Big East CEOs Give Commish Expansion OK at LinesMaker.com

Big East CEOs Give Commish Expansion OK

WASHINGTON —The pres­i­dents and chan­cel­lors of the 14 remain­ing Big East mem­bers and TCU have autho­rized Com­mis­sioner John Mar­i­natto to “aggres­sively pur­sue dis­cus­sions” with cer­tain schools inter­ested in join­ing the league.

The league released a state­ment after the meet­ing Sun­day at George­town Uni­ver­sity. The meet­ing had been sched­uled before Syra­cuse and Pitts­burgh announced last month they will leave the con­fer­ence to join the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The orig­i­nal pur­pose of the meet­ing was to dis­cuss the conference’s upcom­ing tele­vi­sion rights nego­ti­a­tions, but the defec­tions forced expan­sion onto the agenda.

“The pres­i­dents voted unan­i­mously to autho­rize the com­mis­sioner to aggres­sively pur­sue dis­cus­sions with a select num­ber of insti­tu­tions that have indi­cated a strong inter­est in join­ing the Big East Con­fer­ence,” Mar­i­natto said in a statement.

Navy, an inde­pen­dent, and Air Force, of the Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence, are among the Big East’s top tar­gets for expan­sion. There has been spec­u­la­tion that Tem­ple also could be invited back to the league.

Tem­ple was booted from the Big East after the 2004 sea­son and has found suc­cess in the Mid-American Con­fer­ence in recent years.

East Car­olina has announced it has applied for mem­ber­ship in the Big East, and other Con­fer­ence USA schools also could be con­sid­ered, includ­ing Hous­ton, Mem­phis and Cen­tral Florida.

But Big East offi­cials have been appre­hen­sive about bring­ing in more CUSA teams after it raided the league for Cincin­nati, Louisville, South Florida, DePaul and Mar­quette in 2005.

The Big East also still has to guard against los­ing more of its cur­rent members.

Mar­i­natto said in the state­ment that the league’s pres­i­dents dis­cussed mak­ing leav­ing the con­fer­ence tougher, with­out men­tion­ing specifics such as rais­ing exit fees.

“The pres­i­dents are also actively con­sid­er­ing changes to the conference’s gov­ern­ing bylaws to fur­ther solid­ify the mem­ber­ship of the con­fer­ence,” Mar­i­natto said.

TCU is sched­uled to leave the MWC and join the Big East for the 2012–13 school year, and has not pub­licly wavered from that com­mit­ment. But the Horned Frogs have been dis­cussed as a pos­si­ble tar­get for Big 12 offi­cials as they attempt to fig­ure out how to recon­sti­tute the league after Texas A&M’s depar­ture to the South­east­ern Conference.

The Big 12 also might con­sider reach­ing east and adding some com­bi­na­tion of Louisville, West Vir­ginia and Cincinnati.

Connecticut’s gov­er­nor con­firmed that UConn is inter­ested in join­ing Pitt and Syra­cuse in the ACC if it expands further.

Related Posts:

• Moun­tain West Com­mish For­mu­lates 16-Team Playoff
• Big East to Invite Boise State, 3 Others
• Big East Mulls Adding Boise St. Football
• O’Leary: UCF to Get Big East Invitation
• Big East Dis­cusses Expand­ing, Los­ing TCU

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