what is going to have to happen. After all, adding schools to the football side makes the basketball side even more unwieldy than it currently is.
But again, is it worth potentially destroying what is arguably the best basketball league in the country in order to add to the football side schools whose value (both financially and certainly in terms of fortifying the league against future raids) is suspect at best?
These and others are the questions with which the Big East has to grapple. Fortunately, though, recent events seem to have bought them at least a little more time.
They would be well advised not to relax, but to use that time wisely.
Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.
MORGANTOWN - The Big East can probably rest easy for a while and not have to worry about looking over its shoulder to see doom, gloom and the Big Ten approaching.
Whether or not the league should rest easy, well, that's another matter entirely.
It is, after all, only a matter of time. It always is and for the foreseeable future always will be. As the BCS league with the most to lose and the least to gain in any sort of shuffling and realignment of the 64 current college football power brokers, the Big East as it is currently constituted will always be vulnerable.
So why can the league rest easy for the time being? Well, there are those who will argue that it cannot. Look at how rapidly the conference landscape changed just in the last week. One day the Big Ten was sticking to its 12- to 18-month expansion timetable and the Pac-10 wasn't even considered a player, at least in the short term. Within a week, the Pac-10 had added Colorado, the Big Ten had plucked Nebraska, the Big 12 was - in a span of just 48 hours - left for roadkill and then revived in an even stronger form, and the Pac-10 - in that same two-day time frame - went from college sports' potential Goliath right back to David in a sense, having lost the chance to add Texas and Oklahoma and being left to debate the relative merits of Utah.
Shoot, look even at the Big East, which one day was salivating over the prospect of adding Kansas and Missouri and the next was back to perhaps foraging for Conference USA's best.
Whew.
Those who will argue that no one knows when the same sort of rapid-fire, mind-boggling shifts might occur are right, but only to a point. It could very well happen and probably will. But not this week or next, not this month and probably not this year. Truth be told, college football may be safe from such upheaval for at least a few years.
The reason? Presidents, purely and simply.
No one can deny that all of this maneuvering is simply an arms race. There is absolutely no other reason for the Big Ten or the Pac-10 or any other league to begin recruiting members other than to make themselves bigger and badder. The bigger and badder they get, the more money they reap from television. The more money they have, the bigger and badder they can continue to get.
University presidents, though, will sully themselves only to a point in such a battle for pigskin preeminence. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany talked in the weeks leading up to those recent events about how his league didn't want to be seen as igniting some sort of collegiate athletics Armageddon. You can trust that the message came straight from the Big Ten presidents for whom he works.
Each and every one of them is loathe to be painted as anything other than an academician first. Yes, they all understand the significance of college athletics and the branding it brings to their universities, but to be responsible for orchestrating the calamity that would befall victims of conference expansion (i.e., the member institutions of the Big East, Big 12, etc.), well, that is so against the very principles they stand for as to be positively repulsive.
And guess what? Nothing that happened last week painted a single college president in a light other than that of looking out for the best interests of his university while treading not the slightest on anyone else. Talk about your sighs of relief. The Big Ten added television value and got to the 12-school level needed to stage a football championship game, the Pac-10 did the same with Colorado and Utah, the Big 12 not only survived but will now thrive with much the same value and fewer spoons in the pot, and the Big East (as well as the SEC and ACC) were not affected in the slightest.
Don't think for a moment that every Big Ten president isn't absolutely thrilled with that outcome. They have a stronger, soon-to-be richer conference, and in order to get there they sacrificed no other institutions. Plus, they have perhaps staved off congressional intervention, which was certain to be an issue had multiple institutions been adversely affected (and still looms in regard to the BCS itself, although Utah's move to the Pac-10 might get Orrin Hatch off their collective backs). And so now, if anyone has the temerity to go to those presidents asking that they further expand by raiding the Big East or the ACC, the answer is simple: We've already won. Let's leave it at that for now.
Will the landscape eventually change again? Sure. But not this year and probably not next if the presidents have their way, which they will. And by the time those same presidents are receptive to hearing further arguments, who knows what else will have happened to reshape the playing field and alter the participants?
All of which brings us back to the original question: While the Big East can afford to relax, should it?
The answer, of course, is easy: No. Whether it be in a year or two years or whenever, the same issues are going to arise. As inarguably the smallest and most vulnerable of the six BCS conferences (vulnerable precisely because it is the smallest and without much football star power, and because of its location woven into the Northeastern media markets), it will be a target. In fact, it will be a much more exposed target should the Big 12, as expected, come out of this round of expansion even stronger.
How to strengthen the Big East, though, is the tricky part, and not only from the perspective of its presidents, who also are loathe to disrupt and adversely affect other institutions. But hasn't that always been the case? No one wants to destroy what the league has going for it on the basketball side, but that is at odds with what's best for the more lucrative football side. Everyone seems to have what they think is the logical solution, but those are usually simplistic formulas that fail to address all the issues.
Sure, adding football members seems smart, but how much would East Carolina or Memphis or Central Florida really add? Perhaps any or all or those schools (or any others that would seem available; Army, Navy, luring back Boston College) might add value, but enough to increase per-school revenues? Doubtful, and certainly not significantly, if at all. And while it would help the scheduling side of football, would any of those schools make the Big East any less vulnerable the next time the Big Ten comes calling? Not likely.
How about tossing Notre Dame to the curb if it doesn't sign up for football? That does absolutely nothing for the football side of the league (which is the issue) and diminishes (although to what degree is arguable) the basketball side. Kicking out Notre Dame might be wise if it forces the Irish to then join the Big Ten and satisfy that league's hunger, but for how long?
Oh, and convincing Notre Dame to simply become more involved in the football side (perhaps by increasing the number of games it plays against league schools) is questionable, too. The Irish have already agreed to do that once and the most significant result was a power play to try and get Connecticut and Rutgers to play series that included no games at Connecticut or Rutgers, but instead in South Bend and at neutral sites. Gee, thanks.
Of course, there is always talk of a split between the football and basketball schools in the Big East (and then forming some sort of alliance between the two), an idea which seems to be picking up steam. Perhaps that is ultimately what is going to have to happen. After all, adding schools to the football side makes the basketball side even more unwieldy than it currently is.
But again, is it worth potentially destroying what is arguably the best basketball league in the country in order to add to the football side schools whose value (both financially and certainly in terms of fortifying the league against future raids) is suspect at best?
These and others are the questions with which the Big East has to grapple. Fortunately, though, recent events seem to have bought them at least a little more time.
They would be well advised not to relax, but to use that time wisely.
Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.
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