Big East Looking To Add 9th Football Team

[MarketingGuy]

Hmm. Interesting discussion. I'd love to have ND in the Big East.

[Jihme]

ND gets money thrown at them even if they lose like crazy - they have no incentive to join ANY conference

[bulls96go]

5-10 years...anything can happen

[BullGarmuck]

Has the Big East looked at an up and coming program like Troy?

*They are competitive in Football. They're the 2006 Sun Belt Conference co-champions and won the New Orleans Bowl.

*It's obvious they are scheduling top 25 programs for OOC games with the intent, I assume, to get some name recognition and possibly an invite to a BCS league. Their OOC schedule this year is Arkansas, Florida, and Georgia. Their upcoming OOC schedule is just as tough with visit to Ohio State, South Carolina, Oklahoma State and LSU:

http://www.nationalchamps.net/NCAA/future_schedules/index.htm

*Have a perfect location in Alabama. Which happens to be a state where none of our other programs are located, so it won't step on any toes recruitment wise. It's also in the South and the East, haha.

*Their 2007 media guide states an enrollment of 28,000+ and a stadium that holds 30,000.

They do also seem to be competitive in baseball as well. Only thing is I don't know how good their basketball team is except for the snippet on wikipedia and I don't know how strong their surrounding market happens to be. But it seems like a perfect opportunity to grab the next big thing? Maybe?

[mikebeau]

ND gets money thrown at them even if they lose like crazy - they have no incentive to join ANY conference

A couple more season like this one and that NBC money will dry up.  Who knows if that will happen though.  Notre Dame also doesn't want to play a real conference schedule. 

[Husky Dog Art]

Perhaps Memphis and/or Houston would be good additions in the fact that both play in metropolitan areas that are conducive for television and would allow the Big East to have two (2) divisions, a north and south.  The north could be comprised of Uconn, Rutgers, Pitt, WVa, and SU, the south would consist of USF, L'ville, Cincy, Memphis, and Houston. Just a thought.

Memphis and or Houston in the Big East?? Get real, The Big East is known for GREAT ACADAMIC schools, why would we want those two schools. Sorry I'll disagree with you. Myself, UCF would be one of my choice to join the BE.

[Husky Dog Art]

Give incentive to Villanova to move up into Division 1A football and the problem is solved

    They don't want to upgrade to D1A. 'Nova is happy in the 1AA CAA. I doubt you'll see an expansion until 2012. That is when the upgrades will happen next.

[bull2saintleo]

Has the Big East looked at an up and coming program like Troy?

*They are competitive in Football. They're the 2006 Sun Belt Conference co-champions and won the New Orleans Bowl.

*It's obvious they are scheduling top 25 programs for OOC games with the intent, I assume, to get some name recognition and possibly an invite to a BCS league. Their OOC schedule this year is Arkansas, Florida, and Georgia. Their upcoming OOC schedule is just as tough with visit to Ohio State, South Carolina, Oklahoma State and LSU:

http://www.nationalchamps.net/NCAA/future_schedules/index.htm

*Have a perfect location in Alabama. Which happens to be a state where none of our other programs are located, so it won't step on any toes recruitment wise. It's also in the South and the East, haha.

*Their 2007 media guide states an enrollment of 28,000+ and a stadium that holds 30,000.

They do also seem to be competitive in baseball as well. Only thing is I don't know how good their basketball team is except for the snippet on wikipedia and I don't know how strong their surrounding market happens to be. But it seems like a perfect opportunity to grab the next big thing? Maybe?

Your proposal is very intriguing.  Outside of CUSA, I never really considered any other non- BCS conferences, but I think Troy could be a thought in due time.  It would give the BE a new area to market to.  The only problem I could foresee is TV market size, and that Troy, Alabama isn't large enough.

[SoFlaEer]

For those that mention PENN ST., they wanted to join the B.E. when Tranghese first started the league but their B.B. was not to the level he wanted, so he turned them down.  If that doesn't say something to you about what kind of league this is, nothing will.  No matter what school is approached for F.B. they had better have a better B.B. team.  Tranghese put himself in this situation and now there is NO school around to fit in like LOU. & CIN.  Your school was given a rare chance, and only one other school at this time comes close and that is Memphis but they have drawbacks also.  If that were to happen, either DePaul or Marquette would have to go.

P.S. Notre Dame would certainly fit but they have no interest.

Actually, you're a little off on your historical points.  The Big East was founded in the late 70's as a basketball only conference (Tranghese became the Commissioner in 1990, so he didnt "start" the conference).  Pitt joined several years after the league formed, and the 3 D1A football schools (BC, Pitt, Syracuse) were enjoying the BB gravy train so much, that as discussions for a new northeastern conference progressed in the mid-late 80's (spearheaded by Joe Paterno), these 3 would agree to a football only arrangement.  (you may be interested to know that Maryland was also included in the initial discussions to establish an all sports conference)

Penn State, WVU Rutgers opposed this and insisted on an all-sports conference.  Thus a stalemate was reached, and Penn State subsequently jumped to the Big 10 when it was invited in the early 90's (there were "off the record" discussions/rumors in the late 80's that PSU was attempting to get in and "dont be surprised to see Penn State in the Big 10 in a few years - we laughed at the speculation at the time (I was still in school at WVU at the time)).   So PSU was actually pushing for an all sports conference, it wasnt necessarily that the BE turned them down (although I do believe you may be right on that - I think they did apply for membership as did WVU (who were FB independents and BB members of the Atlantic 10 at the time) - Pitt cockblocked both schools attempts to gain membership.  This is part of the animosity between JoPa's Penn Sta & Pitt and why you dont see them playing in FB anymore)

What actually led to the football piece of the Big East Conference was all the conference expansion in the early 90's, which left institutions such as WVU, Virginia Tech, Rutgers etc on the outside looking in (it should be noted that by the early 90's Miami was having significant diffivulty finding teams willing to schedule them, as their team's thug reputation was at its peak - Notre Dame dropped them, as did South Carolina to name a few that i remember).  The Big East offered Miami full membership, which helped their BB program which had just been re-establsihed, and offered Football only membership to WVU, VPI, Rutgers, and Temple - these school basically had to accept the arrangment or be left as independents at a time when most independents (FSU, South Carolina, Penn St) were joining conferences, thus there would be scheduling nightmares.  So actually the BE football conference came about out of necessity as much as anything else.

Over time, the schools were able to lobby for and gain full membership in BE (WVU & Rutgers in 1995, VPI in 2000, Temple however remained FB only).

you guys know the recent history so no need to reiterate any of it.   Kinda ironic (and pathetic) that BC was one of the schools that f*cked everyone over in the northeast to form an all sports conference, and then the up and bolted from the BE anyway.

Anyway - back to your discussion - realisitcally the BE is not going to add any more schools of a CUSA or lower caliber.  It just does not make economic sense, even if it would alleviate the unbalanced scheduling.  You gotta remember that a new team is gonna get a slice of the conference revenues, and if they dont increase those revenues per school even after giving a cut to the new school, there is simply no economic incentive t oexpand.  So, unless a marquee and/or established D1A school such as Penn St, Maryland, etc. is the one being added, it aint gonna happen.

The conference will have a difficult time splitting even now between the BB & FB schools - who gets to keep the name?  The "new" conference will not have an automatic bid to the NCAA Basketball tourney for a couple of years, TV contracts would be voided etc, so there is a lot that impacts expansion other than scheduling.

adding teams such as any current CUSA member is simply not going to increase conference revenues enough to justify it.

just my $0.02