Why would ESPN bid up at this point? That's the whole point of an exclusive negotiating period. Lowball now, and try to get another league to damage the Big East some more. If no other league bites, I think ESPN spikes up its bid a week or two before Halloween. That will put the Big East to a tough decision. This is going to be a very rough 6 weeks for UConn fans.
exactly...to take it a step further. i see espn shoving some combination of cinci rutgers ul and uconn to the big 12 until they bite. If the exclusive negotiating window starts to close espn will pressure the ACC to take 2 more big east teams at which time the ACC will willingly comply with their master. espn will do whatever it takes to get the league for dirt cheap or destroy it.
espn is going to get 4 of the 5 in the b12/acc and then help the bball schools split and sign with them in a power bball league. its obvious. hopefully sooner than later we can all be arguing about siena vs northeastern and enjoying our new life in college sports.
The problem for the B12: Louisville and UConn are profitable, but geographically make no sense to add alone. Rutgers could be a good program, but isn't. Cincy is not worth it. Taking all four would not be worth it really. Really, Rutgers-UConn-Louisville-BYU would make the most sense.... but BYU has such restrictions that it makes it difficult.
I think ESPN will strong arm BYU into the Big 12 and add Louisville into that league. That is the cheapest way to raid the Big East. On the other hand, ESPN has no interest in lowballing the Big East, because that only reduces the costs for ESPN's competitor NBC.
IIRC, BYU was able to go indy on football because of an ESPN agreement. What BYU does next will involve considerable input from ESPN (not good for NNBE). At times this appears to be more of a personal vendetta against the BE than merely business by ESPN (which is quite sad as the BE played an enormous role, primarily Big Monday, which began as Monday Night in the Big East in ESPN having quality programming in its infancy). My guess is that ESPN's strategy is to scare the remnants of the NNBE enough for them to agree to an inferior offer shortly before the exclusive window closes and if this does not work, damage the product (NNBE) further, making it worthless to one of their competitors.
The irony is that the Big East school presidents could make a pact to see this through, but much like fans on a message board they're all hoping that their school is the next one to be used as a tool to further weaken the big east. No loyalty among thieves or school presidents I guess.
What you are suggesting is basically locking everyone (who hasn't left yet) below deck after the ship hit the iceberg.
As do thieves want to maximize their profit, but that's not the point. The big east school presidents coulda came together and discussed an anti raid strategy, maybe sign some binding document and ALL the big schools wold have profited. Instead you had who ever was leading the expansion committee putting out feelers,presidents and politicians trying to out fox one another, all the while leaving long time partners in a lurch. The Big East has been the one league others have looked at as what not to do to keep teams from bolting. Big 12 signed a grant of rights, ACC just signed a fifty million dollar exit fee. The lack of true consensus building commissioners is huge part of the mess were in, but the presidents themselves have behaved shamefully in all this.
Expansion is done for quite a while. You can either believe that or, if it helps, I can start a Twitter account under the name er4 and let you know that way. There is no f* *ing way the presidents of UConn, Rutgers or UL should consider an "anti-raid" strategy - they are better off discussing a "get raided again" strategy. Salvation is highly unlikely, but if it exists for those three, it exists somewhere other than this dumpster fire of a conference.
No Fairfield, this goes back to the original raid. There was foresight from anyone involved with the conference. Oh well, let's just hope we get a call real soon here, because that league with UMass, buffalo and temple is looking like a real possibility.
It would have been a total blast if the BE before the defections of Miami, BC and VT stayed together. But it just seems the BE was not meant to be one of the "stable" conferences. The BE didn't even form a football side until 10+ years later.
If the ACC was smart...they would take all three but at minimum two. Net result: NYC is captured as much as can be, BB is the best and without peer, FB gains three more schools all capable of Top 25 (2 Flagships and 1 city-state school with a national brand). Finally, the league would get MSG by default. Cuse, UConn, UL, UNC, Duke would be huge draws. I could see it rotate 50% to NYC. Notre Dame gets time to prep their fan base. Mama ESPN surely would keep their per team $ equal or better. Finally, bring in Louisville with a 10 year contract and give them parmeters to upgrade their academics and modifiy their mission.
@ A shared Tier 3 package with UL bball and Rutgers Ny market and us of course could top Recent similar deals in conference. 4m @ Alot of eyes on Rutgers in the next few weeks. If ratings keep climbing other conferences may take note. 7m @ Certain programs in an "eastern" conference were given an outline of things they must commit to/improve on to even be considered for B12 8h @ Rutgers shining moment couldn't have come at a better time. B12 was extremely impressed with the Knights performance this weekend. So this just means we need to go down and put Snookie to bed in 2 weeks.
