Post by elp525 on Apr 27, 2010 4:57:08 GMT -5
Tuesday April 27, 2010
The league would be best fit for WVU teams
by Jack Bogaczyk
Daily Mail Sports Editor
For a second time in less than a decade, it appears the Big East Conference is about to undergo a radical membership change.
It's either that, or just go away.
Unless the Big Ten's ongoing expansion study goes nowhere farther than Commissioner Jim Delany's desk - and it figures to travel at least as far as Columbia, Mo., and Pittsburgh - the Big East figures to lose perhaps as much as 37.5 percent of its football membership.
That's happened before, but this time, it's different.
In June 2003, when Virginia Tech and Miami (Fla.) announced they were moving from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference (to be followed by Boston College), the Big East's direction was pretty obvious.
As a deep-roots basketball conference that needed to replace football members, Louisville and Cincinnati were obvious targets. USF's addition kept the league in a Florida market. Marquette and DePaul basketball brought an 8-8 balance to the hybrid operation.
Within a five-season span since Big East reorganization, West Virginia endured and prospered with two Bowl Championship Series appearances, NCAA Tournament success under John Beilein and Bob Huggins, and Olympic sports' improvement ... and a major hike in fundraising to accompany the aforementioned.
The immediate future for the Mountaineers and Big East isn't as comfortable or predictable in this go-round of uncertainty, as the Big Ten's potential prospects currently in the Big East include Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers, Notre Dame and/or even Connecticut.
To quote Gomer Pyle, "Shazam."
When Big East Commissioner John Marinatto said last week that his conference needed to "think outside the box," he hopefully didn't mean a casket.
To consider some of the scenarios, first, it doesn't appear that Notre Dame is ready to give up its football independence - and the Big Ten's telecast revenue isn't as overwhelming to the Fighting Irish as it would be to another school.
That's because ND has a $15 million annual home-game deal with NBC, and if the Irish can get the football ship righted under Coach Brian Kelly and bounce back into the BCS, the school would get a $4.5 million (and unshared) payday for that.
If ND doesn't join its Midwest neighbors in the Big Ten, it needs somewhere to play hoops and Olympic sports. That's the Big East ... in whatever form it takes, as a league with others in a reconstituted football group or as a Catholic school-driven basketball league of 8-12 members.
The Big East, with its history, its Madison Square Garden tournament, and its brand, isn't going to go away. It will play on, in some form.
That, however, doesn't help a WVU, Cincinnati, Louisville, USF or any of the others the Big Ten doesn't grab. Those five or so could be looking for a new all-sports conference home, or swallowing hard and bringing in enough football teams (again) to keep kicking.
If the Big East loses three teams and decides to keep playing football, a good guesstimate is that the league would try to go beyond eight members to nine, to balance home-and-road scheduling.
Whom to add? Central Florida? Villanova, with a 20-scholarship hike to major status? Memphis? East Carolina? Navy? Army? Temple, again? How attractive is that?
Bye-bye BCS berth?
Some folks have floated a BC return to the Big East. As long as the Eagles have the same administration that took them to the ACC, they just aren't moving back into the old neighborhood.
If you asked me what's the best thing that could happen to West Virginia in the Big Ten expansion plans (other than the status-quo), that's a simple one to answer:
The Mountaineers would end up in the ACC - which, to be honest, could use the football and basketball steam that WVU could bring to the table.
The ACC's bid to really enhance its football by taking those three Big East teams hasn't panned out so well, because while the Hokies have been a major success, Miami and Florida State have dropped off.
The decision also has had a negative impact on ACC basketball (especially scheduling), while the Big East has advanced itself against its Eastern seaboard hoops rival.
Adding WVU and another Big East team or two would help the ACC improve the dollars in its next TV deal, which will start in 2011-12.
West Virginia, once it reached full revenue-sharing status in the ACC, would make about $4 million more than it will receive in Big East money this year.
Thanks to men's and women's basketball success, including $1 million for Huggins' Final Four run, WVU hiked its Big East money from the $7 million-plus range to a record $9.4 million in 2009-10.
While the Mountaineers could perhaps triple their usual conference revenue take in the Southeastern Conference (about $23 million annually per team this year), WVU also would be more competitive in the ACC in football than in the SEC, which has won four consecutive national titles.
There's another worthy point.
With West Virginia likely losing conference affiliation with its biggest rival (Pitt) and another perennial opponent (Syracuse), with ACC membership it would rekindle stronger relationships with two other longtime foes in Maryland and Virginia Tech.
The ACC also is a better hoops option for West Virginia, especially if the North Carolina-rooted league would also add a Connecticut or Louisville (and don't be surprised if Cincinnati and Louisville go hand-in-hand somewhere).
However, there's no indication the ACC will expand - unless the SEC decides to match a Big Ten super-sizing by grabbing some combination of Miami, Florida State, Clemson and/or Georgia Tech from the ACC (or a geographically friendly Cincinnati and Louisville, perhaps?)
Can the ACC afford to stand pat while at least three of its five BCS conference brethren (Big Ten, SEC and Pacific-10) grow? That's one of the seemingly thousands of unanswered questions in all of this.
There's another issue for West Virginia in this seismic shift in major college sports - the timing of it all. WVU has a lame-duck athletic director in Ed Pastilong, whose 21-year run ends June 30.
While there's little-question any backroom dickering would be handled by first-year President Jim Clements and the Board of Governors, this could be a period in which the Mountaineers need serious leadership and clout - and not a rookie AD just in the door.
Then, there's the television side, which should be a WVU plus. The Mountaineers have shown they can deliver solid ratings in football and basketball in recent years. Quality schedules help.
During these sort of discussions, people always reference television markets and the fact that the Mountain State has only one market (Charleston-Huntington, No. 63 by Nielsen) in the top 150. That's a flawed notion for multiple reasons.
First, several TV markets that include West Virginia viewers also include homes in Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Maryland. As best as I can figure from U.S. Census figures, West Virginia - the state, not its TV markets - has about 740,000-750,000 homes with television.
It's pretty obvious that WVU can deliver just about all of that, because of the statewide fervor over the Mountaineers. If you want to use that figure, it matches up with the Birmingham, Ala., market (which includes Tuscaloosa) and is ranked No. 40.
That's larger than Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, Greensboro/Winston-Salem, Jacksonville, Louisville and New Orleans.
Back in December 1953 - seven months after the ACC was founded by schools bolting away from WVU, Virginia Tech and others in the Southern Conference - an ACC meeting took place in Greensboro, N.C.
Early at that gathering, University of North Carolina Chancellor Robert House moved to admit West Virginia and Virginia Tech as the ACC's ninth and 10th members. However, ACC President J.T. Penney of Clemson ruled the motion out of order, since the matter wasn't on the agenda.
At a closed session not long after, the conference decided not to expand membership for what the league called "an indefinite period." That "period" became 25 years, until Georgia Tech was brought aboard in the late '70s.
A little history never hurt anyone.
No one knows where the Big East's football future is headed, but it seems pretty apparent that what's there now won't be intact in 2012.
West Virginia could be the kingpin of a rebuilt (again) football group of lesser quality in the Big East. Or, if the SEC goes after the ACC's southern flank, the Mountaineers could find themselves in conference they might have joined about 60 years earlier.
If those are the real-world options this summer or next, an ACC bid would be the far better deal.
Whatever else shakes the Morgantown program in the wake of the Big Ten adding multiple members, West Virginia needs to assure that it keeps a seat at the big BCS table.
The league would be best fit for WVU teams
by Jack Bogaczyk
Daily Mail Sports Editor
For a second time in less than a decade, it appears the Big East Conference is about to undergo a radical membership change.
It's either that, or just go away.
Unless the Big Ten's ongoing expansion study goes nowhere farther than Commissioner Jim Delany's desk - and it figures to travel at least as far as Columbia, Mo., and Pittsburgh - the Big East figures to lose perhaps as much as 37.5 percent of its football membership.
That's happened before, but this time, it's different.
In June 2003, when Virginia Tech and Miami (Fla.) announced they were moving from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference (to be followed by Boston College), the Big East's direction was pretty obvious.
As a deep-roots basketball conference that needed to replace football members, Louisville and Cincinnati were obvious targets. USF's addition kept the league in a Florida market. Marquette and DePaul basketball brought an 8-8 balance to the hybrid operation.
Within a five-season span since Big East reorganization, West Virginia endured and prospered with two Bowl Championship Series appearances, NCAA Tournament success under John Beilein and Bob Huggins, and Olympic sports' improvement ... and a major hike in fundraising to accompany the aforementioned.
The immediate future for the Mountaineers and Big East isn't as comfortable or predictable in this go-round of uncertainty, as the Big Ten's potential prospects currently in the Big East include Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers, Notre Dame and/or even Connecticut.
To quote Gomer Pyle, "Shazam."
When Big East Commissioner John Marinatto said last week that his conference needed to "think outside the box," he hopefully didn't mean a casket.
To consider some of the scenarios, first, it doesn't appear that Notre Dame is ready to give up its football independence - and the Big Ten's telecast revenue isn't as overwhelming to the Fighting Irish as it would be to another school.
That's because ND has a $15 million annual home-game deal with NBC, and if the Irish can get the football ship righted under Coach Brian Kelly and bounce back into the BCS, the school would get a $4.5 million (and unshared) payday for that.
If ND doesn't join its Midwest neighbors in the Big Ten, it needs somewhere to play hoops and Olympic sports. That's the Big East ... in whatever form it takes, as a league with others in a reconstituted football group or as a Catholic school-driven basketball league of 8-12 members.
The Big East, with its history, its Madison Square Garden tournament, and its brand, isn't going to go away. It will play on, in some form.
That, however, doesn't help a WVU, Cincinnati, Louisville, USF or any of the others the Big Ten doesn't grab. Those five or so could be looking for a new all-sports conference home, or swallowing hard and bringing in enough football teams (again) to keep kicking.
If the Big East loses three teams and decides to keep playing football, a good guesstimate is that the league would try to go beyond eight members to nine, to balance home-and-road scheduling.
Whom to add? Central Florida? Villanova, with a 20-scholarship hike to major status? Memphis? East Carolina? Navy? Army? Temple, again? How attractive is that?
Bye-bye BCS berth?
Some folks have floated a BC return to the Big East. As long as the Eagles have the same administration that took them to the ACC, they just aren't moving back into the old neighborhood.
If you asked me what's the best thing that could happen to West Virginia in the Big Ten expansion plans (other than the status-quo), that's a simple one to answer:
The Mountaineers would end up in the ACC - which, to be honest, could use the football and basketball steam that WVU could bring to the table.
The ACC's bid to really enhance its football by taking those three Big East teams hasn't panned out so well, because while the Hokies have been a major success, Miami and Florida State have dropped off.
The decision also has had a negative impact on ACC basketball (especially scheduling), while the Big East has advanced itself against its Eastern seaboard hoops rival.
Adding WVU and another Big East team or two would help the ACC improve the dollars in its next TV deal, which will start in 2011-12.
West Virginia, once it reached full revenue-sharing status in the ACC, would make about $4 million more than it will receive in Big East money this year.
Thanks to men's and women's basketball success, including $1 million for Huggins' Final Four run, WVU hiked its Big East money from the $7 million-plus range to a record $9.4 million in 2009-10.
While the Mountaineers could perhaps triple their usual conference revenue take in the Southeastern Conference (about $23 million annually per team this year), WVU also would be more competitive in the ACC in football than in the SEC, which has won four consecutive national titles.
There's another worthy point.
With West Virginia likely losing conference affiliation with its biggest rival (Pitt) and another perennial opponent (Syracuse), with ACC membership it would rekindle stronger relationships with two other longtime foes in Maryland and Virginia Tech.
The ACC also is a better hoops option for West Virginia, especially if the North Carolina-rooted league would also add a Connecticut or Louisville (and don't be surprised if Cincinnati and Louisville go hand-in-hand somewhere).
However, there's no indication the ACC will expand - unless the SEC decides to match a Big Ten super-sizing by grabbing some combination of Miami, Florida State, Clemson and/or Georgia Tech from the ACC (or a geographically friendly Cincinnati and Louisville, perhaps?)
Can the ACC afford to stand pat while at least three of its five BCS conference brethren (Big Ten, SEC and Pacific-10) grow? That's one of the seemingly thousands of unanswered questions in all of this.
There's another issue for West Virginia in this seismic shift in major college sports - the timing of it all. WVU has a lame-duck athletic director in Ed Pastilong, whose 21-year run ends June 30.
While there's little-question any backroom dickering would be handled by first-year President Jim Clements and the Board of Governors, this could be a period in which the Mountaineers need serious leadership and clout - and not a rookie AD just in the door.
Then, there's the television side, which should be a WVU plus. The Mountaineers have shown they can deliver solid ratings in football and basketball in recent years. Quality schedules help.
During these sort of discussions, people always reference television markets and the fact that the Mountain State has only one market (Charleston-Huntington, No. 63 by Nielsen) in the top 150. That's a flawed notion for multiple reasons.
First, several TV markets that include West Virginia viewers also include homes in Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Maryland. As best as I can figure from U.S. Census figures, West Virginia - the state, not its TV markets - has about 740,000-750,000 homes with television.
It's pretty obvious that WVU can deliver just about all of that, because of the statewide fervor over the Mountaineers. If you want to use that figure, it matches up with the Birmingham, Ala., market (which includes Tuscaloosa) and is ranked No. 40.
That's larger than Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, Greensboro/Winston-Salem, Jacksonville, Louisville and New Orleans.
Back in December 1953 - seven months after the ACC was founded by schools bolting away from WVU, Virginia Tech and others in the Southern Conference - an ACC meeting took place in Greensboro, N.C.
Early at that gathering, University of North Carolina Chancellor Robert House moved to admit West Virginia and Virginia Tech as the ACC's ninth and 10th members. However, ACC President J.T. Penney of Clemson ruled the motion out of order, since the matter wasn't on the agenda.
At a closed session not long after, the conference decided not to expand membership for what the league called "an indefinite period." That "period" became 25 years, until Georgia Tech was brought aboard in the late '70s.
A little history never hurt anyone.
No one knows where the Big East's football future is headed, but it seems pretty apparent that what's there now won't be intact in 2012.
West Virginia could be the kingpin of a rebuilt (again) football group of lesser quality in the Big East. Or, if the SEC goes after the ACC's southern flank, the Mountaineers could find themselves in conference they might have joined about 60 years earlier.
If those are the real-world options this summer or next, an ACC bid would be the far better deal.
Whatever else shakes the Morgantown program in the wake of the Big Ten adding multiple members, West Virginia needs to assure that it keeps a seat at the big BCS table.
