Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 6, 1991 TAG: 9102060055
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: PROVIDENCE, R.I. LENGTH: Long
"We're not going to take for granted that people know who's in Big East football," the league commissioner said Tuesday. "I believe by the end of 1991, people will be sick and tired of hearing about Big East football."
By then, however, the league will be but an infant. The Big East, formerly a nine-school, basketball-only conference, formally announced Tuesday that Syracuse, Miami, Pittsburgh and Boston College have added Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Temple and Rutgers to create an eight-team football league.
Charter member Virginia Tech ends 27 years of independent status in football. The Hokies' last league football game was in 1964 in the Southern Conference; their next will be this fall against West Virginia.
The league will have only limited conference play this fall because not all teams could clear their schedules in such short order. But, Tranghese said, a league champion will be crowned; Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel said some of the member schools' 1991 non-conference games will be counted as league games to create an artificial champion.
"Don't ask me how we're going to do that, but we're going to have to do that," Crouthamel said.
The league brings together eight former Division I-A football independents who combined for 33 bowl appearances since the 1980 season and will include five of the top 17 television markets in the country: New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Miami, and Pittsburgh.
The new league's TV value appears strong: If it had been a conference last year, its members would have had 13 College Football Association appearances, second only to the Southeastern Conference's 22.
The eight schools have agreed to a financial commitment, which will reportedly require a school to give five years' notice if it wants to leave the league or pay at least $3 million to get out.
"That's probably pretty accurate," Tech athletic director Dave Braine said.
Braine, who attended Tuesday's news conference at the Biltmore Hotel, said he had no problem with the financial commitment, which he said did not involve any up-front payment to the Big East.
"And the university didn't either," Braine said. "We're in the best football conference in the country right now."
Tech president James McComas said the deal puts Tech is good academic company, too.
"Athletic affiliations can also provide increased academic opportunities," he said. "The members of this conference, with established strength as national research universities, are especially compatible with the heritage and the academic progress of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University."
McComas said the announcement "marks a new day in the competitive life of the athletic program of this university. In many respects it is a day that honors the loyalty of alumni and fans who have looked forward to increased national recognition."
Talks to form an Eastern football league had continued off and on for about 30 years, Tranghese said, and Rutgers athletic director Fred Gruninger was asked what finally made it happen.
"People who wanted to make it work," he said. "Independents were becoming an endangered species in I-A."
League athletic directors met Tuesday afternoon to further discuss details such as revenue sharing, TV package, scheduling, bowl tie-in, how to determine its '91 champion and other operational issues.
This much is clear:
Tranghese said all schools will play a minimum of five conference games no later than 1995 and that a final decision on how many conference games to be played annually will be made by that time.
There will be what Tranghese described as "minimal" revenue sharing at least for the first year and the league will work into more sharing as it approaches playing a full league schedule. Boston College athletic director Chet Gladchuk said revenue from all sources - network television, syndicated television and bowl games - will be shared.
In the Big East's first year as a basketball-only league in 1979, Tranghese said, sharing percentages were heavily weighted in favor of the team earning the money - as much as a 95-5 percent split. As the league prospered, Tranghese said, certain revenue was split 75-25, and some even 50-50.
Football revenue, Tranghese said, will not be shared with basketball schools, and vice versa.
The Big East will negotiate with the CFA as a conference and not as eight separate schools. Crouthamel, also a member of the CFA's television committee, will represent the Big East at CFA talks later this month.
The SEC led CFA members with 22 percent of all CFA appearances last year; Northern Independents had 12 percent; and the ACC, Big Eight and SWC had 10 percent. Braine, a member of the Big East's TV committee, said the new league might shoot for 12 percent of appearances in its first year.
Only the eight football schools, Braine said, will vote on football issues, and a two-thirds vote is required for approval.
Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Temple and Rutgers are not under consideration to join Big East basketball, Tranghese said.
Braine said Tech wants to play a seven-game conference schedule, and the Hokies may get their wish. Crouthamel said he wants to play at least six league games "with a possibility of playing seven." Miami, long thought to favor the fewest possible league games, may change.
"Down the road, we're going to find there will be a consensus built in the conference for playing more than five games," Hurricanes' acting athletic director Paul Dee said.
The one thing the Big East football league might not have in 1991 is one of its most talked-about possibilities: a bowl tie-in. Tranghese said several bowls, major and minor, have expressed interest in the league.
But he said it would be pointless for the Big East to commit its champion to anything other than a New Year's Day bowl at the "highest level." And, he said, if some major bowls aren't willing to be tied in to the Big East, he might not push it.
"We might have a deal for our second- or third-[place] team," he said. "It's probably as important or more important than making a deal for your champion."
For Tranghese and his staffers, who will spearhead the marketing of the league in its first year, much lies ahead.
"I can't tell you how ecstatic we are," he said. "We are not simply intending to play football, we are intending to play it at the highest level. Our work is just beginning."
by CNB