This is good news. The Big East took lemons and made something as close to lemonaid as they could:
1. They did not lose the markets and basketball ability of the Catholics by rushing off separately;
2. They did not go after new schools based at all upon basketball (see, e.g., Temple, Memphis and UMass) but rebuilt the football conference the best they could and let the basketball conference fall where it may, knowing that the Big East in basketball would still be a "major" conference; and
3. They did this paying attention to both markets (UCF, SMU and Houston) and national prestige (Navy and AFA), instead of geography (ECU, Marshall, UMass and Temple).
This is not the leagie I would prefer to be in at hte moment, but for an entity that was dead in the water it's a great recovery in five weeks. If they get a good contract, I could see adding western basketball onlies (Gonzaga? Witchita State?) and all sports (San Diego State?) and one day having two relatively separate eastern and western leagues that only came together for playoffs.