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Post-Gazette sports staffers Paul Zeise and Ray Fittipaldo blog about University of Pittsburgh football and basketball. Guide to commenting | Terms of Service |
So many issues to get to, I have no idea where to start.
I think right now I'll try and simplify all of this TV deal/expansion mess as much as possible then come back later with the actual football stuff -- although I would be remiss if I didn't at last write that it would not be an official Big East media day if a West Virginia player didn't pop off and say something ridiculous (remember the Pat White "our baseball coach is racist" classic) and this year defensive end Bruce Irvin provided the fodder when he tweeted "I hope a sPitt player dnt try to shake my hand. I will laugh and walk off" and then proceeded to say he doesn't speak to Pitt players because he hates them.....
OK, back to the real topic at hand - money and new teams.
I had a long talk with Steve Pederson today about what it is exactly that he and Oliver Luck and the rest of the athletic directors from football-playing schools really want and he made it simple -- they want a league where every single year they don't have to worry about losing members to other leagues and that means they need long-term stability.
It is clear football is driving this bus and it is also clear that any and all resistance to any plans for expansion is from the basketball-only members as they have watched their league grow to 17 teams.
But Pederson isn't interested in adding just anyone, nor is the rest of the conference, which is where this could get very interesting because behind closed doors, there are less discussions about the Central Florida, Memphis, Southern Miss, Marshall, Army, Navy-type teams (you know, the ones which are always thrown out there) and more about the teams which may be ripe to be plucked from their current conferences for whatever reason.
The dream scenario would be the current league, plus TCU and BC and Maryland and if three schools of that quality were added, then a 12th school could be a Villanova or Central Florida and the conference would clearly be better. However, adding Villanova or Central Florida as the 10th school or adding both as the 10th and 11th schools would not add a thing to the conference and thus is not attractive to anyone at this point.
Central Florida, in fact, seems to be the only of those Conference USA/MAC/Less than BCS-League type schools that has any reasonable amount of support from the current membership and even then, there seems to be a wide variety of opinions on exactly what they'd bring. (Pederson said he would like another presence in Florida, but would not comment specifically about UCF so you do the math). Nobody seems to want Memphis or any of those other schools, though there are some discussions still about Navy.
The other group of schools the Big East is keeping an eye on is the trio of Big 12 schools - Missouri, Kansas and Kansas State - which could be left out in the cold if the conference falls apart, which, given recent unrest about the Texas Longhorn Network and the unfair advantage it provides for Texas in both money and recruiting, that isn't a pipe dream.
Again, all of these scenarios are being discussed and frankly, it doesn't seem like anyone wants to move forward with expansion if there aren't at least one, if not two, teams involved who are clearly going to be an upgrade and the "usual suspects" list just isn't cutting it.
That brings the question - what exactly could the Big East offer Maryland and Boston College that they don't already have in the ACC?
Well, money, and that's where the high stakes poker game with television networks that the Big East - at the prodding of Pederson and company - comes into play. The conference hopes it can parlay NBC/Comcast's new found interest in college sports programming into a bidding war with ESPN to drive the price up to a level much higher than what the ACC's current (and long-term) deal gives each team.
The Cliff Notes version of the background on this is that ESPN came to the Big East an offered a 7-year deal for football and basketball worth about $11 million per school.
The basketball schools said let's jump at it, Big East commissioner John Marinatto was on board, and Pederson and the football schools stepped in and said "we can do better."
There was division, there was some arguing, there was some splintering UNTIL Comcast/NBC got into the game and began driving prices up to the point where the Pac-12 got $3 billion over 12 years.
That's when everybody in the conference got on board and said, "let's wait this thing out" - and now the Big East is the last of the major conferences without a new deal which means it has some leverage on NBC/Comcast since the network is desperate to get into the college sports business.
Like one official said to me "imagine being a free agent third baseman and finding out that ARod just got hurt and the Yankees are in the market for a third baseman. That's where we are - Comcast is like the Yankees, they are driving the price of doing business up for everyone, including us."
In other words, conference officials hope they can create a bidding war and get a far more lucrative package from ESPN than the original offer from a few months ago (the hope is the deal reaches the $16 million per team per year range, which is about $3 million more per team than the ACC deal).
Again, there are so many moving parts to this that it is going to be really fun to watch unfold - but anybody who tells you they know how it is going to end is lying because there are so many different opinions on so many issues that the league itself doesn't know how it will end.
And at the end of it, there are a number of different ways it could be resolved and here is a brief overview of what they are with, based on many conversations I've had over the past two days, how realistic they are...
1.) The conference remains the same (17 total members, nine football members) and signs with ESPN for a good, long-term (though not 12-year) deal. There is a lot to be said for this and right now, with very few obvious and legitimate teams to add to the conference, it looks like a possibility. Everyone has told me, however, that something has to happen and something has to change and the hope is that the football conference can be strengthened.
2.) The conference expands to 12-football members, 20-basketball members. Again, we can argue about which schools all day long but it seems like, other than Central Florida, there is very little support for any non-BCS conference schools at this point. But the larger point is the 20-team basketball league, which Steve Pederson told me he and the football schools could live with because they already have 17.
However, a league source told me the 20-team basketball league would likely fall apart in a few years because the basketball-only schools don't want to be in a conference that is so large - that some have grumbled about how tough it is to get to the top of a 16-team league. So the Big East would likely then become two seperate leagues. That's why this version is viewed as a temporary fix at best and that is not what anyone wants. They want to fix the problem once and for all and be in good shape for the long haul.
3.) The conference subtracts a few of the weakest basketball schools - or those who add very little - and adds three football schools to become a 12-team football league and a 16-team basketball league. I'm told that John Marinatto under no circumstances wants to see any teams subtracted from the league and the basketball schools are in it together - so if one goes, they all go. And frankly, it would make much more sense to just split up and have a 12-team all sports league and an eight or ten-team basketball league than it would to cut one or two or even four or five teams.
4.) The two separate groups go their separate ways right now and the football-schools add three schools to become a 12-team football and all sports league. This option seems to be way down the list and the reason is many of the football schools - Syracuse, Connecticut - still would like to try and make the basketball-hybrid work.
These are the issues that are being discussed behind closed doors and these are the issues which currently are keeping league officials, presidents and athletic directors up at night. Something is going to happen, but at this point, nobody - including those on the inside - knows exactly what it will all look like when the dust settles.
So here are my questions to all of you Pitt fans -- what is the best case scenario in your mind?
Also, what could you live with in terms of a resolution even if it isn't your best case scenario?
And finally, what, in your mind, is not an acceptable end to all of this?

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