TCU to Big East official according to ESPN

[nickagneta]

You are missing the larger picture here Moranis, the television markets and exposure the Big East provides. New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington. Both the football and basketball teams outside these areas are associated with the Big East because of the television contracts the Big East has in these markets the the exposure for recruiting and ability to generate revenue.

Your conference you put together, who's going to buy the television rights to that conference? There are no New York City, Boston, Philadelphia or Washington interests there. The Big East football conference has the power it does because of the location of it's basketball schools in the big cities and the exposure and recruiting bases those cities have and the ratings those markets can generate.

The basketball schools would never let the football schools take the Big East name and without it and the power generated by the locations of those markets, that conference you have is nothing more than another mid major conference WITHOUT any guarantee of a BCS guaranteed bid.

Sorry, guy you just are not getting the bigger political and money issues behind the scenes and are solely concentrating on what football can generate without taking a look at all the ramifications behind it. The Big East is a different breed of conference because of their location and basketball schools and the money that end of things generates.

[Moranis]

The Big East already has an automatic bid and it isn't even close to losing it.  Adding TCU wasn't necessary to keep the auto bid, but was necessary to get the conference bigger and make it easier to fill up a full season schedule (7 conference games is just awful and requires each team to get 5 non-con games a season, which is difficult).  Plus with TCU there is no chance it loses an automatic birth anytime in the next 5 seasons.  Keeping the basketball only schools has absolutely zero affect on the whether or not it keeps its automatic birth.

And frankly if you don't think Syracuse and Connecticut can't bring you the New York and Boston markets, I have some lovely ocean front property to sell you in Missouri.  You seem to be forgetting that St. Johns is the only team in either of those markets, and no one watches St Johns basketball anymore.  Yes, they would lose Georgetown and its Washington presence, but that is more then made up when you add Houston, Memphis, and Orlando (in addition to Dallas/Ft. Worth).  Villanova is a solid draw in Philly for sure, but you still have Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, etc. that have decent fan support in the city. 

The reality is football is king.  It is where the money is.  Very few schools at the FBS level make more money in basketball then in football.  In fact I believe Duke is the only team that consistently does.  College basketball numbers on tv have been going down for years all while football numbers are going up.  Football is the money maker and everything is centered around football.  Football will drive the teams in the Big East that play it, and it always will.  Look at all the conference moves, they are almost all centered around football.  Basketball takes a back seat.  It is why schools like Kansas were never mentnioned in the expansion.  No one wants a basketball school. 

[nickagneta]

The Big East is the only conference in college sports where the television revenue per school is greater from basketball than it is for football. They still have 3 and 4 years left on those television contracts with ESPN/ABC. You just aren't getting where the power base is located politically in that league my friend.

[libermaniac]

Very strange.  One year, you have conference games with San Diego State, and the next year, you have conference games with St. John's.  3000+ mile swing.

[Moranis]

TV contracts are up after the 2012-2013 season.  That would be the time the football schools would break away, which would coincide with the new additions anyway. 

In 2008 the Big East's total revenue was 93 million.  23 million of that was from the football bowl games alone.  It got another 23 million from the NCAA (all sports) and about 40 million from its television contracts (all sports). 

So sure losing the 8 non-football schools would affect the basketball television revenue (though it isn't like the new conference would be awful), but adding in the 4 football schools would greatly increase the football revenue, which is where the real money is at.  You can look at the Pac Ten and Big 12's recent television negotiations to see this.  Basketball is not a money maker, it is all about football.  Football will drive the conference.