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Editor's note:
This is the first article in a two-part examination by
senior columnist Denny O'Brien of the dynamics that will
influence Big East Conference decision makers as competitive
factors and market forces prod them to consider league
expansion. In
part two, published on
June 18,
2007, O'Brien analyzed the likely criteria and logical
candidates for membership. |
©2007 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.
Slowly but surely, the
major players in Big East football are getting it.
First there was Pittsburgh
athletics director Jeff Long. He caved over a year ago, citing the
difficulties of finding five non-conference opponents to fill a 12-game
schedule.
Next it was West Virginia
coach Rich Rodriguez, the poster boy for Big East football. Having
completed two seasons with the league's new configuration, he recently
expressed his displeasure with the current setup during a radio
interview.
Their conclusion? The Big
East must expand its undersized football membership.
It's an idea that's been
debated since the conference added Cincinnati, Louisville, and South
Florida to replace the three ACC defections. With the national trend
moving towards the super conference setup, many have insisted the Big
East simply can't sit tight with eight football members.
Can the Big East survive
in the long run as an eight-team football conference? Absolutely. As
long as it has automatic access to the Bowl Championship Series, its
member schools will continue making sizeable deposits into their
athletics coffers.
But this isn't a question
about survival. The pressing issue the Big East faces is the fact that
it isn't maximizing its monetary potential, and it's the league's
undersized football membership that is holding it back.
Take the ACC for example.
Conference Commissioner John Swofford didn't add Boston College, Miami,
and Virginia Tech just for jollies. With the league's television rights
coming up for bids, he knew that the only way to gain bargaining power
was to add appealing football markets to sell the TV suits.
It worked, too. If you
haven't seen the ACC's television schedule, just take a peek at the
slate for Sept. 8, a day on which eight league games are scheduled for
TV.
And Swofford is likely to
spend that day somewhere in a luxury box counting his deposit slips.
Think Big East
Commissioner Mike Tranghese can relate to that? Hardly. Aside from the
annual paycheck from the BCS, there isn't another source of revenue that
remotely compares to those the ACC, Big XII, Big Ten, PAC-10, or SEC
have been able to secure.
Truthfully, it's highly
unlikely the Big East will ever compare financially to those leagues
outside of adding Notre Dame to the football roster. But the chances of
that happening are as good as filmmaker Michael Moore joining the John
McCain campaign.
Even so, that doesn't mean
the Big East can't position itself for a better overall payday. And the
first step in doing so is adding a ninth football member.
That's at a minimum. If
Tranghese really wants to milk the cash cow, increasing the membership
to 12 is the path to take. Otherwise he couldn't package a league
championship game into the next television contract.
Adding four markets and a
title game drives the Big East's price high enough to more than
compensate for the extra mouths it must feed. Not only does it up the
ante on the bidding war between interested networks — it also opens the
door for more financially rewarding partnerships with deep-pocketed
sponsors.
Not to mention it
generates opportunities to secure more bowl guarantees. Sitting tight
doesn't.
Some AD's don't like the
current Big East setup because of the migraines associated with filling
a five-game non-conference docket. Coaches don't like it because seven
league games creates a competitive imbalance.
Big East administrators
shouldn't like it because it far from maximizes the bottom line.
The logical way to cure
these deficiencies is to add more seats to the table.
