AgLaw02 said:
The article only looks at teams that changed conferences. Naturally, nearly all of them benefitted from the move. That's why they made the change in the first place.
So if all (mostly all) of those schools were winners in conference reslignment, who were the losers? That would be the more interesting article.
There were no losers except these 3:
University of Connecticut
University of Cincinnati
University of South Florida
All Big East schools now in the American Athletic Conference.
Differences between the basketball and football schools doomed the Big East.
Also, ESPN was pulling the strings. The Big East turned down a very large ESPN deal and Pittsburg is credited with leading the opposition to the contract with ESPN. There have also been accusations that Pittsburg was talking to ESPN separately and planned to bail from the conference all along.
Shortly after ESPN guides Syracuse and Pitt into the ACC:
Quote:
The most stunning comment in the article was DeFilippo's public admission that ESPN guided the A.C.C.'s decision to add Syracuse and Pittsburgh last month. "We always keep our television partners close to us," DeFilippo told The Globe. "You don't get extra money for basketball. It's 85 percent football money. TV ESPN is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball."
DeFilippo's comments give credence to the popular theory that ESPN encouraged Pittsburgh and Syracuse's exit from the Big East in the wake of the Big East's turning down ESPN's billion dollar television deal in May during an exclusive negotiating window. ESPN has a billion dollar deal with the A.C.C., making that move either savvy business or collusion, depending on one's perspective.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/sports/ncaafootball/conference-instability-is-filtering-down-to-the-next-level.html?ref=sports&pagewanted=all&referer=https://deadspin-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/deadspin.com/5848348/did-espn-bone-the-big-east-because-they-wouldnt-sign-a-tv-deal/amp?amp_js_v=0.1