Did ESPN Fuel Big East’s Demise? at LinesMaker

Did ESPN Fuel Big East’s Demise?

The ongo­ing story of con­fer­ence realign­ment has been fas­ci­nat­ing to fol­low because it changes by the day, because it touches prac­ti­cally every rel­e­vant ath­letic depart­ment on some level, and because it’s just plain crazy.

We’ve already seen the Big 12 remove Dan Beebe as its com­mis­sioner, TCU decide to pay $ 5 mil­lion to leave one league for another league before it ever even started com­pet­ing in the pre­vi­ous league, and now a con­fer­ence with the words “Big” and “East” in its name has only six football-playing mem­bers and is con­sid­er­ing increas­ing that num­ber by adding a school with a cam­pus located just a few hun­dred miles from the Pacific Ocean.

Seri­ously.

The whole thing is nuts.

Men who have known each other for decades and labeled them­selves friends have spent months lying to and back­stab­bing each other, and they do it with no apolo­gies and few regrets. Every­body is out for them­selves. A kill-or-be-killed mind­set has taken over.

The result­ing sto­ries have been eye-opening — none more than a report in this weekend’s Boston Globe that fea­tured the fol­low­ing quote from Boston Col­lege ath­letic direc­tor Gene DeFil­ippo on the sub­ject of the ACC’s deci­sion to poach Syra­cuse and Pitts­burgh from the Big East: “We always keep our tele­vi­sion part­ners close to us. … TV — ESPN — is the one who told us what to do.”

Is this surprising?

Absolutely not — because there’s been spec­u­la­tion for months that the Big East sealed its fate last May when it rejected a nine-year, $ 1.4 bil­lion tele­vi­sion con­tract from ESPN. Long story not so long, the Big East decided it would rather open up bid­ding to NBC and Fox than accept that deal from ESPN, mean­ing the Big East was prob­a­bly going to sign a deal with NBC or Fox, mean­ing NBC or Fox likely was on the verge of gain­ing a rel­e­vant share of the col­lege sports land­scape, and that’s not some­thing ESPN (or any­body in ESPN’s posi­tion of power) would have liked.

The only way ESPN could ensure NBC or Fox wouldn’t gain a rel­e­vant share of the col­lege sports land­scape was to make the Big East irrel­e­vant, and, in case you haven’t heard, the Big East is sud­denly really close to being irrel­e­vant because the ACC took Syra­cuse and Pitts­burgh to get to 14 mem­bers. That led to the Big 12 tak­ing TCU to get to 10, which could lead to Louisville and West Vir­ginia exit­ing the Big East, too.

“ESPN is the one who told us what to do.”

Again, those words aren’t sur­pris­ing — they’re just sur­pris­ing to hear on the record from an ACC ath­letic direc­tor. Mean­time, it should be noted that ESPN and the ACC have both denied DeFilippo’s remarks in state­ments to the New York Times, but what else would they do? It’s not like the ACC can say ESPN assured it of a bet­ter tele­vi­sion con­tract if it would take Syra­cuse and Pitts­burgh from the Big East, and it’s not like ESPN can say it stood to ben­e­fit in a vari­ety of ways from the ACC being strength­ened at the Big East’s expense.

But these two state­ments can­not be debated:

• There is no deny­ing that the ACC will receive a bet­ter tele­vi­sion con­tract with Syra­cuse and Pitts­burgh involved.

• There’s no deny­ing that the Big East being greatly dimin­ished makes the league less attrac­tive to NBC and Fox.

They’re accepted facts.

So did ESPN help destroy the Big East?

I guess I can’t say for sure.

But I bet the folks at the Big East office feel that way.

And if they do, well, I think most peo­ple could under­stand why.

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