| 24 January 2012
Honus “The Dude” Sneed offers his opine on possible Big 12 expansion including his belief that Clemson and FSU are ready to jump as well as why ND isn’t so far fetched after all.
"We always keep our television partners close to us. ... TV -- ESPN -- is the one who told us what to do." – Gene DeFilippo
Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo recanted his statement but the cat was out of the bag. ESPN, angry the Big East had decided to take their television rights deal to the open market, directed the ACC to poach Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the conference and set off a chain of events they knew would reduce the market value of the Big East – both in football and basketball.
And they were right. TCU was the first to rethink their membership in the Big East and hitched their wagon to the Big 12.
West Virginia, the marquee football program in the Big East, was the next to move and again it was the Big 12 who reached out to snag the Mountaineers.
Four marquee teams (Pitt, Syracuse, WVU and TCU) gone within a span of a few months; another handful of teams (Louisville, Rutgers, UCONN and South Florida) desperately seeking any port from the storm and a conference tittering on the brink of collapse.
If you accept the fact that ESPN played a role in the dismantling of the Big East then it won’t be hard for you to accept that NBC/Comcast may play a role in the construction of the new Big 12 – one that just may well include Norte Dame.
Anonymous sources in Morgantown tell me the Big 12 will expand again soon and that both Clemson and Florida State are actively engaged in talks to leave the ACC and join the Mountaineers in a new Big 12 East division.
The reason? Money. Well money and the fault-line that divides ACC schools that value football more than basketball and the hoops lords on Tobacco Road that control the conference.
More than likely the Big 12 will travel down the same road as the Big East with one exception. They will be united and wait out the exclusive TV deal rights window with Fox and ESPN and see what NBC/Comcast is willing to pay.
And it’s the involvement of NBC/Comcast that may land Norte Dame in the Big 12. Don’t laugh too hard -- if we’ve learned anything from the ACC raid on the Big East it’s that TV suites pull the strings. NBC is desperate for sports programming, especially college football, and is reportedly willing to apply pressure on the Irish to play along.
As for the Irish it maybe a good deal. The lure of a strong football conference with Texas, Oklahoma, Florida State, West Virginia and Oklahoma State combined with the scheduling difficulties of an independent may make the Irish more willing to hear what the Big 12 has to say.
And if not there are other teams out there, with--dare I say--better football programs, who are willing to jump.
In the ACC Maryland, Georgia Tech and Boston College are willing to talk and in the Big East everyone left in the CUSA clone would make the move in a New York minute.
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