The amazing UConn double championship and the power conferences

[NoelAustin]

I'm wondering if someone who understands the politics and economics of the major conferences (more than me anyway) could speculate about how much this sweep of the basketball championships improves UConn's chances of being absorbed into one of the major conferences. Are officials of the ACC or the Big 10 gagging on their bacon this morning because they extended no invitation to UConn? Are Boston College, Rutgers, or Virginia Tech really more attractive for conference membership? Or are they really singularly focused on football? Isn't basketball a serious revenue-generator in its own right?

 

[huskyrob1]

I'm wondering if someone who understands the politics and economics of the major conferences (more than me anyway) could speculate about how much this sweep of the basketball championships improves UConn's chances of being absorbed into one of the major conferences. Are officials of the ACC or the Big 10 gagging on their bacon this morning because they extended no invitation to UConn? Are Boston College, Rutgers, or Virginia Tech really more attractive for conference membership? Or are they really singularly focused on football? Isn't basketball a serious revenue-generator in its own right?

The ACC really 'd up big time by inviting commuter college Louisville over UCONN, and that could be that leagues undoing in coming years. I think, and I said this last fall, that UCONN will get an invite from the B1G or the SEC by next year. The B1G is the more likely of the two. Louisville's fan base in the NYC market is about the size of my daughters high school. The B1G also made a mistake when it invited Rutgers over UCONN, however that was not as disastrous for the league as the ACC's bonehead move was. Rutgers is a pseudo legacy going back many years, that's one reason it got an invite over UCONN, and it has a decent fan base in NYC markets, though not nearly as large as UCONN's. UCONN's fan base is also very large in Mass and the Boston area and other parts of New England. The negatives for Rutgers are many in terms of athletics, a football program that is barely above UCONN's, if at all, a mens basketball program that is a basketcase, and a once prominent women's program that is in a steep decline.