Big East / C7 / ACC / ND update

by Jay @, San Diego, Tuesday, March 05, 2013, 10:34 (4357 days ago)

bullet points:

* ND to ACC this Fall

* Catholic 7 keeping "Big East" name and rights to Madison Square Garden tournament

* Remaining BE football schools will rebrand as new conference


---------------

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/bigeast/2013/03/04/catholic-seven-7-negotiat...

Catholic 7 will keep Big East name, MSG tournament site

Mark Blaudschun, Special for USA TODAY Sports8:13a.m. EST March 5, 2013

After a weekend of talks and negotiations, the Big East Conference has put together a framework of an agreement allowing member schools known as the Catholic 7 to break away from the Big East by July and take the "Big East'' name, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter was not to be discussed publicly.

The person said an agreement on the split could be announced Thursday and added that the Big East football schools expect to have a new conference name as well as a new site for the conference basketball tournament, which has been anchored in New York's Madison Square Garden since 1983.

According to the person, the main negotiations have involved how to split a Big East cash reserve which is in excess of $100 million and comes from exit fees paid by Big East schools that have left or are leaving the conference, as well as the lucrative basketball shares earned in the NCAA tournament by conference schools and a pair of conference reserve funds.

The three Big East football schools that are part of the full revenue sharing plan -- Cincinnati, South Florida and Connecticut -- will be the primary beneficiaries, with each school expected to be paid between $15 million to $20 million each.

The Catholic 7 schools -- DePaul, Seton Hall, St. John's, Providence, Villanova, Marquette and Georgetown -- are still negotiating their share, which could be as much as $5 million per school, but is likely to be somewhere between $3 million and $5 million per school. They also are expected to announce a TV deal today in New York with the new Fox cable channel.

The other Big East football schools -- Temple, SMU, Central Florida, Memphis and Houston as well as Tulane and East Carolina, who will join the conference in 2014 -- are also expected to split another $10 million.

Notre Dame, which is taking its teams (other than football, which remains an independent) to the ACC, is expected to join that league in the fall.

Aside from the financial considerations involving both conferences, a prime topic of debate has been determining a site for the postseason basketball tournament. It will not be Madison Square Garden, which, once the breakup is official, is expected to make an arrangement with the Catholic 7 league to play next year's tournament in New York.

That leaves the Big East looking for a place to play, with Hartford the likely first stop in what will be rotating series of sites for a conference which will have UConn, Temple, Cincinnati and Memphis as its basketball anchors.

Hartford would be a logical and prudent choice for a variety of reasons. In the infancy of the Big East before the Garden was chosen as a permanent anchor, the Big East moved its postseason tournament from Providence to Syracuse to Hartford.

Tags:
ACC


Complete thread:

 

powered by my little forum