John Marinatto has resigned as Big East commissioner

[CPR]

imo UL is gone

And there goes a decent contract of the 10mil or more people were expecting.

[smazza]

Look at who broke the story. I know many of you hate Brett but he is **** good at what he does.

bm is a great reporterne

never appreciated here

[Triple B]

Look at who broke the story. I know many of you hate Brett but he is **** good at what he does.

bm is a great reporterne

never appreciated here

Exhibit A ...

[Skingraft]

imo UL is gone

Wow, how low can I feel about the future of the Big East and USF Football. At least the AQ being gone levels the playing field, but our in conference SOS will never get us in the top 4

[achiever1911]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/columnist/story/2012-05-07/Next-Big-East-commissioner-will-have-hands-full/54814790/1

Maybe you saw the list of worst jobs that some outfit called Careercast.com put out about a month ago. Among the bottom five were newspaper reporter and broadcaster.

Those guys whiffed. No list of worst jobs is complete without Big East Conference commissioner somewhere near the top.

Yesterday, Big East commissioner John Marinatto resigned after being forced out by a conference membership that voted in just about every move it kicked him out for.

Used to be, conference commissioner was one of those cushy, get-you-through-to-retirement kinds of jobs. He was a glad-hander. He showed up at the best bowl games and, maybe if things got hairy, soothed a few egos. The biggest decision was making sure he picked the right resort for the summer meetings.

Not anymore. Now, conference commissioners are in charge of hostile takeovers, clandestine courtships and assembling the odd college sports cabal.

If Marinatto failed, most of it rested in his inability to get a majority of the college presidents in his conference to live in the real world.

After something of a coup in landing TCU, Marinatto wanted to solidify the league at 10 teams by adding Central Florida, but South Florida president Judy Genshaft refused, while other established league members still, according to sources, had designs on recruiting Boston College back into the league.

Yeah, that was going to happen.

In addition to dissent there was subterfuge. Marinatto worked on an 9-year, $1.4 billion TV deal with ESPN, based on TCU in the league, and took it to conference presidents. They voted it down. One school involved in the leadership on that decision then turned around and bolted from the league.

If there were steps he could have taken that might've left the Big East on a more solid footing -- and there were, though not all were supported by the conference presidents in a manner timely enough to make a difference -- Marinatto also found himself in a situation where he could not win.

After Syracuse and Pitt left, Marinatto told league presidents to increase the exit fee. They wouldn't. Shortly after, TCU walked away.

What possible argument or action could've kept a team from leaving the Big East for the Big 12 or Atlantic Coast Conference? Stability might've worked for Syracuse. But once the ESPN deal had been turned down, there was none to offer.

Former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese told The New York Times it was Marinatto's vision that kept the league afloat after Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech defected.

But Marinatto couldn't sell his conference on any vision, if in fact he had one this time around, nor was he given the support to take bold action to make achieving one even a remote possibility. Yes, there is failure, but it is at the very least shared.

The question now is whether it can be reversed. The Big East still can cobble together a decent football television package, thanks to its expanded membership. It turns out sports are about the only thing anyone watches on live TV anymore.

The bigger challenge for the new commissioner will be lobbying for leverage with the true football power conferences, and remembering to pay attention to the strength of the basketball side. Even so, there's no holding onto programs like Louisville or Connecticut if the league is raided again.

And the biggest job of all will be coming up with a vision and identity for a conference that has lost both and holding together a membership that has lost its unity with new members who have to be uneasy.

Those job rankings from Careercast ranked lumberjack as the worst job. But for the next Big East Commissioner, an axe may never be very far away.

Contact Eric Crawford at (502) 582-4361 or ecrawford@courier-journal.com. Comment on this column or read his blog and past columns at www.courier-journal.com/crawford.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

[SRQ]

fun while it lasted

[Sitting_BULL]

With no AQ, we need to Axe the BBALL school big time. We'd still have a good bball conference if we split.

The conference cannot have stability with the two groups going head to head.

Football has the majority now.

I don't know how to break this to you, but our basketball has been much more of a TV draw than the "lamest BCS football conference" over the past 5-6 years.

[Sitting_BULL]

With no AQ, we need to Axe the BBALL school big time. We'd still have a good bball conference if we split.

Disagree completely ... The only thing that keeps the Newest Big East halfway palatable is the tradtional college basketball programs still here. You cut them loose and the confeence bcomes an overall bigger joke ..... God forbid, lose Louisville and maybe Notre Dame down the line, it will be worse than the CUSA we left.

EXACTLY!

[Southshore26]

Eric Crawford must have gone to UCiF....

[Reliable Source]

Eric Crawford must have gone to UCiF....

Yeah, he knows that beatch in Tampa kept UCF out of the conference because Psycho Bianchi said so.