Well, Mike Tranghese will stay as Big East Commissioner until at least 2010. This is something of a no-brainer on so many levels. While I fault the Big East for not being forward thinking, myopic and not seeing the problems that were looming with basketball only schools interests conflicting with football schools — Tranghese not only found a fix for the short-term, but he preserved the BCS bid for the BCS and secured extremely favorable methodology to keep the BCS bid for the BCS.

Probably the biggest news, and that could have the furthest reaching effects in the next few years: CBS is acquiring CollegeSports TV.

The new cable programming entity will be operated by its founder and CEO, Brian Bedol, who will report to Moonves. The acquisition includes:

· A digital cable network featuring 30 men’s and women’s college sports events and nearly 15 million subscribers by year end and growing; license deals now include numerous sports agreements with colleges, universities and conferences across the nation;

· Online properties consisting of a network of more than 250 official college athletic websites — each maintained and managed for its institution by CSTV — featuring full video and audio, news, scores, community elements and e-commerce for retail college sports-related products;

· A fast-growing website, www.CSTV.com, that supports the cable networks and other online properties. In its most recent analysis, Comscore Media Metrix ranked the CSTV.com network as one of the top ten destinations with the greatest prior monthly increase in unique visitors during the month of September 2005, with a 43 percent increase from August, and more than 7.5 million unique visitors;

· Regional College Sports Networks to be launched in 2006, featuring the sporting events of the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA, including Utah, Brigham Young University, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Memphis, Southern Mississippi, Marshall and others.
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Moonves further noted that the new collegiate sports business would work closely with the Company’s existing operations at CBS Sports and CBS Digital Media, assuring that the new cable sports operations are fully integrated into CBS’s activities in those arenas. With this acquisition, CBS Corporation will have a larger sports Web audience than any other online medium — 19 million unique users.

The two have already had some alliances. Last year CSTV partnered with CBS to air feeds of all the NCAA Tournament games over the net.

This could be very big for the Big East with their TV contracts now only a couple years from expiring. CSTV now has the backing to make a bigger offer, and partnered with CBS could mean more national games.

Interesting that ESPN, despite it’s 800 pound gorilla status, is suddenly seeing a lot more competition than it is used to for the college sports. You have the Fox College Sports Channels. CSTV launching its own regional networks, now getting bankrolled by CBS/Viacom and of course lurking out there is OLN/Comcast probing for more openings.

Lots happening behind the scenes.