Each Tiny Drip Of Expansion News Brings Pitt Closer To Oblivion
...dooms Pittsburgh to being Pittsburgh.
Even though it makes no sense from any other perspective, the Big Ten Network is the ruthless driver of expansion logic. That's working to the detriment of Pitt and, frankly, everyone else. As always, this is Notre Dame's fault.
Exactly right, Brian. If Notre Dame would swallow their pride, then the Big Ten would be free to make expansion about creating a conference made up of the strongest possible schools, not the schools that might penetrate a given televsion market. Notre Dame would give the BTN the leverage to negotiate larger subscriber fees outside of the confererence footprint because it would be competitive as a national vice regional network.
SInce that's not gonna happen, say goodbye to Pitt.
USF is even more screwed than Pitt. Who's gonna take USF when the Big East falls apart? The SEC? No. The ACC? Hellz no. C-USA? Yup.
Does anyone care about USF, though? I feel bad for the Panthers. They've got history.
No. As a matter of fact I'll take some delight in watching USF cracked back to a level where they belong. They're too uppity and arrogant. Take them out of Florida and put them in Pennsylvania instead and they're begging the MAC to please please please accept them. The only reason the Big East invited them was to maintain a Florida presence.
Depending on how the Big Ten goes about expanding, I wouldn't be greatly surprised to see Pitt end up in the ACC in five years.
What are the odds that the Big East football side of things just disappears? If Rutgers leaves, there are only seven schools left that play football, and I don't think ANY of the Basketball schools want another school invited. Certainly they wouldn't keep their BCS bid with only seven schools.
The may in fact be forced to give up their auto BCS bid if they get raided. I don't think you would simply see the football side of things go away though because some of those schools probably rely on the revenue from football in order to pay for other sports. Teams would either be forced to go independent or join another conference if possible. Going independent probably isn't a viable option, so the latter would be the only choice.
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