Monday, November 29, 2010

TCU Accepts Offer From Big East

Texas Christian University has accepted an invitation to become an all-sports member of the Big East Conference, FanHouse has learned.

The Horned Frogs will join the league beginning on July 1, 2012 and begin play in the Big East in the 2012-13 school year. The school has called a 2 p.m. ET press conference to announce it is moving from the Mountain West.

The addition of the Horned Frogs will immediately bolster the football league. It also would increase the basketball membership to 17 teams.

The Horned Frogs (12-0) are ranked No. 3 in the current BCS rankings and are guaranteed a BCS bowl.

Adding TCU also would strengthen its position when the league starts renegotiating its television contracts that expires after the 2013 season.


TCU will be located an average of 1,140 miles from the other football league members.

Big East commissioner John Marinatto had previously told FanHouse that if the Big East added new members before the current TV contracts expire, the league could seek to renegotiate. TCU is located in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, the nation's fifth-biggest TV market.

"Membership -- quality membership and quality inventory -- drives value," Marinatto said. "We're certainly cognizant of the value that expansion and quality inventory would bring to a television partner."

The Big East had said a few weeks ago it wanted to get its football membership to 10 teams. The league also made an offer to Villanova, a member in all sports but football, to move up from FCS to the Big East.

"Villanova has been obviously a member of the conference for 30 years," Marinatto told FanHouse. "We've encouraged them for a number of years going back to 1997 to do whatever they feel is in their best interest. I think they're in the process of evaluating that question and if they evaluate it in the affirmative, we'll obviously have a conversation about membership."

The league expects to get an answer from Villanova by the end of the 2010-11 school year. If Villanova opts to stay in FCS, UCF would be the next choice to get the league a 10th football member.

By adding TCU for the 2012-13 school year, the Horned Frogs previous BCS data will remain with the Mountain West, BCS spokesman Bill Hancock told FanHouse. Only if TCU would have changed leagues before the 2012 school year would it have taken "all of their data to their new league," Hancock said.

However, the Big East already has its automatic qualifying BCS status for the 2012 and 2013 regular seasons by virtue of the existing BCS contracts.

TCU has three consecutive top 11 BCS rankings, including this year, by far better than any current Big East member.

The Horned Frogs also had a football budget of $20.6 million for the 2009-10 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Education's Equity in Athletics report. That ranks 12th nationally and would rank higher than any current Big East member. Rutgers was first of the current Big East schools at $19.49 million.

No comments: