Conference Realignment: Why Big East Should Be Contracted

With all the conference shuffling going on in college athletics over the last 12 months, it is easy to forget that there are schools suffering as a result of these moves.

The biggest loser in all of this madness is going to be the Big East.

Despite being the best basketball conference in the country for the last six years, football is where the big money is, and these schools are making moves in order to improve the revenue that they gain from football.

Syracuse and Pittsburgh, two of the best basketball programs in the country, announced that they are going to the ACC.

Even though the move will not take effect for 27 months, unless the schools can work out a deal with the Big East, it is being seen as the first move in a series of moves that will destroy the conference.

According to reports on ESPN.com, Connecticut is "aggressively" pursuing a move to the ACC because the school can feel the winds swirling.

West Virginia, the best football school in the Big East right now, tried to join the ACC and SEC, but both conferences rejected them.

TCU thought about backing out of its commitment to join the Big East in 2012 because the school knows that it is a lame duck conference that either won't be around much longer or won't be considered a BCS conference for too much longer.

The presidents of the schools left in the Big East are scrambling to find more schools to add so the conference can stay relevant in football, but their options are limited because the major programs have already moved, or have no desire to move to the Big East.

It is sad to think that one sport can control so much of what happens with these schools, but the presidents and athletic directors see the dollar signs that are attached to playing football in the Pac-12 or SEC or Big Ten or ACC, and they want a piece of that pie.

The Big East teams aren't going to make as much money as the other conferences because it doesn't have the marquee teams that those other conferences do.

The Big East will likely survive another two years, but it is going to be a shell of its former self.

The other major conferences are going to look at that and see those schools still getting $13 million every year for playing in a BCS game and think to themselves that isn't right because they can't compete with the other conferences head-to-head.

While it is not in the best interest of college sports to destroy it, it is clear that there is no way to save the Big East conference.