I think we've seen this before:
The Big East is now officially on the clock. The league has until September 2012 to determine its football membership because that's when ESPN's 60-day exclusive media rights renegotiating window with the league begins.
So what schools will the Big East add? Numerous candidates have been mentioned including Villanova, Central Florida, East Carolina and Houston. However, college industry sources told CBSSports.com the league is also considering the possibility of pursuing Army and Navy as football members to get to 12 teams.
"I believe the league will approach the academies first and if they turn the Big East down, then they'll approach the other candidates," a college football industry source said. "There are a lot of hurdles to overcome. The Big East would have to convince them that's where they want to be."
The league would be attracted to Army and Navy because of their national appeal and also because the schools could join as football-only members. If they joined, along with another member, to get the Big East to 12 schools, a championship game would be on the table.
The only real difference between the housing bubble and this is that, when television networks realize how much money they are paying for Army vs. USF and have to recoup that money somehow, it's not going to wipe out vital sectors of the American economy. But minor distinctions like that aside, this is lunacy. With all due respect to the service academies, whose fine young men not only entertain us but risk their lives for us, no one cares about their teams except for when they play Notre Dame or each other. And, they usually stink, though the past few years have been a welcome respite from that.
Someone here is wrong, and you get three options. If I'm wrong, college conferences can shuffle and repackage leagues into tranches that everyone will love and the amount television networks will pay for these games will keep going up until the sun goes supernova. If the Big East is wrong, ESPN isn't going to care a whit about the infinitesimal fraction of the New York market Army brings. If ESPN is wrong, they're going to have an awfully funny-looking television contract in 2016 when people don't suddenly start caring about Navy football just because they might end up in the Orange Bowl at season's end and because their presence is necessary for a Big East Championship Game. It's a shame that ESPN is a fully-owned subsidiary, because if it's the third option, I'd love to be able to short that stock before people realize that all the Bud Light commercials in the world can't eternally finance multi-million dollar deals for the Flotsam-Jetsam conference.
With the Big Ten Network slate of primetime games released yesterday, we now know all 15 night games the Big Ten will play in 2011-12 (there's a road game between Ohio State and Miami not listed):
Sept. 1 UNLV at Wisconsin, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN
Sept. 2 Youngstown State at Michigan State, 7:30 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network
Sept. 10 Notre Dame at Michigan, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN Virginia at Indiana, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network
Sept. 17 Arizona State at Illinois, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network
Sept. 24 North Dakota State at Minnesota, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network
Oct. 1 Nebraska at Wisconsin, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2 Notre Dame at Purdue, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2
Oct. 8 Ohio State at Nebraska, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2 Michigan at Northwestern, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network
Oct. 15 Northwestern at Iowa, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network
Oct. 22 Wisconsin at Michigan State, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2 Penn State at Northwestern, 7 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network
Oct. 29 Wisconsin at Ohio State, 8 p.m. ET, ABC or ESPN or ESPN2
My first thought is...meh. A lot of those games, especially the BTN fare, is of the "bludeon or be bludgeoned" variety; is UNLV at Wisconsin or Youngstown State at Michigan State really any more interesting because it is happening under very powerful light bulbs? Tailgaters in Madison and East Lansing will appreciate the later starts because otherwise they'd be sitting in a parking lot at 7 AM on a Saturday preparing for an 11 AM kickoff, but that's a small group of individuals. On the bright side, Indiana won't be playing in 80% of those night games as in previous years, so I won't have to choose between Hoosier football and the national network night game, which is not really a choice at all most weeks, notwithstanding my undying devotion to the conference.
A few games fall well outside of the meh category; Notre Dame at Michigan, Wisconsin at Ohio State, and Nebraska at Wisconsin are the easy choices, and maybe your idiosyncratic preferences say that a couple more games are in the top quintile of interestingness. It would be cool to see The Game get played at night eventually but since the heartland gets cold at night in November (and notwithstanding macho he-man We Play In Everything talk) that might still be a ways off.
Then there's the middle range of interest--Arizona State at Illinois, Notre Dame at Purdue, Virginia at Indiana, anything involving Northwestern. These feel like the sorts of games that 3:30 was made for. There's even an argument to be made that 11:00 AM would be the best slot for these games if these programs actually want people to watch them. However intriguing Penn State vs Northwestern might be (and it is intriguing), that game will be going up against the best two games the rest of the nation has to offer. Even diehard Big Ten dopes like me will be, at best, flipping the channels; at wost, we'll forget to flip back when Oregon/USC or whatever gets interesting.
Also: North Dakota State? Sorry, Minnesota.
