Big East Conference Expansion Ideas and Discussion

[HoosierPal]

Here is an interesting statement from a recent CBS article on how Wichita State lost money playing in last year's final four. Seems to lead me to believe that the more schools in the conference, the better.

The sentence is "The NCAA's tournament distributions are spread out over six-year rolling periods, with conferences receiving around $1.5 million for every tournament game played by member schools." Seems to me that the more schools in the conference, the more bids the conference will get, and more money comes in. Speculate on your own, but say two more schools equals two more bids and let's say an average of two more games played for each team. That's a cool $1/2 million per team per year.

OK, you only get 1/6 per year, but roll this up 6 years and you are at the half million figure.

I think even Texas, with the largest athletic income in the NCA,A wouldn't push away half a million dollars.

[Natty]

Saint Louis will be in the Big East next season.

[marquette]

I could not agree more with the need to emphasis the east coast when it comes to expansion. I'm a Xavier fan, so I am very happy that the C7 picked us to join them. St. Louis would be a good add except for location if we only expand into the Midwest we will be second fiddle to the Big ten. Personally I am interested in in the next two being from the east, unless somehow Notre Dame becomes available.

We will always be second fiddle everywhere. Schools named after states or with "State" in their name will always have leg up. Right now we play second fiddle to 3 conferences, any expansion will keep that the same way. There is already an established power conference in every region of the country, and no adds we can make will change that. PAC12 will always be big dogs out West, SEC down South, ACC on the East Coast, B1G in Midwest. We will not take over the Midwest from the B1G. We will not take the East from the ACC. All we can do is give kids the chance to play in major markets for fine universities where they will be big man on campus. That's all. Balance is nice, but let's not kid ourselves about our place in the pecking order.

I don't care if we expand or not. We can sit pat and I'll be just fine. If we expand I would be perfectly happy with either VCU, Richmond, or Dayton. Each has its merits. However, if things stay as they are now, and the available options remain the same, then we would be absolute idiots to pass up SLU as #11.

[handdownmandown]

Here is an interesting statement from a recent CBS article on how Wichita State lost money playing in last year's final four. Seems to lead me to believe that the more schools in the conference, the better.

The sentence is "The NCAA's tournament distributions are spread out over six-year rolling periods, with conferences receiving around $1.5 million for every tournament game played by member schools." Seems to me that the more schools in the conference, the more bids the conference will get, and more money comes in. Speculate on your own, but say two more schools equals two more bids and let's say an average of two more games played for each team. That's a cool $1/2 million per team per year.

OK, you only get 1/6 per year, but roll this up 6 years and you are at the half million figure.

I think even Texas, with the largest athletic income in the NCA,A wouldn't push away half a million dollars.

This was a HUGE point of interest for Valley teams, since half the schools in the league are damn near broke.

This is the way it worked in the Valley: everyone got about 23K per year, per share. How? Because it is indeed disbursed over six years, and the 1/6 for any particular year is divided 11 ways. Every team in the league got one share, and the team that played in the game got an additional share. Multiply that times 6, and the 66 shares come out to being worth 23000 per share or so.

Wichita did not lose money on the Final Four last year. By themselves they earned 10 shares (the max tourney credits one team can earn per year is 5, even if you make the title game and play six games) and got two extra shares from Creighton's run, so over the six years that's more than the value of the 1.5 million value of a single (11 share) full credit. I can't see how they spent that. They likely lost money on the year because their expenses were probably above the $250K they would have gotten for the 2013 payout for their run. Creighton earned 4 shares with their two game stint, however in leaving the conference CU had to leave all its shares behind - and let me tell you this was mentioned several times on the boards of other teams as a silver lining to our leaving. Northern Iowa is so broke that there was a discussion on their board when Wichita made the sweet 16 about what they'd do with the extra money, and one guy stated that they really, really needed to open up another concession stand on game days, especially over the Christmas break. This was the sort of league we were stuck in.

Put it this way: in 2006 the league put four teams in, plus two of them got to the Sweet 16, for a total of 8 of those full six year credits for the league. When those six years ran out, that drop of income (a loss of about $150K per year per team) was a big, big deal to schools like Indiana State, UNI, and Missouri State.

Thank God that's over with for us.

[Bluejay]

Here is an interesting statement from a recent CBS article on how Wichita State lost money playing in last year's final four. Seems to lead me to believe that the more schools in the conference, the better.

The sentence is "The NCAA's tournament distributions are spread out over six-year rolling periods, with conferences receiving around $1.5 million for every tournament game played by member schools." Seems to me that the more schools in the conference, the more bids the conference will get, and more money comes in. Speculate on your own, but say two more schools equals two more bids and let's say an average of two more games played for each team. That's a cool $1/2 million per team per year.

OK, you only get 1/6 per year, but roll this up 6 years and you are at the half million figure.

I think even Texas, with the largest athletic income in the NCA,A wouldn't push away half a million dollars.

The problem with that line of thinking though is that adding two teams does not automatically lead to two more bids. If it was that easy, every conference would have about 30 members.

To me, the one problem with expansion is finding that 12th team (I think SLU is a lock for 11). The real question is adding only one team a viable option? You could still do a double round robin, but I suspect 20 league games would only hurt our chances for more bids because there would be 20 more losses to absorb. I also suspect the eastern schools do not want to allow there to be more western teams than eastern teams.

[handdownmandown]

The more schools in the conference, the more ways each share is cut. So if you add 20% more schools, for it to be worth it to the league they'd have to add more than 20% to the total number of shares a league earns.

They wouldn't even have to make the Tourney themselves - being good in the non-con and then cannon fodder in the league would be really helpful in getting some other teams in that wouldn't otherwise make it - but the idea isn't a slam dunk.

[notkirkcameron]

I could not agree more with the need to emphasis the east coast when it comes to expansion. I'm a Xavier fan, so I am very happy that the C7 picked us to join them. St. Louis would be a good add except for location if we only expand into the Midwest we will be second fiddle to the Big ten. Personally I am interested in in the next two being from the east, unless somehow Notre Dame becomes available.

You worry about being second fiddle to the Big Ten, which, as a Xavier fan, surely you must have noticed how much more play the Buckeyes get than the Muskies in local media, or hell, walk into the nearest sporting goods store. It's a fact of life. Football unfortunately rules all. So your fear of being second-fiddle to the Big Ten has really already come to fruition.

The real fear of second fiddles here is that the only institutional fit candidates in the East are in the A-10, who in terms of media exposure and tournament success will always be second fiddle to the Big East.

I mean really, the candidates that have been mentioned in this thread all basically fall into one of two categories

1.) Elite basketball program with FBS football they'd have to drop or park somewhere else (Duke, Wake Forest, Notre Dame, UConn, Cincinnati, Temple, Memphis)
OR
2.) Institutional fit with no FBS football, but, politely, scrub third-tier basketball program, and little in the way of NCAA Tournament history, but oh man remember that time five years ago when they made that cinderella run to the Sweet 16? That was awesome. They're totally a program on the rise and won't just revert to form once their coach leaves for a bigger paycheck (Richmond, UMass, VCU, Saint Louis, Davidson, Dayton, etc.)

So unless Gonzaga decides they want to relocate their campus to Pittsburgh, at this time, there are simply no acceptable basketball-only candidates for reasons outlined earlier in this thread.

[gosports1]

I cant speak for the midwestern schools but the eastern members are all the marquee programs in thier markets. georgetown, st johns, providence and villanova all get top billling over the state or public programs in their market. Im guessing they would prefer programs that are also the preferred program but i dont think its a non starter

[BillikensWin]

Scrub basketball? That's interesting.

[DC Denizen]

I cant speak for the midwestern schools but the eastern members are all the marquee programs in thier markets. georgetown, st johns, providence and villanova all get top billling over the state or public programs in their market.

Unfortunately, Georgetown lags well behind Maryland in coverage and popularity in the DC market.