From Brett McMurphy, Andy Katz and Dana O’Neil at ESPN.com, we learn that the all-basketball schools from the Big East will leave the conference next year to form their own league and will take the Big East name with it.
Thanks to Fox Sports, the seven schools, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s and Villanova will leave the Big East a year earlier than expected, lure Butler and Xavier from the Atlantic 10 and be the cornerstone of college basketball programming for the new Fox Sports 1 starting this November. “The Catholic 7” going to Fox Sports will be formally made public at a news conference in New York next Tuesday in advance of an advertiser upfront presentation to announce the creation of two Fox Sports all-sports cable networks.
Fox did not want to wait a year for the new Big East and not have college sports programming in its first months of existence. And without The Catholic 7, the remainder of the Conference That Will No Longer Be Known As The Big East will have lower value for ESPN in the 2013-14 season. According to the ESPN.com report, ESPN will pay $10 million for the next college basketball season, but without “The Catholic 7,” that amount would probably be reduced. Last week, ESPN matched a six year deal from NBC Sports Network that would pay the Conference That Will No Longer Be Known As The Big East $20 million annually.
It’s not known how much the breakaway schools will pay for the Big East name. However, Kristi Dosh of ESPN.com says getting the Big East name is a huge win for “The Catholic 7” which will have the identity and most likely, the history of the conference.
To leave the conference early, the payout for “The Catholic 7” will be an estimated $3 million per school. Expect Fox Sports to help offset that cost of the early exit with a lucrative long-term contract.
And looking down the road, one can expect the Unholy Alliance between Fox and ESPN with some sublicensing of games to the Alleged Worldwide Leader. In addition, CBS might get into the act with a contract of its own.
The upheaval in college sports has wreaked havoc all over the country, but as networks need inventory for live games, expect the uncertainty to continue as long as television is willing to pay the money.
We’ll be covering the announcement on Tuesday.
