The Big East's departing Catholic 7 schools are expected to start their own league next season and will keep the Big East Conference name, sources told ESPN's Brett McMurphy, Andy Katz and Dana O'Neil.
Joining the Catholic 7 schools -- DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, and Villanova -- in the new "Big East" this fall will be Xavier and Butler, sources said.
It's unknown whether converts Laura Ingraham and Newt Gingrich will be the color analysts for Fox's broadcast teams building on the historic involvement of Rush Limbaugh and Dennis Miller with Monday Night Football. Frank Deford recently weighed in on the relationship between conservatism and sports, but as it is with Fox's involvement in the new Big East(er) basketball conference, rather than walking or talking, money dribbles
It was revealing last week that when the Big Ten -- which has always been sort of the mascot of muscular midwest America -- took in the University of Maryland and Rutgers in order to attract television viewers in the New York and Washington-Baltimore areas, the savvy reaction was, doesn't the Big Ten know that the socialistic fans in the European-cozy Northeast don't give a hoot about college sports?
By contrast, the old Confederacy and that flyover part of the northwestern Louisiana Purchase is crazy for college sports -- especially football -- and that, of course, is precisely the conservative heartland. We even have demographic maps made by an associate geography professor named Theodore Goudge at Northwest Missouri State, which show where the Division One football players come from, and you can virtually overlay a presidential election map from this year with Professor Goudge's map and see that college football players per capita equal Republican majority. Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/...
Xavier and Butler have not formally withdrawn from the Atlantic 10. To exit the A-10 with less than a year's notice would cost each school $2 million, Katz reported.
The Catholic 7's exit from the Big East is being expedited by Fox Sports Network. The network initially contacted the seven schools and laid the groundwork for them to leave the Big East with the promise of a lucrative media rights deal, a source said.
Fox Sports Network is expected to announce the addition of the Catholic 7/Big East basketball league Tuesday in New York as part of the network's news conference announcing the addition of Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 channels.
Fox Sports Network's deal with the Catholic 7 is expected to be worth at least $3 million annually per school, sources said.
It's unknown how much it will cost the Catholic 7 to keep the Big East name.
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MORAGA, Calif. (AP) -- The NCAA has placed Saint Mary's on four years of probation for a "failure to monitor its men's basketball program," reducing scholarships and placing other penalties on the team after it said the perennial mid-major power committed several recruiting violations.
A report by the NCAA Committee on Infractions released Friday found that Gaels coach Randy Bennett "acted unethically in his recruitment of international prospects" and "failed to promote an atmosphere for compliance." Bennett will not be allowed to recruit off campus and will serve a five-game suspension next season.
Saint Mary's will still be allowed to participate in the West Coast Conference tournament and the NCAA tournament but can't play in preseason or in-season tournaments. The men's basketball program also will have a reduction in scholarships from 13 to 11 for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons and an elimination of all foreign tours until the start of the 2017-18 season.
In addition, the NCAA charged an unnamed former assistant with unethical conduct, saying he "knowingly committed violations during the recruitment of three prospects." The report said that the assistant arranged for travel to the United States and lodging with a local family for at least one recruit and that Bennett was aware of the activity. Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/...
This new conference, which will have to buy the name of the old one, is mostly an old conference—its core is the so-called Catholic Seven of Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Georgetown, DePaul, Marquette and Villanova, all seven of them in the crumbling present-day Big East. Joining those old-school schools are Xavier and Butler, per ESPN’s original report, with Creighton, Dayton and St. Louis reportedly following for the 2014-15 season. None of this is quite set just yet, and none of the above are football powerhouses. Indeed, none even have football programs of note. The new conference, which will retain the Big East name, is about what the Big East was always about—college basketball.
“That the Catholic 7 is also running off with the Big East name is a coup for those schools,” Yahoo’s Jeff Eisenberg writes. “They’ll have the more lucrative TV contract, the more established brand name and maybe the superior basketball league as well. The presence of UConn, Cincinnati, Temple and Memphis will ensure the old Big East isn’t irrelevant in basketball, but the potential of the new Big East is certainly intriguing.”
The Big Easter, when it is at full strength in 2015-16, could have enough teams to become the Holy Apostle plus an Apostate Conference in the spirit of the Ivy League being the Magnificent Seven plus Cornell.