Monday, May 19, 2003
Miami is the keystone to the ACC's bid to add three Big East schools.
MIAMI (AP) -- Mike Tranghese's first significant act as Big East commissioner in 1991 was to form a football league. His last one might be trying to save the conference.
It won't be easy.
The Atlantic Coast Conference has targeted three Big East schools, with Miami at the forefront, in an effort to expand to 12 teams -- a move that would drastically alter the Big East and quite possibly the rest of college football.
The Big East's annual meetings begin Saturday in Ponte Vedra, and the first priority will be to hear counter-offers to the ACC's expansion proposal.
"This is all about Miami," Tranghese said Thursday. "If Miami goes, people are going to go. If Miami stays, we'll stay intact. As I have said, Miami is the jewel in all of this. What I'm trying to do is preserve the current structure.
"I assume our schools will talk about every conceivable approach, and we have to come to some consensus about what it is that Miami wants to do. Miami is going to drive the engine."
Reorganization
The Big East is prepared to reorganize the conference's makeup and its revenue distribution package, several league officials said. But will anything be enough to keep the Hurricanes from jumping to the more financially lucrative ACC and taking Syracuse and Boston College with them?
"It behooves all of us to do what we can to keep the current Big East as it is," Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver said.
The Big East could sever ties with its non-football members to create a league in which all eight teams play football and basketball. Seton Hall, Villanova, Georgetown, Providence and St. John's would be left to find or create a new conference.
The Big East might then try to add four schools to become a 12-team super-conference, which would allow it to split into two divisions and add a moneymaking football title game. The Big East could try to raid Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis and South Florida from Conference USA, or possibly court ACC powerhouse Florida State and/or Notre Dame to spearhead the expanded conference.
One of few independents
Landing Notre Dame might be too ambitious. A member of the Big East in basketball, the Fighting Irish are one of the few independents left in football. They have their own TV contract with NBC, a special deal to get into the BCS and what looks like a ton of leverage if they care to be wooed.
"They view their football independence as being very, very important," Tranghese said. "They've told us that from the start. They've never wavered."
More important for the Big East is to keep Miami -- something that will depend largely on money.
The ACC splits its television revenue more evenly than the Big East, makes more money from basketball and hopes to get a more lucrative television contract with a 12-team league.
Revenue distribution
The Big East will try to counter this weekend by changing its revenue distribution plan to one more like the ACC's and could increase bowl appearance fees and create other financial incentives to take care of Miami.
That might mean less money for some other schools, but the conference would survive.
"The focus at this point is how can the conference remain strong as it is and how it can be stable," West Virginia assistant athletic director Mike Parsons said.
That means keeping Miami.