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Message: [QUOTE="sutomcat, post: 516700, member: 27"] It looks like for next year, there will be a 3 college leagues the NYC sports channels might be interested in for football and basketball content: 1. The league of the Catholic Schools That Left the Big East But Retained Its Name (relevant local teams are St Johns and Seton Hall) 2. The league of Unloved Football Teams (relevant local teams are Rutgers and UConn) 3. The ACC (relevant local team is Syracuse) The landing spots for these leagues are the YES network, SNY and MSG. UConn might be able to switch from 2 to 1. Their AD denies they are considering this, and I am not sure it is even an option for them, but MB says it is being discussed and I believe him. The Unloved Football Teams league will have its value undermined severely when Rutgers leaves for the B1G, presumably in 2014. That will result in a 4th college league NYC sports networks might have interest in. But I don't think the B1G is a player with the NYC sports networks because of the B1G network (according to[URL='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SportsNet_New_York'] the SNY wiki anyway[/URL]). According to the NY Times, SNY signed a contract with the Big East for 5 years in the summer of 2008 (i.e. it expires after the 2012-13 season). Can't find any indication it has been extended (why would SNY do this given their situation?), so I assume they are available. They could go after the Catholic League, the Unloved Football League or the ACC. They have close ties to UConn and Rutgers, so the natural thing to do is go with the Unloved Football League. But RU will leave after a year, so unless they are amenable to a 1 year contract, we are really talking about following UConn and a bunch of CUSA rejects. Bad football, bad basketball, almost no local presence...this is almost akin to signing a contract with the Ivy League. Not very desirable. Another option is the Catholic League. St Johns and Seton Hall provide a strong local presence but neither program has been nationally prominent for a long time. I suspect the ratings would not be great. But for basketball, it would still be a strong league with a lot of teams NYC basketball fans are interested in (like Nova and Georgetown). But there is no football, which leaves a big void from September to early December. This is a big problem which really hurts the overall value of this league. The other option is the ACC. The ACC brings high level football, it is by far the best football option. The basketball is also high level. There would be a strong Eastern flavor with BC, SU and Pitt on board, and UNC and Duke are right there with Syracuse as the most popular college basketball programs in NYC. I would think SNY ends up with the ACC. I think that it makes a lot of sense for MSG to take the Catholic School league, since their tournament will presumably continue to be held their and one of the teams in the league plays regularly there (St Johns). That leaves the YES network, which might become the home of RU athletics, replacing SNY. Maybe it takes some B1G games, working in conjunction with its sister B1G network. Maybe it takes the league of Unloved Football Programs as well. It will be interesting to see what happens. I am hoping SNY ends up with the ACC. I think they have done a fine job covering the Big East and it would be great to have that same level of coverage for the ACC. [/QUOTE]

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