After the dust has finally cleared, the Big East conference remains strong from months of negotiations that ultimately ended up with all centric basketball conference.
The move, which was spurred by constant conference realignments and college football, resulted in DePaul and six other schools – Georgetown, Marquette , Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Villanova – having to negotiate their exit from the football schools in the Big East and establish a conference that was purely focused on college basketball.
The deal did have its business benefits. Fox Sports and the Big East announced a 12-year television deal that will give Fox Sports exclusive media rights to all men’s basketball games and select rights to women’s basketball. The massive deal is to bring between $500-600 million for the conference, according to multiple reports.
However, an underrated part of those negotiations didn’t focus on money, but something vital to what made the Big East conference – history.
“That was very intentional on everyone’s part,” said DePaul Athletic Director Jean Lenti Ponsetto. “Both the athletic directors and the Presidents really felt that we established some good rivalries with the Big East members we’ve been playing. It just seemed like a really good opportunity to take advantage of the separation agreement that contract we signed when (DePaul) went into the Big East afforded us.”
Ponsetto said that in 2004, when DePaul entered the Big East, there was a separation agreement that would let the basketball institutions form their own conference away from the football institutions in the conference if it ever came to that.
When it came to the seven colleges leaving, the conference was allowed to keep the Big East name and the site for the annual conference tournament, Madison Square Garden. The moves came as a surprise, particularly keeping the Big East name. Multiple reports had dubbed the conference as the “Catholic 7” but ended up keeping the Big East name in negotiations.
“Our Presidents worked with our attorneys and determined that it was much more valuable to us,” said Ponsetto. “It’s a very strong basketball brand in college athletics. It’s more known for its basketball success – in both men and women’s basketball – than its football success.”
Another key aspect of negotiations was securing Madison Square Garden as the tournament site. For 31 years, Madison Square Garden has been a part of Big East Basketball. In that time, Big East fans have seen iconic moments from Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown teams to a six-overtime thriller between Syracuse and Connecticut.
Ponsetto said that keeping the site was a battle for the lawyers. According to USA Today, the departing Big East members had to give up their share of profits, an estimated total of $100 million it would have earned from the exit fees of the members that had already negotiated their way out of the Big East, to keep the Big East name, the tournament site, and exiting the conference 27 months sooner than originally allowed.
“[Madison Square Garden] was another important asset,” said Ponsetto. “If you go back to the history of the Big East, what really made that event center stage during the week leading up to the NCAA Tournament was that this was one of the prominent conference tournaments and a lot of that historical success, and a lot of that was at Madison Square Garden. It was important component for us to maintain and continue to have.”
In its last tournament as the current Big East, Madison Square Garden and the NCAA Tournament saw some memorable Big East basketball. Louisville, who departs for the ACC next year, ended up as the winner for both men’s tournaments.
Before that, the Big East was out in full force. Two teams – Louisville and Syracuse – from the conference made it into the Final Four and rival Marquette made it into the Elite Eight. Besides spectacular play from players, iconic coaches like Rick Pitino and Jim Boeheim were in full control too.
On the women’s side, the final was an all-Big East affair. UConn earned its eighth national title by blowing out Louisville, who upset tournament favorite Baylor. UConn and Notre Dame were among the top three powerhouses in women’s basketball this year as well.
Women’s head coach Doug Bruno said the tournaments went out with a statement.
“I thought it was awesome what happened this year,” said Bruno. “The only thing that really could have happened better was for Syracuse’s men to beat Michigan. Other than that, this was a great sendoff.”
Now with the tournament over, schools like Syracuse, UConn, and Notre Dame will be moving on. These institutions that have been power houses in college basketball will be aligning themselves with different conferences to earn bigger profits from college football. The landscape of conferences has changed.
Despite this, the Big East will be moving on. Those who worry about tradition being ruined have nothing to worry about, said Bruno. He, along with Ponsetto, pointed out that five of the seven schools (St. John’s, Villanova, Providence, Seton Hall and Georgetown) were founding Big East members. Additionally, the Big East has also added Xavier, Creighton and Butler to the conference pool. Creighton and Butler both made it to the Sweet Sixteen in this year’s NCAA Tournament. In the past, Xavier has made it to the NCAA Tournament on multiple occasions. Both Bruno and Ponsetto said that their addition would make the conference stronger.
“Our new league is absolutely a stronger league than what the others are left with,” said Bruno. “When you talk tradition and you talk DePaul basketball – I played here – we played Providence. And we played Villanova. These were the teams that Coach [Ray] Meyer played traditionally through the years. This is the tradition.”