Wow this is great news for the Big East. CBS, NBC and ABC are all tied to the SEC, ACC, Notre Dame, and PAC 10 and Fox will be looking for a flagship conference. As many on here predicted months ago, Fox has met ABC/ESPN's offer and raised them. How long before Mike T announces that the Big East has joined Fox. If I am not mistaken didn't Mike T break off negoiations with ESPN. This is playing out just as we expected. No more listening to the talking heads at ABC/ESPN spew the anti Big East bullsh*t. Instead of keeping our invite to the BCS party. The Big East could well be hosting the party on THEIR network. Mike T will use Big East basketball in a big way. Just my opinion, even if we settle for less money than ESPN offered, we need to partner with Fox and make sure this works for them. It will be to the Big East's advantage to make Fox as strong as possible in college football.

As a side note, I wonder how long it will take CBS, NBC and ABC/ESPN to start harping for a play-off once they are on the outside looking in.
CJ

There is also a rumor that the Big 10 will be shopping around their contract because they are pissed about the ESPN the Magazine article about OSU and Maurice Clarett. They feel like ESPN never did their homework on the article and instead went out and found 3 people who have either been kicked out or failed out of OSU and have a bone to pick with the University. It will be interesting to see what comes of it, but ESPN/ABC could be hurting for programming on Saturday afternoons if they also lose the B10 contract.

mlbUC Wrote:There is also rumors that the Big 10 will be shopping around their contract because they are pissed about the ESPN the Magazine article about OSU and Maurice Clarett. They feel like ESPN never did their homework on the article and instead went out and found 3 people who have either been kicked out or failed out of OSU and have a bone to pick with the University. It will be interesting to see what comes of it, but ESPN/ABC could be hurting for programming on Saturday afternoons if they also lose the B10 contract.

If that is true then we can't lose and really it has ended the deathlock that Disney had over college athletics. Fox is now a major player in college sports and it will in the end give access to the 6 BCS conferences and the MWC-C-USA.

The partial Army/Navy schedule was floated around by a Big East AD at the recent Big East meetings in Philadelphia and was shot down. CSTV will make a major push for the Big East contract if arbitration fails with ESPN.

Quote:The partial Army/Navy schedule was floated around by a Big East AD at the recent Big East meetings in Philadelphia and was shot down.

-- I think that is a good thing....in my opinion we need Army and Navy to be in full time football members to get ND to finally agree to partial memberhship.....to have Army/Navy/ND all have partail BE football schedules would be a nightmare

-- One think about this expansion stuff I think I can safely say.....MT is working very hard at finding away to solidify the football side of things without tearing the 16 league apart....I think that is why the heat is finally being put on ND a little...and all of the Army/Navy talk



Jackson

My worry is that FOX will create its new sports network that will go to premium cable packages that require digital gateways and will keep their regionalized crappy camcorder quality coverage on the new national network. That will seriously affect us cheapies who do not want to pay for extra coverage that is poor in quality. I hope they open up their broadcast network to live coverage.

Mountain west may regret their move to the college sports network as it is often in the premium digital gateway services and not available to the casual sports fans who will forgo the extra bucks to watch cheaper coverage on the broadcast networks and the less expensive extended packages similar to the ones we have with InsightCom here in Louisville.

Besides, FOX will hire some true buffoons like the second string commentators, announcers and analysts (ones that even ESPN would reject and there own losers) they currently have on the regional FOX SportsNets. I wish that NBC had got into the bidding war instead of FOX. They could use their recently purchased channels, many of which are basic or extended cable such as the USA Network, CBNC on Saturdays, etc., utilizing thm like they did for the Olympics this past summer summer.

Just some thoughts on FOX's drawbacks and lost opportunities.