The marriage of these two groups of schools has created arguably the preeminent basketball conference in America, and certainly the weakest BCS AQ conference in football. Last season UConn earned the Big East's automatic BCS bid despite winning only 8 games and barely cracking the top 25. Given the title of this post, this leads to the obvious question: why split up the greatest basketball conference in America in order to create what will certainly not be a top tier football conference?
Why? Because several Big 12 schools might suddenly become available (see below). The 9 football schools could break away and add some combination of Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Iowa State, Baylor, and possibly Texas Tech. Adding Kansas to a lineup that already includes Pitt, UConn, Syracuse, and Louisville will create a terrific basketball conference. The 8/9 current members have already earned an automatic BCS bid, so it stands to reason that such quality additions as the schools listed would be able to continue with that benefit.
Why break away at all? To create a proper, relatively homogeneous 12-14 member football conference that plays a championship game and generally operates much like the other major conferences. Such a conference could potentially earn a lucrative new media deal, which would depend on the particulars of the current Big East agreement. I do not know how television revenue from the football side is split, but presumably the basketball only members do not receive these funds, and presumably the media contract specifies what happens when and if the football members leave as a group, and what happens when new members join the conference. Either way, the conference is nearing the end of its current television contract, so the pending implosion of the Big 12 could not have come at a better time.
I will briefly go over the possible scenarios for Big 12 armageddon in my next post.
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