It Grew Back

This spring the neighbor had a maple sapling that was growing up the middle of an azalea. He cut off at almost groud level and thought it history. By mid July the sapling was as tall as it had been previously.

Most in college football had thought the same of the Big East the odd duck of the BCS as it, unlike the others, has members that do not play D1 football. With the departure of Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College in John Swofford's raid that would have done the likes of Carl Icon proud the league was declared as dead as the neighbor's maple sapling. But just like that sapling that Big East conference is showing a stuborn determiniation.

Not that the league stands shoulder to should with the SEC or Bigger 10 but then better to have the least house in the richest neighborhood than the best on the other side of the tracks. The math is also on the leagues side in that with the Big East in the BCS the majority of D1 schools are in the big money club (64 of 119) with the others needing to learn the secret handshake or hope the ACC to sends other #22 team to the big party.

Details on the new contract between the least of the BCS conferences and Disney Sports in conjunction with CBS (Viacom Sports) have been slim leading to the suspicion that the dollars have yet to be fully decided but the parties wanted to get the announcement out before the season started.

An aside: The worst phrase in business that you ever hear or utter, "We'll worry about those details later." Those details won't get any easier later and the deal tends to get butchered in the end.

As for the bottom line money the Big East Jack Bogaczyk of the Charleston Daily Mail estimates that the dollar figure is around $14 million which is close to the pre-raid $15 million and not much of a pay cut given that the Canes reportedly took a super-sized slice of the pie before they left for greener/richer/goldener pastures.