What happens when the Big East Splits?

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

The current football teams are Pitt, Louisville, WVU, Syracuse, South Florida, UConn, Cincinnati, and Rutgers.

The current non-football or independents are ND, Gtown, St. Johns, Marquette, Depaul, Villanova, Seton Hall, and Providence.

I know this has been discussed, but what I am interested in is how long the current band-aid will work and what people think the subsequent conferences will look like?

I would hope that we can keep some of the games against traditional foes together, but the end of the Big East as we know it is inevitable. There are too many signs that point to the split of football & non-football teams. The addition of Marquette & Depaul as well as three football teams is an obvious line in the sand that is in preparation for future years.

My guess is three more years of the BE structure today and then a split. I think the hoops can continue to be a very competitive conference and I hope that schools like Nova stay up and schools like St. Johns & Depaul get back to what they once were. Thoughts?

[FrazierFanatic]

That day may certainly come, although there could be numerous permeations by then. I just hope if it is a true football/bball spilt, they let the bball schools keep the name, since the league started as a bball league.

[BM-GW]

Since the football schools will be the splitting away, I doubt they'll be allowed to take the name... unless the pay an exorbitant annual fee of course.

[theexorcist]

I had been in favor of the below concoction years ago. I KNOW it will never happen, but it's still fun.

"Big Heaven"

WEST
Dayton (could also be Creighton)
DePaul
Marquette
Notre Dame
St. Louis
Xavier

EAST
Georgetown
Providence
St. John's
St. Joseph's
Seton Hall
Villanova

BC isn't included since leaving for the ACC has recently been reclassified as a mortal sin.

Advantages:
1. Reaches from Washington in the south to Boston area in the north to St. Louis in the west, including the Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington markets.
2. Notre Dame is left with no potential schools that will bail for a football league.
3. Instant marketability in a fast-growing demographic
4. Standard schedule that plays every team in the league once a year (16 games with two against division opponents and one each against those in the other division)
5. Similar schools (with the exception of Notre Dame).
6. Competitive with the present level of the Big East in terms of other sports (losing UConn hurts for soccer and women's basketball, but keeping DePaul, Notre Dame, and Villanova isn't that bad).

Disadvantages
1. No Syracuse.
2. Villanova almost certainly wouldn't allow St. Joe's into their conference.
3. The league is weak this year (three guaranteed bids, Seton Hall on the bubble, though Notre Dame may have turned close losses against some schools into wins). I would expect that an improved conference would upgrade some of the programs.
4. No football money, which leads to
5. Risk of becoming the next MAAC.

[NCHoya]

Unfortunately this scenario seems inevitable when the current contract runs out in 4 years. I doubt ND will go with the non-football schools, so I would take them out, leaving 7. ND would rather be an independent than be in a conference of small, basketball-oriented schools. Depending on their NBC contract in 4 years, they may jump to the Big 10 and finally complete the puzzle there.

As for us, we are left in a conference that will at best be considered a 3/4 bid league. It would be like the A10 during a strong season. I would definitely want to keep the conference compact and play each team twice. This will create the real rivalries we miss out on today. I am sure we would still be able to schedule a game with Syracuse every year, so that rivalry is not totally lost.

I would add 2 urban, basketball-focused teams such as Xavier and Temple. That would bring us to 9 in my scenario, which is the perfect size for a conference.

[1803]

The fact that people say the split is inevitable have been saying it for years. But there is one thing to remember, and that is that the Big East is a basketball league first, and a football league second. The same thing goes with the ACC. Look at some of the schools classified as football schools, do you ever think that the 'Cuse, or the delusional Huskies will ever see the day when football is the top dog on their campuses? They are better off riding the basketball gravy train than trying to become something they are not. College football is not as big in the Northeast as it is in other parts of the country. Connecticut and Syracuse are not going to compete year in and year out with SEC schools on the gridiron. Basketball is the whole ball of wax in the Northeast, and these, "football" schools should be smart enough to know that they will be killing the golden goose if they drop everything to play football games against each other that no one cares about.

[hoyahoyasaxa]

We always look at this from a basketball perspective. But flip it and look at it from a football perspective. The "football" league looks pretty terrible. Out of all of those schools, I think you could only argue that maybe Pitt and WVU are known historically more for their football rather than their basketball (even adding ND wouldn't save that league). The football schools would be shooting themselves in the foot by splitting. Leaving the best basketball league in the country to create a weak football and a weak basketball (weaker than the BE is now) league seems strange.

[theexorcist]

Notre Dame had a chance to jump to the Big 10, a move that was vetoed by the faculty (apparently there was a concern that ND would become just a graduate- rather than an undergraduate-focused institution. My money says that, if the TV money is there, they don't leave.

The football league is (admittedly) awful, but football does get a lot of TV money (primarily if the Big East saves its BCS slot). Having to share that money with schools like Seton Hall or Providence (or Georgetown) with no return on investment provides an incentive to bolt and share it only with schools that have I-A programs. Connecticut and South Florida have improved markedly in the past few years - if they continue that trajectory (and if Louisville remains competitive), the Big East seems a good bet to stay as a "major" conference.

The final concern is that the last sixteen-team league, the WAC, *did* split down the middle, with one of the major concerns being that it was too unwieldy. This is probably less of a concern in the east than the west (apparently, it was closer for Hawaii to buy rice in Tokyo than to play Rice in Texas), but the sheer bigness of it all could wear on people.

P.S. A football-only Big East basketball conference would be pretty darn good. Of the eight-team league cited at the beginning, three are high-seed locks, three aren't competitive, and two are leaning towards NCAA berths. Five bids out of eight (with a weak Louisville this year) seems like a pretty darn good league.

[RBHoya]

1803 said:

The fact that people say the split is inevitable have been saying it for years. But there is one thing to remember, and that is that the Big East is a basketball league first, and a football league second. The same thing goes with the ACC. Look at some of the schools classified as football schools, do you ever think that the 'Cuse, or the delusional Huskies will ever see the day when football is the top dog on their campuses? They are better off riding the basketball gravy train than trying to become something they are not. College football is not as big in the Northeast as it is in other parts of the country. Connecticut and Syracuse are not going to compete year in and year out with SEC schools on the gridiron. Basketball is the whole ball of wax in the Northeast, and these, "football" schools should be smart enough to know that they will be killing the golden goose if they drop everything to play football games against each other that no one cares about.

I agree with this pretty much. People always say "football drives the bus". Does football drive the bus for Duke? For Arizona? For Kentucky? For Indiana?

Yes UConn and Syracuse and Cincinatti are "Big East football schools", but they're still basketball-first schools. Some of their fans may have delusions about their football program really improving (and Cuse has had decent football at times) but they are still schools that pride themselves on hoops. Then you've got Rutgers and USF who are pretty mediocre in both sports, and really have very little to pride themselves on in general. When it comes down to it, Big East football has 3 solid programs--WVU, Pitt (will really get a boost from Wandstedt) and Louisville. The other 5 schools are really weak for a BCS conference, so splitting on the basis of being a football conference really doesn't make sense.

We're playing in the best basketball conference in the history of the NCAA. We're going to see 8 or 9 teams get into the dance. You can't turn on ESPN without hearing about Big East hoops. The Big East is the king of college hoops. By comparison, Big East football is the worst of the 6 major (BCS) conferences by a decent margin.

So why throw that out in order to try to improve a pretty poor football conference. You can be #6 in football and #1 in basketball.... or you can be, well, #6 in football and #4 or so in basketball. That's the choice that the IA football schools are going to have to make.

The truth is, IMO, that most of the BE football fans wish their programs were a lot stronger than they are, and they are unwilling to accept that they are definitely the weakest BCS conference. And they point to the basketball schools and they keep telling themselves that if they lop off the basketball programs and add in East Carolina or Marshall, that that's gonna be the difference for Big East football. Wrong. The only thing that will improve Big East football is if places like UConn or RU or USF started to recruit better, and if WVU, Pitt, and Ville made the jump and started recruiting with the big boys (FSU, UofF, ND, OSU, PSU etc.) I think fans from these schools use the basketball schools as a scapegoat for their inability to recruit football players at that level, but some intelligent people are going to realize, "Gee, Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette, St. Johns (a few years from now).... they have some pretty good basketball teams, and they're located in some big markets... I think it'd be unwise to cut them out of the Big East."

I honestly believe that if Nova can maintain the level they're at, Georgetown can continue on it's current trajectory, MU stays where they are or gets better... and either Depaul or ESPECIALLY St. Johns finds their way to the upper 1/3 of the conference, you're going to hear all this conference split talk start to die down--if it hasn't already.

[Fan Of The Game]

I'm with 1803...I've been hearing this for years.

Who's to say that the Big East can't continue to exist having a great basketball and football league? Why is it inevitable that this will change? There may be some challenges along the way...how television revenue is split, what new members get voted in or voted out, etc. but I don't see these things as something that the Big East core can't overcome.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

Yeah i really don't think there will be a split.

[cincyhoya]

I'll admit I'm damn curious what'll happen. Keep in mind if the conference split along football / bball lines, you have a conference based in Storrs, Pittsburgh, Morgantown, Syracuse, Cincinnati, Louisville, Tampa and New Brunswick.

And oh yeah, you just cut out New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Milwaukee (MU) and Chicago (DP), plus a huge name in ND (with all due respect, cutting SHU and Providence doesn't really hurt, they should be allowed to stick due to tradition and the "who knows" world of recruiting that can produce a winner once every 10 years).

This conference definitely has some strange bedfellows, but the "small market" schools provide lots of access to "big market dollars" and local viewing locations for many alumni, which I would suspect only helps the teams (think of how many UConn / Cuse / WVU fans live in the DC area - you can't tell me that giving them a game to go to once a year - generally - helps their program and may aid in donations).

Yeah, very curious indeed. Maybe the other question could be do any of the small schools decide they can't hack it / it isn't worth it and drop down to the A-10 or CUSA?

[prhoya]

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be....

[SaxaCD]

theexorcist said:

The football league is (admittedly) awful, but football does get a lot of TV money (primarily if the Big East saves its BCS slot). Having to share that money with schools like Seton Hall or Providence (or Georgetown) with no return on investment provides an incentive to bolt and share it only with schools that have I-A programs.

But they don't share any football money with basketball schools now, as far as I know.

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

1803, look at it from neither a football league or basketball league perspective, look at it from the sense of the almight dollar. If football teams can get into a BCS automatic bid, that is where the money is at. Those schools then spread that money out to the entire conference. Unfortunately, hoops just doesn't pull in the big bucks like football does and that is the main issue.

In terms of a league I would like to watch, I preferred what we had a couple of years ago. It is hard to look at our schedule and say we deserve to be the four seed considering the toughest road game we won was at ND this year. The super conference is just too difficult to schedule for hoops. I really hope this thing stands together, but if you honestly look at the current teams and the additions, even the AD's are conceding a split.

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

One more point, I think the big east's auto BCS bid is up in a year or two. That will be the real breaking point because if that is not renegotiated, the good Big East football schools (or those that could be good like Pitt, WVU, Louisville) are going to look for a new home. If the auto bid did not exist this year, WVU may have been left out.

[1803]

The BCS money is not as great as it sounds, just look at the stats and the amount of red ink that comes with fielding a major college football team. You are looking at roughly 100 students who will be on campus on the universities dime for five years, (most D-1 players redshirt the first year). Football loses money on its own, but is seen as good overall to keep alumni interested. If you think alumni interest is important, then why leave the best basketball conference to play in some crappy football league that is never going to compete with the Big 10, SEC or Pac 10 year in and year out. The demographics are just not there. Does anyone think that U Conn is going to go down South and poach recruits from the backyards of FSU, Georgia, Florida, and Auburn?

One note I would like to share, and I hope someone can give a definitive answer to this. It is my understanding that the Big East football schools don't share the football money with basketball only members. So West Virginia does not have to cut a check to Providence and Georgetown for winning the Sugar Bowl. I am almost positive that this is the case.

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

You are correct 1803 on your revenue sharing question.