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I've been debating this a lot lately and I have come to the conclusion that the Big East should stay at ten schools for the foreseeable future. This allows for a round robin regular season which determines a true champion. More importantly there are only 10 schools to divide up media rights and NCAA units between. Adding two more schools without a significant increase in money from FOX wouldn't make sense financially.

In 5 years if the league wants to add schools it is possible that due to other realignment around the nation that better schools might be available then than there are now too.

Am I crazy thinking 10 > 12?

I like the ten team model as well. Do not want to go to 12, especially early on. With a true round robin schedule, not only do you get a true regular season champion, but everyone gets to visit each market each year and rivalries will develop. The money we are getting from TV is enormous, especially when you account for what the schools were getting in the past. Stay at 10. Lean and mean.

ArmyVet wrote:I've been debating this a lot lately and I have come to the conclusion that the Big East should stay at ten schools for the foreseeable future. This allows for a round robin regular season which determines a true champion. More importantly there are only 10 schools to divide up media rights and NCAA units between. Adding two more schools without a significant increase in money from FOX wouldn't make sense financially.

In 5 years if the league wants to add schools it is possible that due to other realignment around the nation that better schools might be available then than there are now too.

Am I crazy thinking 10 > 12?

If the rumors are right about Fox paying more for 12 it makes more sense to go to 12. The schools will make more money in a 12 team league.

If the the Fox money stays essentially the same it will make more sense to stay at 10.

If you like round robins and 18 game schedules stay at 10
If you like 16 game schedules and higher overall RPI's move to 12 for a 16 game schedule

The NCAA Units are really a non issue. The earning school will get at least half of the unit. The difference between the 10 to 12 team split of the remaining share is pretty negligible. Toss in the fact that the potential unit earning power of a 12 vs 10 team league and you have a wash.

I've posted pretty detailed number$ on this before and ill gladly repost it again if needed. In reality it comes down to what the actual terms of the Fox Deal is, we do not have the actual numbers and terms so once again i only have media reports to go off of. But if the reports are true the schools will make much more money with 12.

In regards to the mythological "true champion" very few people consider the league champion the true champion. In fact they are usually considered just the number 1 seed for the conference tournament. The other problem is that in round robins you often get ties with split head to heads, with a conference tournament you will get no tie breaker game. This happens time to time in the Ivy and almost happened again. The BE will have much more parity then the Ivy so it will have an increased likely hood of multiple teams tied at the top. In modern basketball this isn't an issue as there is a conference tournament that will determine who the conference champion is. While the conference may indeed stay at three it should only do it for $, logistics, or basketball reasons.

I'm fine with either setup. It seems like the money from Fox will be pretty much the same per school whatever the number ([$500 mil/12 teams/12 years]=$4.17 mil/team/year) ([$600 mil/12 teams/12 years]=$4.17 mil/team/year). The NCAA bids/money percentage-wise per team should be pretty close as well.

A 10 team league does offer the nice and clean 18 game home/home layout. This helps some of the less popular schools generate revenue as a home game against the top half of the league usually sell out. It can also be good for developing rivalries.

Conversely, a 12 team league offers somewhat more prestige (provided the schools added are quality programs). The 1-3 extra NCAA bids per year look nice on the tv screen when leagues are being compared. There are really three feasible ways to layout; 1.) 2 divisions, 16 games, home/home against your division, home/home alternating years against the other division. 2.) 2 divisions, 18 games, home/home against your division, home/home against 2 teams from the other division (alternating yearly), home/home games alternating yearly with the other teams. 3.) No divisions, 18 games unbalanced schedule. In the first case you are able to schedule more non-conference games which can help league RPI, also helping to build divisional rivalries. The second and third make it so that you play the high attendance teams at home more often.

Like I said, I can see the value of either 10 or 12 teams. If we wind up with 12 I hope we stick to an 18 game league schedule, but I don't care which model they use.

I think I'd be happy either way. The chance to see every team at home would be nice...but 12 is also a nice round number for a conference tourney. A pair fewer games also gives some leeway for things such as a Big East-some other conference challenge (I'm slightly biased since Nova also has 4 non-conference games locked up in the Big 5).

Without a slam dunk 12th team, I'm kinda willing to sit for a little to see if St. Louis is for real (and are they even a 100% lock for 11?). There's always the crackhead hope we'd get ND; if only Dayton were located in Richmond, or if there were a comparable team, say, in North Carolina, it would be a much easier decision.

Adding 2 schools would need to result in schools each receiving more than what they do as a 10 team league to make sense. If the money is the same per school, the extra 2 schools need to be NCAA regulars to justify them.

PMThor wrote:[b,]As long as we keep dayton out of the conference, I don't care if we have 11 or 34 or 17, whatever the higher ups think is best.[/b]

So what's your problem with Dayton? They are gonna get in BC of their RPI ,TV and they get 13500 per game

augkash wrote:

PMThor wrote:[b,]As long as we keep dayton out of the conference, I don't care if we have 11 or 34 or 17, whatever the higher ups think is best.[/b]

So what's your problem with Dayton? They are gonna get in BC of their RPI ,TV and they get 13500 per game

If I had were to venture a guess I would say he is probably a Xavier fan. I don't know the history, beyond the fact that they have a long-standing rivalry, but for some reason Dayton and Xavier seem to really hate one another. To be honest it's the reason I kind of want to pick Dayton up. You can't manufacture that kind of rivalry.

augkash wrote:

PMThor wrote:[b,]As long as we keep dayton out of the conference, I don't care if we have 11 or 34 or 17, whatever the higher ups think is best.[/b]

So what's your problem with Dayton? They are gonna get in BC of their RPI ,TV and they get 13500 per game

They sure won't help with bringing in any NCAA credits.