BIg East: Who will replace the Seven Catholic Schools

The Big East conference is reaching out to UNLV and Fresno State to join the conference for their football program. In addition, Mike Aresco the commissioner of the Big East and BYU have also had a least informal discussions.

Fresno State and UNLV have talked to the commissioner however, a source said the talks had been kept a secret as to not offend anyone. Aresco had aggressively tried to put together a group of schools that have football program to maintain under the banner of the Big East.

The big problem remains uncertainty, as the Big East is not even sure how or if it will be able to proceed in football. That is added to the uncertainty the Mountain West is going through because it has yet to re-sign a new contract with CBS for television rights. The current 10-year deal ends at the end of the 2015 season.

One report said the Big East could have a western division of football teams that could included SMU, Houston, San Diego State, Boise State and either BYU, Air Force, UNLV, Fresno State or Nevada.

Now, with 13 teams left after the seven Catholic schools left to play basketball elsewhere the question is what will happen. For example, Connecticut and Cincinnati want to remain with the basketball group, but the question is will they be invited. The public is now aware that the administrations at those schools would jump at the change to go play in the ACC.

However, at week’s end there were 13 schools that were esstentially without an conference home or even a conference name. The group of 13 could stick together and not have to pay any revenue generated by football with the other seven schools that have basketball. However, without the schools that have basketball that represent a value of about 30%, that decision could be risky.

CBS said the television contract could be just $60 million per year, taking out the 30% for the loss of the basketball schools and its worth $42 million. If you divide that by the 13 schools it comes out to just $3.2 million per year. Just last year Boise State opted to move to the Big East with promises of between $8 million and $10 million annually.

It is a shame all this has taken place as the contracts for television and the money earned by schools thanks to television and fans attending the games has both basketball and football at the collegiate level becoming just another professional sporting event.