[Just for fun] Your Outside-the-Box Expansion Ideas

[Frank the Tank]

My goodness, some on here must simply have a completely different set of standards about expansion than I do I guess. Siena? Holy Cross? Northeastern? Boston U?

There should be NO reason to bring on a program to this conference that needs to be "brought along," and taugght how to be successful. We are the BIG-Freaking-EAST!!!!

Expand only if it makes you better: Gonzaga, UConn; maybe VCU, UNLV, BYU. SLU, Dayton, Cincy, Temple, Memphis = 2nd tier, no thanks. All the rest = yawn.

Hold onto the round robin and continue to tout that we are the premier hoops-only league. It is working...let it grow. Then take programs that make us better. Period. Maybe wait and see if there are more FB shakeups. Who's to say they don't go to (4) 16 team leagues and our prospective pool of programs becomes deeper and wider.

Gumby, there was a discussion about getting a team into Boston, so i spent a couple of minutes to look at the only possible options to do that. All are poor choices. I just put the information down. Me, i don't want to expand. If we do though, my first choice would be go with Gonzaga and stop at 11. But i want to stick with 10.

I get it BJack. Just frustrated by the expansion talk that starts with programs that the A-10 and C-USA usually consider. I just think we have a great thing going... Why dilute it with slop when we can sit back, continue to develop and have our pick of the litter in a couple years when the FB dreams of great BB programs are ultimately dashed?

The issue is that there won't be that "litter" available. Just scratch any FBS school off that list - even with the power conference domination, it's still worth it for any current FBS school to maintain their football program simply to get their cut of the College Football Playoff revenue (which will grow even further when the playoff inevitably expands to 8 teams).

More importantly, the league should be looking at long-term *off-the-court* viability. That means looking at markets, demographics and other factors to ensure that the Big East doesn't become marginalized. Just look at the history of the hybrid Big East itself - for almost their entire history, the league was more about protecting the status quo as opposed to looking at the future. When it came to expansion, they threw out the same phrases I see in this thread like "dilution" or "no one is good enough now" or "we should wait for a no-brainer like [insert pipe dream name like Penn State or Notre Dame that everyone knows would never join]". So, the Big East just sat around because they were more fearful of diluting their short-term BCS payouts as opposed to looking to the long-term. Meanwhile, other conferences were forward-looking and ended picking off all of the football assets of value from the Big East until the football league died. Did the ACC wait for Boston College to be a "perfect expansion candidate"? Did the Big Ten wait for Rutgers to be a "perfect expansion candidate"? Heck, even look at the circumstance under which Missouri and Texas A&M were added to the SEC - they were far from great on-the-field choices at the time. Those leagues are *power* conferences because they understand that it's not about "What have you done for me lately" on-the-field or on-the-court. This is about adding *institutions* (which are distinct from athletic programs) that will provide market, academic and demographic value for the next several decades whether they win or lose.

The Big East is a good position as of today, but this world where media market and recruiting footprints matter so much means that 10-team conferences simply aren't long for this world. Is there a "perfect candidate"? Well, all of those power conferences would have rather had a "perfect" candidate like the University of Texas instead of Rutgers or Missouri, but they identified long-term assets and still ended up growing their respective pies even larger with those less than sexy picks. Waiting for perfection is often just an excuse for complacency... and complacency gets you killed in the conference realignment game.

[TheBall]

But frank the tank, expansion for the sake of expansion is not the answer either.

It is not a complacent attitude. Rather it is an attitude of building the brands of our current ten teams over the next half decade.

And I disagree that the old big east just sat in its ass in the past. They had 9 teams for the first decade and a half, but then they rapidly expanded, adding notre dame, miami, vtech, wvu, rutgers, and the louisville, cincy, usf, depaul, marquette over the next ten years. Adding ten teams over a ten yr span is not sitting in its ass, and the conference still got raided so it obviously isn't a sure thing that expansion leads to good results.

[Freshjive2103]

What teams were added?
VCU, St. Louis, Dayton, Hartford

What do they bring to the table?
Larger markets. In 3 of the 4 cases, pretty good recent success. In Hartford's case, I feel as though there is a need for a Northeast representative that is in a larger market. UMass may be more attractive on paper... but Amherst?

What circumstances led to their inclusion?
Larger markets and bring successful teams.

What, if anything, would change about the league with these teams?
I think it would be more attractive to recruits. VCU brings exciting ball and a hot bed of talent in the VA area.