Irish Keeping Conference Options Open at LinesMaker.com

SOUTH BEND, Ind. —Notre Dame ath­letic direc­tor Jack Swar­brick says the
school is closely mon­i­tor­ing the chang­ing land­scape of col­lege ath­let­ics and
hopes the Big East remains a vibrant part­ner with the school.

The Irish are foot­ball inde­pen­dents, but many of their ath­letic teams
com­pete in the Big East, includ­ing the men’s and women’s bas­ket­ball pro­grams.
The Big East is look­ing for new mem­bers after Pitts­burgh and Syra­cuse said they
were bolt­ing for the ACC.

“Cer­tainly the fac­tors that have con­tributed to the larger con­fer­ence
realign­ment con­tinue to exist,” Swar­brick said Wednes­day. “And we’re doing the
same thing we’ve done through­out, mon­i­tor­ing them closely, and hop­ing that the
Big East stays a vibrant and suc­cess­ful part­ner for us.”

What schools might be added and when are all part of the upheaval in the Big
East and through­out col­lege sports.

“They’re (the Big East) work­ing on addi­tions. You got to wait until the
whole pic­ture is shaped to really have a feel for it, for what that option is
like,” Swar­brick said. “Just con­tinue to sup­port them and be involved in their
plan­ning and hope they wind up in a great place.”

Asked what the Big East’s direc­tion might be, Swar­brick said:

“It’s great to make plans,” he said. “It’s whether the peo­ple you might
be inter­ested in or the cir­cum­stances will allow you to achieve those plans. But
cer­tainly the way the con­fer­ence is think­ing and what it’s try­ing to achieve are
con­sis­tent with what I think it needs to do.”

Notre Dame was men­tioned repeat­edly last year when the Big Ten was
dis­cussing expan­sion, cul­mi­nat­ing in the addi­tion of Nebraska as its 12th
mem­ber. The Irish have also been men­tioned as a desir­able tar­get for other
leagues in recent months, par­tic­u­larly by the frac­tured Big 12.

Notre Dame also announced Wednes­day its hockey pro­gram was join­ing Hockey
East in two years and that its games would be tele­vised on NBC. That net­work has
tele­vised Notre Dame foot­ball games for two decades.

Swar­brick said he didn’t envi­sion Notre Dame hav­ing a sep­a­rate net­work for
its sports sim­i­lar to the Long­horn Net­work at Texas. That doesn’t mean Notre
Dame’s expo­sure won’t reach from coast to coast through var­i­ous means.

“Texas has a geo­graphic foot­print that allows it to launch a cable sta­tion,
a cable net­work. We don’t,” Swar­brick said. “There is no cable foot­print that
fits Notre Dame, but when emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies allow us to put a pro­gram out
that some­one in San Fran­cisco, Wash­ing­ton D.C. and New York can all gain access
to because of those tech­nolo­gies, that’s where we want to be.”

Swar­brick, who is involved in NCAA task forces, pre­dicted sig­nif­i­cant
changes ahead for col­lege sports—outside realignment—soon.

“I do think col­lege sports is going to look dif­fer­ent in mean­ing­ful ways in
18 months,” he said with­out elab­o­rat­ing. He then sug­gested he sup­ports some
kind of stipend for ath­letes to defray liv­ing expenses.

“It’s a cost of liv­ing ele­ment that exists in a lot of aca­d­e­mic
schol­ar­ships,” he said. “This isn’t a rad­i­cal notion in the uni­ver­sity world.
So given the demands on stu­dent ath­letes increas­ingly across all sports and they
way they engage in their sport year-round, it prob­a­bly is an appro­pri­ate off­set
to the fact they can’t typ­i­cally have gain­ful employ­ment in the sum­mer like most
stu­dents or have an internship.”