Pat challenges Lee and I as to our opposition to the Big East’s reported plan to expand to a 16 team league.
The main problem with this planned Big East conference, is that it is still very unstable. There would still be a sum total of only 8 football programs. This is simply too small a size for a BCS conference now. How happy do you think the SEC and the Big XII would be to give the Big East an equal shot when they have 12 teams to fight through? Same with the Big 11 and the ACC. I used to think that the Big East would have a shot at keeping its exclusive bid, but now I can foresee a change to make it so that the Big East would have to share it with the Mountain West and possibly the WAC conference. This would mean a fight with 20-30 odd schools for one bid. Not so great odds.
Another aspect of the instability is that conference raiding/expansion isn’t done yet, and the Big East schools will be cherry picked. The ACC will add a 12th member in the next year, and you can bet it will be an offer to a Big East school. That school will and should jump off the sinking ship, for the safer and more lucrative deal. Higher exit fees will not be much of a deterrent. Do you think the Big East would still get a bid if Boston College, Syracuse or even Pitt was out of the mix? Who would replace that school in the Big East? Temple? Memphis? East Carolina? UAB?
There is also another expansion possibility in the Big 11. They can talk all they want about how they have no interest in expanding to 12, but sooner or later it will happen. They may be holding out for Notre Dame, and people can talk about how Notre Dame may change its tune when it’s NBC deal expires; but if you have ever talked to the alumni and boosters of ND, you know that it isn’t going to happen. They are passionate/insane about maintaining their independence. Eventually the Big 11 won’t wait any longer. At that time Pitt or Syracuse will get the call. You can bet either will jump.
The bowl money will also start to dry up with only 8 teams. The Big East currently has tie-ins (with Notre Dame) to 4 bowls. It is, to be kind, highly unlikely that the Big East will be able to produce enough teams with winning records to qualify enough teams to fill the slots. Considering how poorly most of the Big East schools travel to bowl games, the Big East could quickly lose one maybe two of the tie-ins.
Over to the basketball side. You are talking about a 16 team conference with 2 eight team divisions. That is a scheduling nightmare for a league and a bad layout. A conference schedule is 16 games. You are faced with the choice of playing every team once and one team twice; or playing everyone in your division twice and two different teams from the other divisions each year.
Then try on how the conferences will look for competitive balance (and this is how it would look according to the reports):
Football
Pitt
UConn
WVU
BC
Syracuse
Rutgers
Louisville
Cinci
Basketball
Georgetown
St. John
Providence
Villanova
Seton Hall
Notre Dame
Marquette
DePaul
No question it would look like one of the deepest and strongest b-ball conferences in the country. It would also get killed in getting teams into the NCAA tournament. Last year, 7 of these teams got in (with BC and Seton Hall just outside the bubble), and 5 from just one division. The selection committee would/could not go more than 6 if they were all in the same conference, because there just wouldn’t be enough slots to pick more than that from any one conference — even one with this many members.
The so-called lucrative TV deal for this basketball conference wouldn’t be so great when split 16 ways — not to mention the difficulty of showing many marquee games — that is unless the Big East pitches the rule saying all teams have to be shown at least once on ESPN/ESPN2.
No, the problem with this plan is that it is too small for football, and too big for basketball.
