The Big East name was not a positive for football, just hoops. And not allowing UConn to profit from its women BB rights for non-national games was simply using the asset for the benefit of the whole conference, and not us specifically. We would have all screamed bloody murder if Aresco allowed Rutgers, say, in the beginning, to profit from the sale of its wrestling rights to a local station when we weren’t allowed to do that.
Disagree. The Big East name gave us a recognized brand. It was just a brand that was inconsistent with Aresco's "conference USA" style plan. Once that name was lost to the C7 the conference redefined itself as a G5 start up conference. It was a "new coke" level move.
You are absolutely correct that the movement of what had been individually held T3 rights from Connecticut to ESPN was a move that was intended to benefit the entire conference at Connecticut's expense. It directly precipitated our move out of the conference. Aresco never seemed to value Connecticut, probably because our name was linked to the big east conference in the us inconsistent with his conference USA style plan. Yet, no school in the American generated more national championships in Connecticut did while it was there. He should have promoted us and looked after our interests. He did just the opposite.
Your Rutgers analogy is based on a false premise that ownership of T3 rights applies to one school only. I don't see us complaining at all with T3 rights being preserved for every institution. If Rutgers benefited from that, all the better for them, it wouldn't impact us negatively one way or the other. (Your low-key insult of UConn women's basketball brand by equating it with Rutgers wrestling is duly noted.)
I'll also point out that Aresco didn't appear to get any material benefit from the release of our T3 rights. He got a deal that was barely better, on a net basis, than the big East's media deal that did not include football. Hardly a show of competency.
Essentially Aresco's entire career at the helm of the big east was taking whatever scraps ESPN decided to throw his way, expanding the conference questionably, giving up the conferences brand value and pretending to have a seat at the big boy table, a claim that was universally mocked.
But, but, but… no one else could've done any better say his supporters. No one claims that he did a good job, just that anyone else would have done as bad a job. In my world that's failure.
