Big East presidents and chancellors voted Monday to “engage in formal discussions” with potential new members and are considering expanding to a 12-team football league.
The league is currently fighting to stay afloat after Pittsburgh and Syracuse abruptly announced they were joining the Atlantic Coast Conference, then TCU, which was slated to join next season, announced Monday that it would instead become a Big 12 member.
The Big East is down to only six football-playing schools — Louisville, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Rutgers, Connecticut and South Florida. Pitt and Syracuse must stay for another 27 months because of to an exit agreement signed in 2003 when Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College left the league for the ACC.
The top two targets have reportedly been Navy and Air Force. Boise State, which would bring much needed BCS credibility to the league, has reportedly also emerged in talks. Other schools often mentioned as potential candidates include Temple and Central Florida, which would join the league in all sports.
U of L President Dr. James Ramsey hinted to The Courier-Journal on Saturday that television markets, in part, will drive the expansion.
“The money that’s available for the TV contracts and what’s happening in the media market is really making it more lucrative for conferences,” he said. “The conferences need quality and quantity of product, and so each conference is trying to position itself to get the best media contract it can get.”
The Big East turned down a new deal with ESPN in the spring, which would have nearly doubled the payoff from $6 million to slightly more than $11 million to each school .
The possibility remains that the Big East could lose more schools should the Big 12 decide it wants to re-expand to 12. Missouri will likely play a key role in that decision. The Tigers have openly flirted with the idea of joining the Southeastern Conference.
But SEC leaders also met Monday for their regularly scheduled fall session and decided not to take any action on expansion. The league will have 13 members once Texas A&M, which started this year’s wave of realignment by leaving the Big 12, joins in July.
If Missouri follows Texas A&M, the Big 12 could seek to add three more members. U of L, along with West Virginia and
Cincinnati, reportedly have been mentioned as targets.
Ramsey said he believed the next realignment move would only be temporary.
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