What might have been…..

[huskyrob1]

…..This could have happened

1998….Lou Perkins leaves UCONN to take the reins as the Commish of the Big East and immediately raises the exit fee for teams wishing to leave to $75 million. Bobby Valantine is named the new UCONN AD. Tranghese and the Providence mafia are voted out by the football schools. ESPN rejects ACC football network plan as untenable after FSU announces that it is accepting an invitation to join Lou Perkins new Big East football conference.

1999….Dave Gavitt and Providence College file suit against the Big East football conf after the Basketball only schools are shut out of the new TV profit sharing arrangement. Case is thrown out.

2000…Randy Edsall unexpectedly resigns as UCONN's football coach to take a position as the football coach at Ball State. UCONN announces it is in talks with Nick Saban to take the reigns as UCONN's next football coach. Connecticut legislature debates Sabans reported salary of $7 million plus incentives.

2001…Gov Rowland at a surprise news conf flanked by Lew Perkins, Valantine, and Nick Saban announces that the state will fund a new 100,000+ football stadium on the Storrs campus.

2000…Saban announces his first big UCONN recruit when Matt Leinart announces he will attend UCONN

2002…UCONN signs high school phenom Reggie Bush.

2003…Basketball only schools leave Big East, after Perkins waives the exit fee, to join the MAAC as the "Catholic Only Conference Division".

2004…UNC leaves the ACC to join the Big East football conf.

2005…John Swofford resigns as ACC commish, after his 3rd DUI arrest.

2006…Big East football network hires Vern Lundquist…also signs Erin Andrews to a 7 year contract as chief field reporter.

 

[husky210]

What did you take before going to bed last night?

 

[huskyrob1]

What did you take before going to bed last night?

Didn't take anything, but did read an old copy of Mad magazine about what would have happened to the world if Kennedy had survived the 1963 assassination attempt. It was hilarious, Dick DeBartolo was a satirical genius, IMO.

 

[John]

Didn't take anything, but did read an old copy of Mad magazine about what would have happened to the world if Kennedy had survived the 1963 assassination attempt. It was hilarious, DeBartolo was a satirical genius, IMO.

I loved Mad fold-ins.

 

[NickyNewark]

Alfred E Neuman here....

 

[Ha Who]

What if I won mega millions last weekend?

 

[CL82]

What if I won mega millions last weekend?

The basketball practice facility would be named the Who Ha Center?

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The "what might have been" that I wonder about is if Syracuse and Pitt had just held tight long enough to at least see what the Big East's open market TV pricing was going to be. The fact that they jumped when they did, right before the ESPN exclusivity window expired, proves that ESPN was behind this more than anything. ESPN put in this the situation we are in. No one else.

I think the Big East would have gotten close to a $200MM a year TV deal, which would have put all the football programs just short of $20MM a school, and the hoops schools around $4-5MM. It would have been a great deal for everyone, but ESPN would not allow it.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

Waylon,

Cuse knew at least two years earlier that they would have a spot in the ACC, it wasn't an if, merely a when. The bulk of the football membership of the BE knew this as well, the only things that differed from what ended up happening was most believed it would be a few years further out and that UConn, not Pitt would be the school that joined them (Hathaway actually used his belief that we were a few years away from ACC membership to justify his performance).

The huge contract that the then BE was banking on was never going to happen. I pointed this out to you a number of times on the old board (and had a few debates on the old BE board with a WVU fan who believed he knew everything). The farce of moving Nova up in football to bolster that part of the conference (a compromise necessary to allow TCU's acceptance) told every other conference that the (then) BE would never take football seriously enough. The conference standing up to ESPN during negotiations merely led the worldwide leader to say "we're not playing this game any longer", give the ACC a few hints that it was a good time to explore further expansion (as the SEC had just announces A&M the ACC was also a bit vulnerable) and the big East was toast.

The reality was that the BE was toast long before September 2011. There were plenty of clues during the mockumentary that ESPN aired last Sunday. Believing that adding Pitt almost immediately after denying Penn St (who had been told they would be voted in) was not a brilliant maneuver. All it did was add insult to injury towards PSU (and in reality it would not have hurt anyone of both schools were added at the same time 32 years ago). Georgetown's AD, when opining on the discussions on adding football members saying "I don't see why your problem should become my problem" said everything anyone needed to know. Yes, he (and all other non football members) can have that viewpoint. They cannot however complain if a football member leaves the conference to resolve their problem. Adding Notre Dame immediately after having the football membership tell Va Tech they couldn't join for all sports because the conference couldn't add membership in in basketball (and all other sports) sent a clear message that the schools that did play football would never be viewed as equals to those who did not. It wasn't until that series of events, adding WVU & Rutgers as full members (which required a blanket agreement to allow the catholic membership to add any school of their choice in the future, never expecting that it would be an immediate addition) that football actually operated under the conference umbrella. It was called the Big East Football Conference until then and the BE and NCAA viewed it as a distinct, football only conference.

Bottom line, the hybrid could never be sustained permanently and getting what we had to survive as long as it did took far too many band-aids to last as long as it did.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

That is not at all what you said. You said the Big East wasn't worth a huge contract. Given what the schools all ended up getting, and the increase in revenue the ACC schools got for adding Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville and ND, you were proven 100% wrong.

The money was coming, as was later proven, but Syracuse and Pitt needed to sit tight for just a little longer. ESPN was afraid NBC was going to bid the league up, so they destroyed it, in the process losing a lot of content and increasing their own costs dramatically. Tactically it was a foolish decision by ESPN. Strategically, maybe paying all that money for 3 football and 4 basketball programs was worth it to keep NBC out of college sports in any meaningful way.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I don't know if you are replying to me but I never said the BE isn't worth the money. I had said repeatedly that they weren't going to get that money. The myopic leadership was a huge part of that as the prior contract, which when valuing men's basketball alone paid a BE schools 50 cents on the dollar for what ACC schools were receiving yet the talking heads in Providence bragged about the money they landed said everything anyone needed to hear. Add to the the fact that all signs pointed (still do in fact) to eventually four power conferences with everyone else a level below and three of the current conferences (B1G, SEC, Pac-12) pretty much assured a spot among the top four, the B-12 and ACC need to take major steps to ensure their survival. A conference with hybrid membership (like the BE) couldn't last. The best assets that play football were just trying to remain pretty enough that someone would grab them while the non-football membership could only hope to not lose too many of the conference's assets. The conference never had sustainability.

 

[huskyrob1]

The "what might have been" that I wonder about is if Syracuse and Pitt had just held tight long enough to at least see what the Big East's open market TV pricing was going to be. The fact that they jumped when they did, right before the ESPN exclusivity window expired, proves that ESPN was behind this more than anything. ESPN put in this the situation we are in. No one else.

I think the Big East would have gotten close to a $200MM a year TV deal, which would have put all the football programs just short of $20MM a school, and the hoops schools around $4-5MM. It would have been a great deal for everyone, but ESPN would not allow it.

The Providence mafia (Gavitt, Lou VealParm, Tranghese) is the reason ESPN did what they did, UCONN was just an innocent bystander along for the ride, that got duckked when all was said and done. ESPN was never going to allow a huge college football TV contract for a conference run by some basketball junkies. Hathaway, the idiot did a good impression of Nero while Rome burned. Lew Perkins did see this coming, so the reasoning behind my joke post that started this thread. He got outta Dodge as did FHCRE a little later.

 

[CL82]

The "what might have been" that I wonder about is if Syracuse and Pitt had just held tight long enough to at least see what the Big East's open market TV pricing was going to be. The fact that they jumped when they did, right before the ESPN exclusivity window expired, proves that ESPN was behind this more than anything. ESPN put in this the situation we are in. No one else.

I think the Big East would have gotten close to a $200MM a year TV deal, which would have put all the football programs just short of $20MM a school, and the hoops schools around $4-5MM. It would have been a great deal for everyone, but ESPN would not allow it.

I don't know if this 'proves' anything and I'm not sure that those are the right numbers, but yeah, I wish they'd have hung in there. Things would be dramatically different. I can't blame them though. If, as originally intended, UConn had been offered membership in the ACC, the 'right' move for the university would have been to take it.

 

[husky91]

The Big East could have madr a good hire instead of the incompetent Mike Tranghese, who built the conference around bball and not all sports and fball. A failing proposition long term even after the eventual super conference model was forecast in the 90s. This failure worked in this area and couldn't see coming.

 

[huskyrob1]

The Big East could have madr a good hire instead of the incompetent Mike Tranghese, who built the conference around bball and not all sports and fball. A failing proposition long term even after the eventual super conference model was forecast in the 90s. This failure worked in this area and couldn't see coming.

Tranghese and his Providence cohorts knew full well what was coming, they were not stupid, they just didn't care what happened. Providence at best had a club football team, so they couldn't even give a . They, Seton Hall, Carnesecca and St Johns ran the league. Yeah they gave football a lukewarm hug, in order to keep the BE Tourney at MSG eternal, but in the end they didn't care about the plight of the football schools. If a football school wanted to leave the league, then fine, no problem. What they did fail to see until it was too late, is how the exodus of football schools would effect basketball ratings, and what ESPN was up to.

 

[bobbyinaz]

Tranghese once told a story on air to Francesca that when he took over the BE Gavitt specidically told him "whatever you do make sure you take care of Providence".

The fact that he would even say that on air tells you everything you need to know about the BE leadership & what they cared about.