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News Nuggets, 05.13.04
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NOTES FROM ECU AND BEYOND...
Previous Day Nuggets...
Next Day Nuggets...
Compiled from staff reports
and electronic dispatches
First pitch of possible
climactic game coming early
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PREVIOUS NUGGETS |
05.12.04: Beleaguered
Odom, former ECU assistant, quits Mizzou... .. South Florida
to name new AD today... .. Basketball rules panel elevates
status of instant replay... ..
More... |
05.11.04: Pirates
four steps from top rung of Collegiate Baseball ladder... ..
Ticket frenzy sells out ECU-State rematch... .. Suitors
lining up to host ACC title game... ..
More... |
05.10.04: Pirates
sail onward towards baseball crown... .. C-USA standings &
scoreboard... .. Tulane to resurrect men's track and field
program... ..
More... |
05.09.04: ECU
golfer Millican lands spot in NCAA Championship... .. McGee
brushes off Broyles' criticism of Holtz... .. Calipari joins
DiMaggio, Lombardi, et al, in Italian American HOF... ..
More... |
05.08.04: USF
football scores multiple TV appearances... .. LSU escapes
new sanctions... ..
More... |
05.07.04: Purple-clad
crowd goal of radio station promotion... .. Perp gets jail
time for Fiesta ticket scam... ..
More... |
05.06.04: Billikens
hope for repeat of last series with ECU... .. First-year
Charlotte center opts for NBA draft... .. Majerus finds way
to stay tied to basketball... ..
More... |
05.05.04: Prolific
scorer King joins ECU recruiting class... .. Troubled N.C.
prep star wants to be Cowboy... ..
More... |
05.04.04: Ascension
of Pirates continues... .. Hard-hitting R.J. corrals 2nd
C-USA award ... .. Conference baseball tournament tickets up
for grabs... ..
More... |
05.03.04: Rampaging
Pirates plow through league foes... .. Conference USA
baseball standings & scoreboard ... .. Sweeping restrictions
placed on hoops exhibition games... ..
More... |
05.02.04: Senior
Day baseball game moved up to 11 a.m... .. Stairway to
Division I made shorter ... .. Politicians takes sides in
Illini mascot feud... ..
More... |
05.01.04: Garrard
tripped up by chronic tummy malady... .. Ballard extends
Pirates' AD hiring timetable ... .. Calipari's office
carries big price tag... ..
More... |
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The East Carolina athletic department announced
Monday that ECU's baseball game against Texas Christian on Sunday has been
changed to noon. The adjustment from the original 1 p.m. start was made
to accommodate the Horned Frogs' travel plans.
With the Pirates'
holding a four-game lead over
Southern Miss and Tulane in the Conference USA standings, Sunday's game has
the potential to be a momentous affair.
Regardless of how the Golden Eagles and Green Wave
fare over the weekend, a sweep of TCU would lock up the regular season title
for ECU, which will conclude its regular season schedule with games the
following Thursday, Friday and Saturday at USM.
Before such a lofty consideration can have meaning
for the Pirates, they must guarantee themselves at least a share of the
championship by taking care of business in the first two games of the
series. ECU faces the Horned Frogs Friday at 4 p.m. and Saturday at 2
o'clock.
All three games will be played at Grainger Stadium
in Kinston.
Billikens AD Woolard transfers
to USF
TAMPA — University of South Florida President Judy
Genshaft has tapped Doug Woolard to be the leader to take the school's
athletic department into the Big East Conference.
Woolard comes to USF from Saint Louis University,
where he has served as athletic director since 1994.
“He is the right person at the right time for USF,”
Genshaft said Wednesday. “He has vision and leadership and he has proven
experience as an athletic director.”
Woolard, who will take the helm June 14, assumes
leadership at a pivotal time in USF’s athletic history. Only seven years
after the successful launch of its football program in 1997, USF will leave
Conference USA for the Big East in 2005.
“I want to create an environment for a strong
partnership with our student-athletes,” Woolard said. “Together, along with
coaches and staff, we want to make USF the best athletic department in the
Big East.”
Woolard, 54, guided the SLU athletic department
through a period that included the school’s inclusion as a founding member
of C-USA, and more recently its acceptance into the Atlantic 10 Conference.
ACC
hits jackpot with revised TV deal
AMELIA ISLAND, FL — The Atlantic Coast
Conference got new teams, and now, it's getting more money.
The expanding conference announced a new, seven-year television deal for
football with ABC and ESPN, beginning in the fall. While none of the parties
would discuss specifics of the deal, ACC commissioner John Swofford
acknowledged Wednesday that it would nearly double the average of about $21
million a year under the old contract. The New York Times and USA Today
reported it was worth $258 million, or an average of about $37.6 million a
year.
"This was a very important negotiation for our league and its future,"
Swofford said at the close of the league's annual meetings. "We feel very
good about both the exposure aspects of it, as well as the financial aspects
of it."
The increased TV money was the centerpiece of the plan put together by
Swofford when he recruited Big East schools -- most notably Miami -- in
contentious negotiations last year.
By the time the dealing was done, Miami and Virginia Tech agreed to join the
ACC beginning next season. Boston College will join in 2005 to bring the ACC
to 12 teams, the same number as the Southeastern Conference and the Big 12,
which are also big players in the Bowl Championship Series.
The dozen teams will allow the ACC to divide into divisions for football and
hold a conference championship game, beginning in 2005. That game is
expected to produce about $6 million in extra revenue. A site for the game
will be determined later this year, with Jacksonville, Orlando and
Charlotte, N.C., considered the leading candidates.
ABC will televise the title game.
Among the highlights of the new deal will be prime-time ABC telecasts of the
Miami-Florida State game on Labor Day 2004 and 2005, an increase from three
to six Thursday night games on ESPN and ESPN2 and increased exposure on ESPN
pay-per-view services, ESPN Classic and ESPN.com.
"John Swofford was a total visionary of this deal," ESPN executive vice
president Mark Shapiro said. "He got from the beginning that we needed to
reach the audience from the beginning on various platforms."
When the ACC began negotiating to bring new teams in, there was some debate
as to whether the league would get a big enough increase in TV revenue to
make the move worthwhile. This was one of the main sticking points for
Miami, and after athletic director Paul Dee and president Donna Shalala
investigated, they decided the move was worthwhile.
After taking part in his first ACC meetings, Dee's opinion remained the
same, even though the new teams don't get a full share in the
revenue-sharing plan until their third year in the conference.
"There's a formula, and a lot of different pieces that go to it," Dee said.
"For the conference, the overall good of the conference, the conference did
well."
The expansion was made almost solely for football reasons and many ACC
purists -- remembering the league's rich basketball tradition -- were
disgruntled.
The most contentious issues at this year's meetings dealt with basketball
scheduling and the death of the ACC's longstanding double round-robin
format. On the recommendation of coaches, the league will stick to a 16-game
regular-season schedule for at least the next four seasons. One of the
home-and-home series expected to go in the upcoming season will be
Duke-North Carolina State; the teams have played two regular-season games
every season since 1911-12.
Other home-and-home series will likely follow suit on a rotating basis,
although the schedule won't be finalized until July.
The basketball teams won't divide into divisions, and ACC officials were
also busy trying to come up with equitable tiebreakers, a difficult
proposition considering some teams play each other twice, while others play
only one time.
The expansion comes against the backdrop of the Bowl Championship Series'
plans to add a fifth game beginning in the 2006 season. With Miami coming
in, the ACC could benefit by increasing its chances of placing more than one
team in the games. A first team will earn between $14 million and $17
million for a conference and a second team will be worth about $4.5 million.
News Nuggets are
compiled periodically from staff, ECU, Conference USA and its member
schools, and from Associated Press and
other reports. Copyright 2004
Bonesville.net and other publishers. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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