Big East Expansion
- Thread starter hbkmyr
- Start date
“ Fool me once shame on you , fool me twice shame on me.” BE expansion is a road with a very slippery slope and I would urge our Commissioner to look to the recent past of the BE Conference before we move forward on this issue.
This. Maybe long game arguments can be made for Dayton and Saint Louis, but neither immediately raises the league's profile, nor does anyone else not named Gonzaga.
Only expand if Fox demands it. Today I would only add ND but it is tied up for 12+ years. If forced to expand, probably St Louis but Dayton and VCU would be strongly considered.
The only school that’s readily available that makes any sense to me would be 30,000 enrollment VCU. But I would wait for another shake before even considering that. And broadcast concerns are at the forefront of every debate related to expansion.
I don’t think there are any schools out there worth losing our double round robin for. We threw UConn a life line, we’ve done our part for charity, time to move on.
FOX money, on the other hand…..
seems crazier than it might actually be. they are the uconn of the power 5. i doubt any league wants them for football. they may get a lifeline based on their basketball prowess alone.
if they were to pull a uconn and join the big east that would make the league tops. not expecting it tho
Wichita is a solid program with a good, loyal fan base, but to me without Marshall that is a different program right now. He obviously has issues, to say the least, but he was a helluva coach and took them to a different level.
I don’t fully understand the economics, and perhaps adding Wichita makes sense from that lens. From a pure basketball standpoint, playing those Midwest schools doesn’t have the same cache as the traditional schools I grew up.
Even with the Big 12 most likely taking in less money after losing Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas will still be making ridiculously more than it would get from Big East hoops and independent football.
Why would it disband now with 12 teams?
I don’t see Wichita economically.
Is there a viable option out there? Is there anyone among the legitimate potential candidates that increases the conference's rights fees to make it worthwhile?
It seems to me that any expansion would be for expansion's sake more than anything else. Plus, a 12th team likely means the end of true double round robin play unless the BE wants to go to 22 league games.
It seems to me that any expansion would be for expansion's sake more than anything else. Plus, a 12th team likely means the end of true double round robin play unless the BE wants to go to 22 league games.
I don’t see any basketball only schools out there that would add value. No football school would leave their conference to go independent.
i assumed like the big east, who cut a few losses to manageable size, other football teams will start seeking greater pastures and create a prisoners dilemma where everyone flees and a few teams like kansas are left holding the bag.
Lol, or did we you do 'a charity?'
Maybe it was a business arrange that worked for both parties? I can't figure out why some people still have such a bug up their bum about it.
This! Let’s not kill Big East Basketball by doing what we did when football was part of the equation, basically taking anyone that might know what a football looked like which gave us the Rutger’s and South Florida’s of the world with the likes of East Carolina and other mid majors threatened to be added.
Be honest, the Big East would be fine without UConn but UConn would be stuck in mid-major hell which only would have gotten worse with the recent defections to a basically on life support Big 12 that didn’t want UConn either.
It wouldn’t be fine, though, without the relationship with FOX. The exposure is great, but the viewing numbers not so much. So whatever they want is a huge factor in anything, especially with the deal yet to be renewed.
UConn is additive and brings back a founding member. Great add to the league. Both sides benefited.
The Big East is better for UConn, but Ackerman has said that the only school she would have taken was Connecticut. Do you actually believe that she woke up one morning and thought, "You know, I like those UConn fellows. I think that I will invite them to join the conference"? Because that would be pretty dismissive about her business acumen. Do you have no respect for her because she's a woman?
Here are the top 30 DMAs in 2021. the higher you can find a team in a place on this list the better.
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This is a great tool to analyze prospective schools. Find Population Pick your city and set the mileage around it you want to scan and it gives you the population. Mileage is key for example there are @2M people within 50 miles of Storrs, but if stretch that to 120 the population is 10M.
FWIW, here is more of that list that maybe more relevent.
FWIW, here is more of that list that maybe more relevent.
| San Antonio | 31 | 31 | 0 | 916,970 | 1,031,180 |
| Hartford & New Haven | 33 | 32 | 1 | 885,890 | 1,002,710 |
| Columbus, OH | 34 | 33 | 1 | 877,490 | 999,300 |
| Kansas City | 32 | 34 | -2 | 896,850 | 986,160 |
| Greenvll-Spart-Ashevll-And | 38 | 35 | 3 | 787,930 | 940,000 |
| Cincinnati | 37 | 36 | 1 | 828,250 | 925,900 |
| Milwaukee | 35 | 37 | -2 | 837,300 | 921,920 |
| Austin | 40 | 38 | 2 | 736,770 | 912,400 |
| West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce | 36 | 39 | -3 | 828,980 | 870,720 |
| Las Vegas | 39 | 40 | -1 | 743,220 | 833,510 |
| Grand Rapids-Kalmzoo-B.Crk | 45 | 41 | 4 | 653,100 | 781,080 |
| Harrisburg-Lncstr-Leb-York | 47 | 42 | 5 | 641,660 | 772,810 |
| Jacksonville | 41 | 43 | -2 | 690,400 | 756,960 |
| Oklahoma City | 43 | 44 | -1 | 666,690 | 755,340 |
| Birmingham (Ann and Tusc) | 44 | 45 | -1 | 666,170 | 730,440 |
| Norfolk-Portsmth-Newpt Nws | 42 | 46 | -4 | 684,310 | 725,580 |
| Greensboro-H.Point-W.Salem | 49 | 47 | 2 | 635,580 | 717,110 |
| Albuquerque-Santa Fe | 46 | 48 | -2 | 648,350 | 716,800 |
| Louisville | 48 | 49 | -1 | 636,150 | 696,070 |
| New Orleans | 50 | 50 | 0 | 615,480 | 663,520 |
| Memphis | 51 | 51 | 0 | 580,600 | 619,610 |
| Providence-New Bedford | 56 | 52 | 4 | 543,430 | 619,140 |
| Buffalo | 52 | 53 | -1 | 576,710 | 612,780 |
| Ft. Myers-Naples | 53 | 54 | -1 | 564,250 | 608,640 |
| Fresno-Visalia | 55 | 55 | 0 | 550,860 | 607,200 |
| Richmond-Petersburg | 54 | 56 | -2 | 555,630 | 585,030 |
| Mobile-Pensacola (Ft Walt) | 57 | 57 | 0 | 518,740 | 584,290 |
| Wilkes Barre-Scranton-Hztn | 60 | 58 | 2 | 497,830 | 571,470 |
| Little Rock-Pine Bluff | 62 | 59 | 3 | 472,560 | 562,060 |
| Albany-Schenectady-Troy | 59 | 60 | -1 | 500,400 | 556,730 |
| Tulsa | 58 | 61 | -3 | 509,560 | 552,980 |
| Knoxville | 61 | 62 | -1 | 491,810 | 535,230 |
| Lexington | 64 | 63 | 1 | 425,890 | 499,880 |
| Tucson (Sierra Vista) | 65 | 64 | 1 | 421,820 | 479,780 |
| Dayton | 63 | 65 | -2 | 445,240 | 476,790 |
| Spokane | 70 | 66 | 4 | 381,590 | 470,210 |
| Honolulu | 66 | 67 | -1 | 414,130 | 464,090 |
| Des Moines-Ames | 68 | 68 | 0 | 393,470 | 457,040 |
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No, she's pretty much said UConn had a standing invitation if they wanted it, but only on the Big East's terms. She was happy to take them and just as happy to let them go off doing their own thing.
But if you’re being honest, UConn had the much bigger benefit, especially since we didn’t even make them work up to earning a full share of the pie (which was insanely crazy as no other P6 was beating down their door, UConn had nowhere else to go, it was Big East or bust). We would have been fine, they definitely would not and had a lot more to lose.
Again though, what if they were pressured to do so by FOX and even the Garden? (And clearly they were, only the extent and details are unknown to us). Neither of those deals last in perpetuity, and both are extremely important to the league.
The league needs to be more than some good teams and Nova. If you want to blame anyone for them being needed, blame the other 9 programs.
For the umpteenth time, they don’t get a full share for everything, only those things they directly contribute to, like media/FOX revenues.
FOX controls all of this and rightly so.
Why do we keep going through this? The BE would not have made offer to UConn if it didn’t benefit the league and UConn wouldn’t have accepted if they did not benefit from it as well.
It benefits both sides in several ways, really end of story. No need to root for UConn if you don’t want to, but they are part of conference, and we will play them at least twice a year.
It benefits both sides in several ways, really end of story. No need to root for UConn if you don’t want to, but they are part of conference, and we will play them at least twice a year.
I didn’t suggest that UConn benefited less than the BE but rather both sides benefited.
check out the DMA map here: https://www.mediamarketmap.com/market-map/
Atlanta, detroit, cleveland, st louis, charlotte, raliegh pittsburgh, nashville are the initial hit list based on top 30 DMAs, but there are limited schools even in the considerstion set, and most stink.
Detroit Mercy (Detroit)
Davidson (Charlotte)
St Louis (St Louis)
Duquesne, Robert Morris (Pittsburgh)
Belmont, Lipscomb (Nashville)
Clear winners based on latest basketball success here are Davidson and Belmont
Based on the next 30 top dmas you get:
UMBC, Morgan st, coppin st, loyola (Baltimore)
VCU (Richmond)
Old Dominion (Norfolk)
Canisuis (Buffalo)
Then if you go to the 70th DMA you get Dayton, the team that best fits from a basketball perspective.
obviously teams like Detroit wont be a big draw despitw the big market. so if i had to make my top list given DMA and basketball prowess (off top of my head) id go:
1)Davidson
2)Belmont
3)VCU
4)Dayton
5)Detroit
6) St Louis
7)Pitt/Baltimore schools
8)ODU (wont accept)
however id need to see more research about the specific audiences and profits these teams bring in
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