A Preemptive Big East Conference Proposal: It's All About the TV Markets

A Preemptive Big East Conference Proposal

It’s All About the TV Markets

As it stands, the Big East comes across as the foremost basketball conference with a respectable but vulnerable football membership.

The trouble with this reality is that football is the most profitable sport on campus, and the Big East lacks presence in the most significant Northeastern markets.

The departure of Boston College and dismissal of Temple are significant when considering the conference’s weak position amongst all of the expansion discussion.

No doubt, expansion has been and can again be disruptive to the college football landscape—particularly the Big East. Thus, a proposal on how the Big East might save itself amongst the chaos and disorder about to unfold.

First, the Big East must find a way to reverse time and recapture the membership of the aforementioned teams—Boston College and Temple. No doubt, a long shot, but imagine if the Big East engaged in the same, or a similar, analysis regarding expansion as the Big Ten. A solid look at how a Big East Conference TV channel would do financially for members and who might add value to the existing alignment is a necessary step.

Imagine if the Big East put numbers to what a conference with members covering Boston, New York, and Philadelphia might equate to from a cable dollars perspective. Then, add Maryland and see if the numbers don’t increase further—enough to convince the Terps that an exodus to the Big East might be worth it financially.

Lock up the Northeastern corridor’s major markets and a Conference TV network might look awfully attractive to Comcast, Time Warner, and the gang.

We don’t stop there...add Central Florida to the mix and you have the third largest university in the nation complete with another attractive market (Orlando), a natural rival for South Florida, and another pipeline for recruiting into the talent-rich Florida pool.

Let’s break down the Conference and proposed six-team divisional spread:

Northeast Division

Boston College*

Syracuse

Rutgers

Connecticut

Pittsburgh

Temple**

Southeast Division

Maryland*

West Virginia

Cincinnati

Louisville

Central Florida***

South Florida

* Formerly of the ACC

** Formerly of the MAC/Atlantic 10

*** Formerly of Conference USA

Again, this is about securing TV markets, and Boston, New York, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Cincinnati, Louisville, Orlando, and Tampa ain’t too shabby. Have Paul Tagliabue consult on this concept and we might only see a 12-team expansion scenario play out across the NCAA.

This is a preemptive strike that could keep the Mega Conference concept at bay—at least in the short term. Certainly, it would be a strengthening of position for a basketball dominant conference moonlighting as a major college football conference amidst the uncertainty of expansion.

As for the dominant hoop league—no problem. I’ll take Maryland, Boston College, Temple, and Central Florida over DePaul, Marquette, Villanova, and Providence any day of the week.

What do you think? Would BC return to a more natural fit? Would Temple forgive getting booted out? Would South Florida value an in-state rival up the highway? Wouldn’t this keep Notre Dame out of the Big Ten and playing Big East rivals more attractive? And what if they hadn’t denied Penn State access back in the '90s—imagine what that would look like, then know that’ll never be reversed?