The Big East and BYU continue to talk in hopes of saving a deal that would bring the university into the “West Wing” along with Boise State, Air Force, Houston and SMU. The other new members would be Central Florida and Navy in the East as the conference moves to 12 teams for the 2013 season.
(Boise State, BYU, Air Force would be football-only members while SMU, Houston and Central Florida would enter as full members. Joining the remaining group of Cincinnati, Louisville, UConn, Rutgers and South Florida.)
If BYU and the Big East are not be able to work a deal out, then San Diego State is ready to step in and be added to the West Wing in the place of the Cougars.
Dick Harmon of the Deseret News and Jay Drew of the Salt Lake City Tribune are reporting that BYU and the Big East are attempting to work out a problem with the school’s television network BYU TV. Both sides are working hard to resolve the issue and the hope from both sides is that a compromise can be worked out and that it will not be a deal-breaker.
BYU wants to retain its home television rights through its eight-year deal with ESPN that allows the network to broadcast all but one BYU home football game per season with that is worth between $1 million and $2 million per game. The deal with ESPN allows BYU’s own network, BYUtv, to broadcast the one game not picked up by ESPN and also allows the Cougars to show replays of all their ESPN broadcasts — home or away — on BYUtv.
The problem is the Big East sees the BYU deal as a possible road block and could hinder the conference’s new upcoming TV deal.
The Big East will go to open bidding with ESPN, The NBC Sports Group, Fox Sports and CBS sometime in 2012. The conference feels that BYU could do even better than its present deal as part of a new Big East broadcast package.
A new long term Big East TV deal could be worth as much as $1.5 billion when the bidding begins this summer.
But at least for the moment BYU remains set on keeping its present BYU TV deal as is.
While the Big East and BYU continue to work to craft a deal that both can live with, Central Florida, SMU and Houston want to start their move to the Big East. Boise State is still behind the BYU bid as their first choice, however, they have given the green light that San Diego State would be an acceptable replacement for the Cougars.
Both BYU and the Big East want this deal to work out and they are doing all they can to find a compromise as fans of both the university and the conference hope that deal can be worked out.
But the Aztecs are waiting in the wings just in case.
San Diego State does not have the national appeal that BYU has but it a school with merit.
Navy and Air Force have plenty of fans in the area. They do not have a television deal that would complicate matters and they are getting some growing support from their possible “West Wing” partners Boise State, SMU and Houston.
It would give the conference an opening into Southern California, which is not bad, and with schools in four time zones from New York to San Diego. A new TV deal would give one or two networks Big East live game programming from Saturday at noon till well after midnight.
Make no mistake BYU remains the Big East’s first choice but San Diego State is starting to grow not only on the “West Wing” but Rutgers, UConn, Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida could be California Dreaming very soon.
So the Big East top choice remains BYU but San Diego State is waiting by the phone.
