Houston Chronicle exclusive: Texas, Oklahoma reach out to SEC about joining conference.

[CL82]

That would force Cincinnati and USF back to CUSA and gives the Big East VT, BC and Miami all of which have accomplished precisely nothing but downward trends since joining the ACC.

Works for me.

 

[CL82]

Oops!

View attachment 68806

Big 12 commish Bob Bowlsby takes aim at ESPN, echoing a distrust schools have for network

Bowlsby’s accusation was, essentially, that ESPN was trying to orchestrate a maneuver that could help save the network and its partners well over a half-billion dollars.

sports.yahoo.com

Excluded from the Yahoo story but included in the original boston.com story was DeFilippo’s quote that BCU blocked UConn because they “wanted to be the New England school.”

 

[Waquoit]

it's one sport small time thinking like this that has hobbled UConn all along.

How? It's FBers who are the one sport thinkers.

 

[uconndogs]

Flipper was in so far over his head he drowned.

He could only survive at a place like BC that operated in a region where they were the only program with a long football tradition.

 

[John]

How? It's FBers who are the one sport thinkers.

Wrong.
I don't recall posts on the Boneyard football board wishing the basketball program would go away.

 

[Adios]

How? It's FBers who are the one sport thinkers.

The football program can easily be restored. Not like I care all that much anymore, just saying.

However, the northern schools, besides ND, being garbage in the ACC certainly is an eye opener. It would be a while before there's a chance for a national title at UConn in football.

 

[JMick]

 

[jostar1]

From 2011:

An article in The Boston Globe on Sunday became the talk of college athletics, as it reported just how brazen and blatant Boston College’s blocking of Connecticut’s move to the Atlantic Coast Conference was.

“We didn’t want them in,” Boston College’s athletic director, Gene DeFilippo, told The Globe. “It was a matter of turf. We wanted to be the New England team.”

The most stunning comment in the article was DeFilippo’s public admission that ESPN guided the A.C.C.’s decision to add Syracuse and Pittsburgh last month. “We always keep our television partners close to us,” DeFilippo told The Globe. “You don’t get extra money for basketball. It’s 85 percent football money. TV — ESPN — is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball.”

DeFilippo’s comments give credence to the popular theory that ESPN encouraged Pittsburgh and Syracuse’s exit from the Big East in the wake of the Big East’s turning down ESPN’s billion dollar television deal in May during an exclusive negotiating window. ESPN has a billion dollar deal with the A.C.C., making that move either savvy business or collusion, depending on one’s perspective.

Conference Instability Is Filtering Down to the Next Level (Published 2011)

 

[shizzle787]

To me, there will be two conferences left standing: the SEC and B1G. Each will have 20 members. The SEC will have to wait about 8 years but they will add Clemson, Florida State, UNC, and Virginia (ND will have a scheduling agreement) and play Olympic sports there. The B1G will add the 4 California schools, Oregon, and Washington. We’ll probably end up in the ACC with WVU. Kansas and a few others with end up in the PAC-12. Game over.

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

ESPN might do it like with FSU....no official contact...have a SEC school President have lunch with the Texas President...social visit... info passes in the guise of gossip...no notes...no ESPN involvement

Ah, the ole FSU model undermining Big East football via lunches with scUM (round 1) and the latter's dingleberries (BCU/Lahey/Defilippo, and Syracuse/Shaw/Crouthamel; latter killed by VA Legislature), Subsequently, BE football's final death blow in cahoots with Clemson and ESPN (round 2).

 

[uconndogs]

Ahhh....I'm over the whole BBC thing at this point. They have a nice hockey program and a football program that that is sometimes competitive. I'll be long in the grave before they ever sniff an ACC championship or playoff appearance.

.......and basketball is something special. Who the heck was president the last time they made the NCAAs......... Eisenhower?

 

[Waquoit]

Wrong.
I don't recall posts on the Boneyard football board wishing the basketball program would go away.

We were in the AAC for one sport and it was killing our basketball program whether you wished it or not. You are all projection, with your calling realists like me "one sport thinkers." I've paid for and attended every UConn FB game in The Rent. All of the posts decrying our leaving the AAC came from the real one-sport thinkers.

 

[uconndogs]

I don't think the AAC hurt us as much as we hurt ourselves. The coaching blunders on the football side were epic and we're still paying the price for that. P inherited an NFL defense and couldn't even get bowl eligible. Crazy Bob was.....well.....crazy. On the hoops side of the ledger KO imploded and I don't think anyone could have predicted that. We should have been plenty competitive in that conference.

That all said, I and, I suspect most, UCONN fans did not appreciate that conference and I think getting out made good sense. Given what's happening to the Big 12 it looks like an even better move.

 

[BlueDogs]

What a cesspool of unbridled betrayal, greed and power play. The whole system is collapsing because there isn’t a shred of integrity left in the system. it’s about the $$, not the college players, education, or fans.

 

[sub legacy]

To me, there will be two conferences left standing: the SEC and B1G. Each will have 20 members. The SEC will have to wait about 8 years but they will add Clemson, Florida State, UNC, and Virginia (ND will have a scheduling agreement) and play Olympic sports there. The B1G will add the 4 California schools, Oregon, and Washington. We’ll probably end up in the ACC with WVU. Kansas and a few others with end up in the PAC-12. Game over.

I agree, that appears to be how it's shaping up. The idea that there will be 3-4 super conferences left standing seems generous.

 

[sub legacy]

 

[sub legacy]

More hot sauce from Twitter...

 

[huskymedic]

Tick tock ESPN, tick tock. 1.5hrs to go.

 

[John]

ESPN using the Because I Said So clause.

 

[sub legacy]

ESPN using the Because I Said So clause.

Time for Bowlsby to play the Follow the Money charge.

 

[DCUconnfan]

I cannot fathom that Bowlsby was so overtly public and inflammatory with multiple media outlets (it even made it onto financial news networks) without a shred of hard evidence to use in litigation now or in the future. ESPN has to deny, don't know why I'd expect anything less, but they sure K.I.S.S.'ed it with that letter.

Then again, Bowlsby could just be throwing hail mary's all over the place on his way out the door - nothing surprises me anymore these days.

 

[jostar1]

 

[sub legacy]

Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 - Wikipedia

Bowlsby might not have much of a case unless he has hard evidence of deliberate collusion. This is all about consolidation of power and dissolving the pretense of amateurism, therefore being exempt from antitrust laws (if we're not there already with NIL alone).

 

[bobbyinaz]

Holy !!

That's basically FSU posting a tinder profile saying please swipe right

 

[Chin Diesel]

More like the rest of the conference said "sit down, shut up and do as we say to keep your money"

Wish the ACC would have said that to BCU when it came time for the UConn discussion.

But your point is valid. Huge school, massive market, fertile recruiting and a rabid fan base. And yet the rest of the SEC went full The Rock to A&M with a "Shut up" and "Know your roll".