Many of you may be familiar with a site called FanNation, and that is where Zach and David first “met”. They have a section there called Throwdowns where two people get into a sports argument and the winner is decided by the fans. Today we are witnesses to something a little different. Instead of three alternating arguments, both Zach and David get one essay, and then you can decide the winner.

There is a limit of 15K characters, and any comments/suggestions may be added to the upcoming SportsNickel e-book, to be released later this year.

If you have any suggestions for a future debate, or wish to participate, let us know.

The topic:
You have been named Big East Commissioner. What do you do?

The winner is determined by this criteria:

1) Realism.
2) Possibility of success.
3) Probability of keeping BCS spot as well as not destroying basketball pedigree.

And now, the essayists.

David holds the record for most wins on the Fannation format, and until he moved on to writing posts, had more wins than the top 3 combined, even after 2 years, he still is the only one over 1K wins. [READ HIS ESSAY HERE]

Zach is the master of non-traditional sports, and is viewed by all as one of the best throwdowners in Fannation history. Zach excels in the long-form, with a writing style that make Russian authors blush. [READ HIS ESSAY HERE]

Please save all comments and discussion [ON THIS FORM].Voting begins Wednesday May 16th, and ends May 20th.

Thanks for reading!

BarStool I: What would you do if you were Big East Commish is a post originally from: SportsNickel.com - In Sports We Trust

You have been named Big East Commissioner. What do you do?

The winner is determined by this criteria:

1) Realism.
2) Possibility of success.
3) Probability of keeping BCS spot as well as not destroying basketball pedigree.

Your job is simple: read the essays by SportsNickel writers [David] and [Zach] and then vote on which proposal you think provides the best roadmap for the Big East based on the above criteria. Thanks for reading, and leave all your comments below!

Survey Software powered by SurveyGizmo

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BarStool I: Voting and Comments is a post originally from: SportsNickel.com - In Sports We Trust

My first order of business is getting my institutions in order. They have to understand that there is a TON of money in athletics and the only way to compete is to stand as one. As much as LSU, Bama, Florida and Georgia hate each other, they know that they have to stand together to survive. That is why Texas crushed the Big12 by teaming up with ESPN, and USC is going to damage the Pac-12 more than Reggie Bush did. College athletics, in the revenue sports is about recruits. The more I can get in front of the kids that can outrun a cheetah and out jump a kangaroo, the more chances I have of filling my stadiums. I’m going to require a long term commitment from my member schools, with a heavy buyout after 4 years. I’m going to also sign a 4 year deal, with a rollover every 4 years. With that in mind, here is the process to save the Big East.

I. Media + Basics
A) Create a Big East Network. ESPN is going to have first pick of the games for our league, but after that, almost every divisional game will be on the Network. I’m going to use the same format as the NFL network during the football season, so I can replay almost every game during the week, showing off my teams. During basketball season, I want a daily “Sportcenteresque” show highlighting the games, and the NCAA brackets. Right now I can go team for team with the ACC for best NCAAB conference, and I want to put my foot on their throat.
I’m going to price the Network on the mid-sports tier, at about the NBCsports/FX level. I should get about .75 cents per person, true, I will be losing a bit from the ESPN Gameday PPV, but screw’em, they have Texas to show.

B) Non-Revenue sports.
Either you are Big East or you are Not Big East. Just makes life easier. So far, not a problem, as all schools play all sports, other than football. The additional schools, I’ll be looking to add, will have to toe this line as well.

II. Revenue Sports + Schools
A) Notre Dame
I am going to ask them to give me a long term commitment to either stay independent or join the Big East, until the end of the media contract we will sign next year. (So 6 years min) I will also ask they play no less than 4 Big East schools yearly, who they play is between them and the member schools, and if they end a contract with a school, give a Big East school priority as a new rival, for example, if they stop playing Navy, instead of adding Nebraska as a long term commitment, look at WVA or Houston.

B) Basketball-Only Schools.

I have 8 Basketball schools, Marquette, Notre Dame (assuming they decline to join football), DePaul,Georgetown,St. Johns, Seton Hall, Providence, Villanova. That gives me an easy setup for 8 schools in that division.

C) Subtractions.
1. UConn
Much as I love them on the court, I hate them on the gridiron. They have a tiny recruiting base, and they want to join the ACC, I’m not going to stand in their way. With only a 40K stadium, they are not exactly a squad that go toe-to-toe with major BCS schools. Rutgers has a capacity over 53K, a sizable difference with a larger recruiting base.

2. Pittsburgh and Syracuse also can leave, as intended. Enjoy the ACC, people.

3. Temple and SMU will have their invitations rescinded. Sorry.

D. Additions

So that leaves me with Cincinnati, USF, Rutgers, Louisville and West Virginia as remaining football schools.

I am also going to rescind the Navy academy, Boise St, and San Deigo State’s invitations.

I am going to continue to add Memphis (61K stadium) and UCF.

The Big East, at one time was looking for a football-only merge with the Mountain West. I am going to aim a bit higher.

The Big 12.

I am looking to add the Big 12,
Well, not all of it.

In addition to keeping West Virginia in the fold, I am going to add Iowa State to the “East” of the Big East.

The Western half is going to consist of:

Kansas
Kansas St
Oklahoma
Oklahoma St
Baylor
Texas Tech

I will be looking to add these teams
TCU
Houston

Notice I did not add Texas to my list, again, I believe that ESPN has already destroyed the Big 12, and I don’t need to try and build a network and keep ESPNTexas happy too. Better to let my schools recruit with the 4 schools I have there.

So to sum up, after everything falls into place:

Red

Cincinnati
USF
Rutgers
Louisville
West Virginia
Memphis
UCF
Iowa State

White

Kansas
Kansas St
Oklahoma
Oklahoma St
Baylor
Texas Tech
TCU
Houston

Blue (Basketball)

Marquette,
Notre Dame
DePaul
Georgetown
St. Johns
Seton Hall
Providence
Villanova

III Putting it into action.

A) Basketball
I can have each team play its division squads twice a year, and another other division twice- leaving the third unplayed- or fallow, to use the term. Say Notre Dame will play each team in the Blue twice, and in even-year season, will play every Red squad twice, but not any White teams. (At least, that count in the standings)
This does bring into the fact that this gives Big East teams 30 divisional games, but the tradeoff is scheduling is going to be very easy, handled at the league office, and finding 3 non-conference foes to start the season should not be an issue.
One bonus that will present itself is you have schools in the NW, Florida and Texas- so if you are Iowa St, and looking at a kid from Florida- you can assure him he will be home his sophmore/senior year (or freshmen/junior) season, and on opposite years, playing in major media markets.
I do lose a ton of non-conference games, but my powerranking should be second only to the ACC at worst, considering I have replaced UConn with Kansas. I think the Big East can live with that.
Another advantage is I can schedule almost the entire season for the teams. Play your division, either go to the NW, South, or Texas for 2 weeks, then comeback to play your division.

The Big East Network is going to love this. I can have 2 games all start in the afternoon locally, and not have a tipoff at noon OR ten at night.
Nova/G-town then KU/OK, next night ND/Memphis then OSU/UL? Yes please.
B) Football
Play as normal. 7 games in your div, then a title game. If you want to set up a series with another div, that’s fine, it will be just like evhttp://sportsnickel.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=22759&action=edit#eryone else. It will not count in conference standings. This way I avoid everyone either wanting to play in Texas or Florida, and avoiding Iowa State and Memphis. (Or Vice-Versa- think teams in the SEC- West love “having” to play Florida/UGA?) Of course, the title game can be shopped around- I have a dozen stadiums that can host the title game. Built-in advantage you have to consider. Quite a few teams play a I-AA school. I have a few of those in the Big East, and can make that work for you.
Don’t forget I still have Notre Dame who might be able to play 4-5 games a year in conference.
ND has 5 rivals they almost have to play yearly (Mich, Mich St, USC, Navy, Purdue) I can add 2 teams from each div, and ND can still have 2 to play with (Neb, Hou, Cincy and USF/UCF would be my choices) on ND home games are contracted to NBC, so I can get the Irish road games on Big East Network, vs 3-4 Big East schools
Given a Big East lineup of Cincy/UL, ND@Hou, and KSU/Neb, only ESPN with SEC schools, can touch that.

C) Everything Else.
I have a dominant Womens BBall conference, even losing UConn. Baseball is better than most, and fertile recruiting grounds in Florida, Texas and across the East Coast gives me advantages in recruiting few can match. Imagine going to a top swimmer or Track star and being able to promote trips to Houston, Dallas, Orlando, Miami, and every major city in the Northeast.

Is it bulky? Maybe, but I have my 16 teams in football, I’ve checked ND nearly permanently, I have a HUGE footprint for the Big East Network, plus games to sell to ESPN.

I would have 4 top 10 in the final Basketball poll. 6 teams in the top 25 in football. Cincy vs Baylor would be a sellable game for a Big East title, on par with the ACC. I will take Oklahoma vs West Virginia over any conf championship outside of the SEC most years. I also would have 2 teams in the top 25 in baseball, but considering the Big East’s top team right now is ranked 43rd, that’s an improvement.

This policy increases my footprint past the mississippi, while allowing a certain feeling of regionalism. I have a Big East Network that will pull in subscribers from across the nation, with both the subway allumni and the excellence of Big East Basketball. Bringing in recruiting grounds of both Florida and Texas in the same conference, something only the SEC can claim on a BCS level.

Stadiums

Thank you for reading… comments and your vote can be left [HERE].

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Big East Commish: David is a post originally from: SportsNickel.com - In Sports We Trust

First, the league has always been centered on basketball, though that has become an antiquated concept in a football-driven collegiate sports landscape. The secret to Big East success is sustaining basketball dominance while maintaining football relevance. Haphazardly hunting for any school that could bolster its BCS claim has left the conference withdrawn from any coherent mission; that must be rectified if a logical plan is to be laid down.

Second, programs — for contraction or for expansion — must be viewed through a lens that incorporates long-term potential for success. Schools must be relevant in football or in basketball, if not both, to remain valuable to the league. It must assess if bigger is indeed better, or if a concentration of talents could turn the league into a more marketable product.

Third, moves must be both relevant and within reason. At this point the Big East is a hunted conference, not a hunter of teams. The goal is to stabilize the situation, not to overwhelm things and provoke a further poaching of our most talented teams for the benefit of other conferences.

So what would I do?

1.       Solidify the football membership. The Big East was founded with a basketball purpose in mind. But the league is losing cornerstone membership, teams with strong basketball pedigrees like Syracuse, not because of basketball but because of the state of football in the conference. Without a viable football league, the Big East is just another mid-major like the Mountain West — or it could risk sliding into non-football obsolescence, another Atlantic 10 to be heard from only come tourney time.

The problem with playing to appease the Georgetowns and the Villanovas and the Marquettes of the Big East is that it drives away teams like Syracuse and Pitt and West Virginia, teams which are viable contenders in both football and basketball. As commissioner I would focus on ensuring football stability for the league…

Currently the league stands at thirteen football members: 

There is the ability to run a conference championship game. But now the conference suffers from MAC-like imbalance, with thirteen teams making unwieldy, unbalanced divisions. What the team needs is a fourteenth football member to balance out the divisions. It could pursue a team like, say, Tulsa, which has won at least eight football games in six of the past seven seasons and has won at least eighteen basketball games in six consecutive despite missing the NCAA Tournament each year. But there are assets right within the conference that are underutilized.

2.       Solve the Notre Dame question. The push now becomes figuring out how to convince Notre Dame to join the fold as a full conference member. In such a scenario, convincing the Irish that they have to beat the Western Division every year would provide reciprocal benefit. The Golden Domers are simply too huge a football asset to allow to enjoy ancillary conference benefits without enriching the entirety of the group. When they join, Notre Dame finally makes the most logical fit and joins a conference with which it is already affiliated. It would provide residual benefits heading into the next TV negotiations (more soon on that). And if the Irish are “afraid” to take on the challenge (and travel) of playing Boise State and Houston and Louisville and San Diego State every year, the conferences could be aligned to further disperse the football talent entering the league (and spread the travel equally between the two divisions):

In either divisional format, there is not enough competition to prevent Notre Dame from becoming a perennial powerhouse. Especially in the North-South format, which would be favored under this plan for the competitive travel balance, only Boise State presents a viable contender for the divisional throne. This presents a stronger long-term case for the Irish to reach higher-tier bowl games even with several losses than their current standing.

The problem in Notre Dame’s case is their historical perception versus their recent performance. Joining a conference provides an avenue for the divisional and conference championships that bolster a team’s credibility. The Big East has enriched Fighting Irish basketball since 1995; the league can do the same for football by presenting a clear-cut avenue to inclusion in a national title discussion that does not necessarily require the perfection an independent must muster for consideration. And it isn’t like their independence has made them richer; while their exclusive NBC deal was landmark in 1991, it now yields less money than teams that dwell in the cellar of the SEC, Pac-12, Big Ten, Big XII and ACC (see more below).

3.       Restructure basketball in the conference. By integrating Notre Dame into the fold, there are now eighteen basketball members in the conference. Currently, every team is scheduled to play the NCAA-maximum eighteen conference games in the Big East. To get to that number, teams would have to divide into divisions and then play common opponents across the divide. So, because basketball with its longer schedule should facilitate the least travel possible, I would divide the basketball league into three divisions:

In such a format, you would have home-and-away series against the other five teams in your division. To get the other eight games, teams would rotate home and away games against the other two divisions, playing four teams annually from each. That way you could be guaranteed of playing a home-and-away series against every conference opponent within a three-year window.

Three well-balanced basketball divisions can provide the top seeds for the conference tournament, and the new full-member additions to the league are dispersed in such a manner that they don’t dilute the diversity of basketball talent already in the Big East. And some in their own right strengthen the divisions (see: Memphis).

4.       Negotiate a new TV deal that gains the most money from both football and basketball. With newly constituted divisions, I would walk into TV negotiations for basketball with the knowledge that the losses sustained have not substantively weakened the overall strength of the product to present. By replacing the loss of 2012 NCAA Tournament participants Syracuse and West Virginia with fellow March Madness contenders Memphis and Temple, there is no net loss despite the fact one was a charter member back in 1979. So was Boston College, and having them poached by the ACC did little to damage the league overall. As far as football goes, only West Virginia truly presents a major loss of any import on a national scale, and the league has done more than enough just with the addition of Boise State and Notre Dame to make up for that loss.

To set precedent for negotiating purposes, let’s first look at the money in recent conference deals:

Right now, these are the standard-bearer contracts for which conferences are striving. If the Big East cannot provide at least this amount to its member teams, especially given the increased costs of travel being introduced to the football schedule, it is doomed to obsolescence.

The key is negotiating from two positions of strength — by dividing and conquering with separate football and basketball contracts. Given the 10-year, $300m contract the ACC was able to sign with Raycom in 2001, and the explosion in value of live sports as DVR technology has made them the last bastion of regular commercial viewership, a 3-division, 18-team Big East can command at least quadruple that quantity. A conservative estimate, the negotiating floor, could realistically be set at 12 years and $1.2b for a Big East basketball league that orbits around perennial contenders Memphis, Louisville, Marquette, Georgetown, and UConn and the secondary challengers that regularly emerge among the rest of a talented pool.

Looking at football, the golden cow for any conference, the loss of Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia has been easily mitigated by the addition of Boise State, San Diego State and the C-USA schools for a net gain. Then you throw in the addition of Notre Dame, the team that has been a diminishing return for NBC but is still the object of lust for any network executive, and potential revenues skyrocket. Those assets alone are worth another several billion alone; a conservative floor for negotiations in a 12-year window would be $2.5b for football, considering the coast-to-coast viewership.

With teams in five of the top seven metropolitan areas in the United States, there are plenty of eyeballs to attract network dollars. Thirteen of the top 50 markets in the nation are represented among the assembled teams. And with the two contracts, money can be divided equitably among schools which participate in one sport but not the other. The breakdown would work as such:

Wholly reasonable at their face, these are the most conservative estimates. The ability to make twice the money NBC offers annually should easily make the offer more attractive to Notre Dame, especially since joining a conference wouldn’t mean taking on a Big Ten or Big XII schedule every season. The potential for even more money is there as well… as long as we’re not forced to settle for the lowest legitimate offer possible.

(And with NBC now on the table with Notre Dame out of their hands, a more diverse product that includes Notre Dame as well as all those major markets — not to mention the need to fill programming on more satellite networks with the rebranding of Versus as NBC Sports Network — could easily get them to bid above this range, pushing the offers to a more lucrative level from every other network as well.)

Why would this work? Think about it… if the ACC can add two schools, Pitt and Syracuse, which bolster an already-strong basketball product but do little to strengthen an already-lagging top-tier football league and gain $4.1m annually for each of its teams in TV renegotiations, there is no conceivable reason why a logical negotiation based in the value inherent in both the football and basketball products of the Big East cannot command more.

This stabilizes the conference without resorting to a naked grab for whatever commodity is available. It is rational enough to think a Notre Dame athletic department that has softened over the years on other steadfast Irish codicils (see:  5-year commitments to its coaches, playoff prohibitions, et.al.) would recognize the sensibility from both a fiscal and competitive standpoint in joining this specific conference before their relevance is swallowed in a burgeoning playoff movement in a conference-centric college football universe.

It preserves the original basketball legacy of the league while simultaneously positioning it to gain rather than lose from football. In both sports the Big East is postured under this four-point plan to be competitive on a national level, with powerhouses and strong mid-tier programs alike to spearhead the league’s belated movement into the 21st century and beyond. The key is in recognizing that one size does not fit all, and the mess left by Marinatto in the conference’s purge-and-binge of realignment prior to my arrival would be best mitigated by taking advantage of both sports’ strengths.

Thusly we can move the Big East forward from its recent past as a basketball-strong and football-deficient conference. These tweaks format both sides to provide the greatest revenue stream for all… and in the current college-sports landscape, if you aren’t generating revenue you are in a death spiral. This plan provides the roadmap to end the league’s current tailspin.

Thank you for reading… comments and your vote can be left [HERE].

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Big East Commish: Zach is a post originally from: SportsNickel.com - In Sports We Trust