Will the Big East be able to keep up with the P5 long-term?

[DemonLS]

Why do many feel that football will not be negatively affected someday? There are only like 25-30 schools that actually make money in football. Everyone else LOSES money.....even with all that TV money.

Less and less kids are playing football these days due to the injury factor.

I believe you are going to see schools shutting down football programs....not in the P5F schools...but others.

[Jet915]

Why do many feel that football will not be negatively affected someday? There are only like 25-30 schools that actually make money in football. Everyone else LOSES money.....even with all that TV money.

Less and less kids are playing football these days due to the injury factor.

I believe you are going to see schools shutting down football programs....not in the P5F schools...but others.

I agree, 20 years from now, football will not be the most popular sport.

[DudeAnon]

I think most of you are missing the point. I don't think lacking football would be our downfall but rather the fact that we are a conference of private schools. I think we got lucky with FS1 launching exactly when we formed and they payed a premium for content. Currently we all operate with basketball budgets on par with P5 programs. We will see if that continues after next TV contract.

[NJRedman]

I think most of you are missing the point. I don't think lacking football would be our downfall but rather the fact that we are a conference of private schools. I think we got lucky with FS1 launching exactly when we formed and they payed a premium for content. Currently we all operate with basketball budgets on par with P5 programs. We will see if that continues after next TV contract.

If we keep winning national titles they will.

[stever20]

I think you folks are insane if you think football 20 years from now won't be the most popular sport.

I mean in high schools- there are over a million kids that play HS football. It's over 500k more than any other HS sport for boys. I'm sorry- but that just isn't changing in 20 years. It would take frankly generations for it to change to not be the most popular sport(looking at the last 2 years data- 2013-14- had 1.093 million boys playing football- 2014-15 had 1.083 million boys playing- so only 10k fewer boys playing football). Oh, and another interesting factoid. The # of boys HS athletes in 2014-15 dropped by about 8,682 kids.
http://www.nfhs.org/ParticipationStatis ... esults.pdf

[SCS]

Why do many feel that football will not be negatively affected someday? There are only like 25-30 schools that actually make money in football. Everyone else LOSES money.....even with all that TV money.

Less and less kids are playing football these days due to the injury factor.

I believe you are going to see schools shutting down football programs....not in the P5F schools...but others.

Because it takes creative accounting by schools to arrive at that conclusion anyways. There is nothing that does as much for alumni engagement and brand recognition outside of the Ivy's that football does. The last concern is a lot more relevant.

[Make Your Bones]

This is where I'm at with the tourney. An NCAA tournament made up of the 65 (or whatever number) teams in the big football conferences (whether it's 4 or 5 conferences or some other number) is a watered down product that will lose significant viewership for several reasons. First, it's the same teams playing each other that you would see during the regular season. While that happens with some tournament teams now, it would happen all the time if the "football schools" had their own basketball tournament. Not only would the tournament in any given year be redundant with the regular season, over time the whole tournament would start looking the same. "Was that the year Kentucky beat Duke, or the year Duke beat NC, or the year Iowa beat Miami, etc." The NCAA tournament exploded when Indiana State made it to the tournament final against Michigan State. And then schools like Richmond, Bucknell, Valpo, Nova (the 86 version), Austin Peay, UNI, etc. kept the upsets coming. Those keep the casual fans watching the tournament and playing in bracket games and pools.

I also think that having a tournament made up of the football schools would water down (or eliminate) their conference basketball tournaments. If everyone in the Big Ten was getting into the NCAA, why even have a conference tournament? And without conference tournaments and the automatic bids, the few really great stories coming from the football schools wouldn't be the same. Anyone remember that NC State had to win the ACC tournament just to get a bid to the NCAA tournament in 1983? Would that story have been as compelling if they would have gotten a bid anyway? Still a big upset...but the story changes significantly.

Hard core college basketball fans will watch almost any tournament games. The casual/semi interested college bball fans are what made the NCAA tournament what it is today, and many of those go away if the small school/non-football/Cinderella stories go away.

This. Jim Delaney and his ilk are smart. They're not going to kill the golden goose when they already get a disproportionate share (considering B1G teams have won 1 +1/2 for Maryland times since 1990). What we will (continue to) see is P5 teams getting the benefit of the doubt over others on the bubble. I'll admit that's not ideal, and I'm sure eventually it will be a BE team that gets screwed, but losing out on a bubble competition every once in a while isn't going to kill us.

Now TV viewership & money - those are our biggest issue and should be top priority to keep building.

[ChelseaFriar]

I think most of you are missing the point. I don't think lacking football would be our downfall but rather the fact that we are a conference of private schools. I think we got lucky with FS1 launching exactly when we formed and they payed a premium for content. Currently we all operate with basketball budgets on par with P5 programs. We will see if that continues after next TV contract.

If we keep winning national titles they will.

Only if the national titles lead to better conference game ratings, right? That's my biggest concern. Smaller alumni bases and a lack of state following, in some cases, can lead to less eyeballs on the TV.

[XtoDC]

I think you folks are insane if you think football 20 years from now won't be the most popular sport.

I mean in high schools- there are over a million kids that play HS football. It's over 500k more than any other HS sport for boys. I'm sorry- but that just isn't changing in 20 years. It would take frankly generations for it to change to not be the most popular sport(looking at the last 2 years data- 2013-14- had 1.093 million boys playing football- 2014-15 had 1.083 million boys playing- so only 10k fewer boys playing football). Oh, and another interesting factoid. The # of boys HS athletes in 2014-15 dropped by about 8,682 kids.
http://www.nfhs.org/ParticipationStatis ... esults.pdf

Yeah! It's not like a high school with 800 boys has more than 13 kids tryout for basketball and needs to make cuts, unlike football that can basically keep as many as they want. Nope, that has nothing to do with those statistics. Time for some of you to take your blinders off and start dealing in facts!

[HugeFan]

I hope we start paying players. That will separate the Big East, ACC, Big 10 from the have nots even more.

If there is no cap on paying players, that's fine for us. We are talking about 10 kids. Let's be real, the paying players is not going to be in the millions per player. $100k would be a huge number for Cheick Diallo type freshman. There are only 10-12 players on a basketball roster, so you are only talking about a million dollars per basketball school. And considering our FOX promotion and large markets, we would be able to market these kids.

At the other end of the spectrum, football would be paying 60 or so kids. That will get expensive. And are the F5 schools going to be paying the hoops kids more than they pay their football stars? Maybe Kentucky, Louisville, Kansas, Duke, Cuse and UNC, but otherwise the answer would be no way. So the hoops salaries would not sky rocket.

If paying players becomes a reality, the Big East is poised to really take advantage of that type of change. Probably moreso than any other conference. This is actually the type of landscape shift that could vault the big East from a current top 3 conference into THE premiere hoops conference in the nation.