Why We Are Here

[nelsonmuntz]

Everyone loves to blame Big East instability on the basketball schools, which is patently false. Big East instability boils down to one decision the conference made about 26 years ago, that it was never able to recover from. Penn State badly wanted into the Big East, and was turned down. That decision set into motion a series of events that got the conference to this point.

At the time, the Big East was supreme in basketball, and doing fine financially. It was a made-for-TV league whose birth coincided with the beginnings of widespread availability of cable and an all sports network called ESPN. ESPN needed content, the Big East, with its big city schools and charismatic coaches was manna from heaven. In turning down a rural school with a lousy basketball program, the Big East thought it was avoiding watering down its product. Within a few years, the league realized it needed to do something for football, but by that point, Penn State was no longer an option. So the Big East made a deal with the devil and brought in Miami.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Miami was new on the college athletics scene, with a renegade football program and a basketball program that was starting from scratch. With the criminality of the players and the open flaunting of rules by the program itself, Miami was a very volatile anchor for any league, but Pitt, Syracuse and BCU needed a home for their football programs, and Miami was the best program available to join. The Big East made some other mistakes in expansion, such as adding Virginia Tech instead of Louisville. The net effect of some of the football schools was to dilute the basketball conference dramatically, as VTech, Miami, Rutgers and to a lesser extent WVU were simply not ready to compete at anything close to a Big East level.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

By the mid-90's, the devil arrived for his due in the form of massive NCAA sanctions against Miami and the threat of the death penalty. At the same time, BCU had a serious gambling scandal hit their program. The net effect of both was that just as the Big East was going back to ESPN to negotiate a new TV deal, two of its most important members were hit with serious scandals. At the time, Rutgers and Temple were two of the worst teams in college football, Pitt was pretty bad, and Nehlen was long in the tooth and losing his touch at WVU. At a time when TV deals were starting to get pretty big, the Big East was hamstrung with a lousy deal because its basketball was mediocre at that point and two of the better football programs were damaged.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The conference never recovered. Despite improved on-the-field performance, the league was always playing catch up on the TV side. By 2003, as the league was coming off a NC in hoops and an NC game appearance in basketball and looking at a much improved TV deal, Miami and BCU bolted because of a lousy TV deal that they were largely responsible for. The next deal suffered. At this point the top conferences were generating over $10MM per school in TV revenue and the Big East was around $4MM. The revenue gap further exacerbated the Big East's instability.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Somewhat surprisingly, the Big East thrived despite that disadvantage. Football went through a golden era and basketball was supreme. But the revenue gap persisted, making the league vulnerable. On the eve of what everyone agreed was going to be a huge TV deal, Syracuse and Pitt decided "why take the risk" and bolted.

The hybrid arrangement was never the reason for instability. It was the deal with the devil the league made with Miami. The conference never recovered from that decision.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

(are you serious about 1180 characters? Really?)

 

[businesslawyer]

(are you serious about 1180 characters? Really?)

plus infinity. (if this was done to eliminate pictures, the Boneyard's leadership is about as effective as our conference's)

 

[upstater]

I don't get the premise of the thread. The basketball schools aren't to blame? It was the vote against Penn STate that did the league in? Just who do you think resisted Penn State's inclusion? It was the basketball schools!!!

 

[CTMike]

Agree with pretty much everything. Where I think the "hybrid theory" stems from is that, during all that you explained, someone needed to have a strong vision for the football side of the conference and needed to take some bold steps to try and shore things up. Neither of which happened, because Providence was focused on the Basketball side of the house. Which really wasn't that unreasonable, except that it was not a long term stable solution.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

If Miami doesn't blow itself up as the Big East is going to contract in the late 90's, there are no problems. I will add that setting our contract expiration for a year after everyone else's has been a bad idea too.

One of the points that the anti-hybrid people make is "why isn't anyone else doing this?" Who would they add? Who is in SEC or ACC or Big 12 or Pac 12 country that is worth adding as a basketball only? Villanova, Georgetown, St. Johns, Depaul, Marquette, and even Providence were going to Final Fours before the Big East was formed. They are and continue to be equals all but the very top programs in the country, and have been for decades. I will admit that Seton Hall is pretty much useless.

 

[HartbeatHusky]

The bottom line is that the Big East wasn't an all sports conference to begin with. It was an eastern basketball conference, pure and simple. That's all. That is it's origin. It had two original members who played big time football, Syracuse and BC, that's it. The rest of the founding members were Georgetown, Seton Hall, St. John's, Providence, and UConn. UConn, the basketball school with no big time football history (which wasn't even really a basketball school yet). Sure we were different from the catholic bball schools since we are a large state flagship, but still there was no football tradition.

Then came Nova, then Pitt then much later came the rest of the football schools. The football schools have abandoned us. Period. It's that simple. The only one still around is Rutgers and that is by circumstance, not choice. If UConn and the other basketball schools can rebuild a strong football conference around us then that is what we need to do regardless of where those schools are located.

 

[geordi]

Finally, someone gets to the underlying cause of the problem. With Penn State, no one defects to the ACC, which now remains at 9 teams, or to the Big XII. A run at Maryland is even possible and the ACC is a secondary football conference ripe for the picking. The Big East and the ACC effectively trade places. BTW, it really wasn't the basketball schools who torpedoed Penn State. Pitt didn't want to recruit against them and was highly instrumental in turning them down.

Marquee matchups become Penn State vs. Pitt; WVU vs. Maryland; Penn State WVU; VA Tech vs WVU; Miami v Penn State; etc etc.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

That's not the bottom line. The league got to this point because of a crappy TV deal, which was ultimately caused by Miami. splitting off from the hoops schools 15 years ago would have devastated the league when Miami and BCU got in trouble.

 

[businesslawyer]

I don't get the premise of the thread. The basketball schools aren't to blame? It was the vote against Penn STate that did the league in? Just who do you think resisted Penn State's inclusion? It was the basketball schools!!!

Not one school said "we'd rather be in a separate conference with PSU than in the Big East without them." Not one.

What everyone likes to blame the basketball schools for is the failure of the football schools to see far enough into the future.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Adding Miami was not the basketball schools' idea. That was a terrible decision that many saw at the time. No conference could depend on an anchor school that was so volatile and expect to succeed.

 

[HistoryMajor]

Nelson - agree but so what? IMO, you can fast forward and say the mess is caused by ACC outsmarting us and causing defections of BC, etc in 2004. But now we can say SHAME on the Conference Leadership and Marinetto (sp) in particular for letting ACC outsmart us again in 2011. Regardless, we can't change history. Undoubtedly someone will say we can learn from history but Marinetto obviously flunked the course when studying events of 2004. IMO, 2004 and even more so 2011 are much more of a factor for where we are.

 

[upstater]

Finally, someone gets to the underlying cause of the problem. With Penn State, no one defects to the ACC, which now remains at 9 teams, or to the Big XII. A run at Maryland is even possible and the ACC is a secondary football conference ripe for the picking. The Big East and the ACC effectively trade places. BTW, it really wasn't the basketball schools who torpedoed Penn State. Pitt didn't want to recruit against them and was highly instrumental in turning them down.

Marquee matchups become Penn State vs. Pitt; WVU vs. Maryland; Penn State WVU; VA Tech vs WVU; Miami v Penn State; etc etc.

Pitt wasn't even in the league when Penn State was turned down. It was the basketball schools. Why are we going over this again? Everyone knows the basketball schools aligned against PSU.

 

[upstater]

Not one school said "we'd rather be in a separate conference with PSU than in the Big East without them." Not one.

What everyone likes to blame the basketball schools for is the failure of the football schools to see far enough into the future.

Rutgers did. But be that as it may, it was still the basketball schools that were aligned against PSU.

 

[upstater]

The BE informally resisted all sorts of additions that would have shorn up the league. It resisted PSU when PSU asked to join while retaining the majority of its TV rights. Yet the BE granted that same privilege to Miami and would have granted it to Notre Dame. In 1988, Maryland came knocking, and it was the same story. This isn't a problem of one fateful vote back in 1980. It's a story that repeated itself over and over and over again.

I've been saying for the last four years that 90% of the strength of BE basketball is in the football schools. They should have had a plan to leave and run the conference how they wanted it. That's the only thing I blame on the football schools. It was their fault that they stuck with the basketball schools this long. Who would they have missed that's made some noise on the national stage? Not much.

They could have gotten a new TV package, maximized basketball by not watering it down so much, installed a round-robin schedule, etc.

 

[HartbeatHusky]

Paterno was quoted recently as saying that PSU wanted the BE to start a football league before the league had decided to do so and the real reason PSU did not end up in the BE was because the folks at PSU felt only an all sports conference was appropriate for them.

 

[upstater]

Paterno was quoted recently as saying that PSU wanted the BE to start a football league before the league had decided to do so and the real reason PSU did not end up in the BE was because the folks at PSU felt only an all sports conference was appropriate for them.

PSU multiple times wanted to join the conference and make it a hybrid. Paterno's all sports conference idea predates the BE. After the BE's formation, he wanted the BE to go hybrid. BUT, PSU also wanted the type of deal that Miami had (more money going to PSU), and that was a big reason why they were resisted.

 

[RS9999X]

We are here because media markets are consolidating into 5 conferences'
We've seen this happening with the NBA , It's nothing new,
There are only 40 teams that make any money from Football. None of them in the BE.
UConn is the 4th most valuable property available (ND, BYU, Rutgers) Rutgers is badly managed,Lousiville sits well with Southerners.
Penn State would not be in the BE today.

Ahh. The fantasy:

The BE 10.

PSU
ND
V Tech
Pitt
SU
BC
Miami
Rutgers
Louisville
UConn

 

[junglehusky]

As long as we're playing what if... if Penn State had been accepted, would a BE FB league have been started sooner? Would Miami, VTech still be invited? Would Maryland have come? Would UConn have upgraded sooner, or not at all?

Of course we'll never know... but if PSU wanted more dollars, that would have been a different source of instability.

 

[junglehusky]

We are here because media markets are consolidating into 5 conferences'
We've seen this happening with the NBA , It's nothing new,
There are only 40 teams that make any money from Football. None of them in the BE.
UConn is the 4th most valuable property available (ND, BYU, Rutgers) Rutgers is badly managed,Lousiville sits well with Southerners.
Penn State would not be in the BE today.

Ahh. The fantasy:

The BE 10.

PSU
ND
V Tech
Pitt
SU
BC
Miami
Rutgers
Louisville
UConn

Even though it's a small market I would swap out Louisville for WVU, just to make the Big East Ten more eastern. And maybe Maryland in place of VT, or add Maryland and UVA to improve the academic profile.

 

[RS9999X]

1979 is so long ago.

It was the first year with 16 at-large teams in the NCAA tourney
15 Bowl games
The era of the Big 3 networks.
ESPN launched in 1979 and was laughed at
16 million cable subscribers and 26 stations