BE Minutes Following 2003 ACC Raid

[MaxwellCuse]

I found this on the new UCONN Boneyard. Some pretty interesting stuff that I had never seen before, although much of it was released in sanitized form to the press and is somewhat familiar. I am still in the process of reading this myself, so will withhold further comment for the moment:

http://mysite.verizon.net/fethrs/

Apologies if this is was previously posted.

 

[MaxwellCuse]

I must have been asleep at the time because I never knew that Jake Crouthamel had threatened to quit as AD if the Big East had gone to a 16-team conference.

 

[SU2NASA]

It was Buzz that proposed the $5 million exit fee and 27-month notice.

 

[MaxwellCuse]

And Mark Nordenburg who had reservations and had to take it back to his board.

Looks like the football schools wanted the 8/9 solution (eight FB schools plus Notre Dame), but the basketball schools won the argument for 16 schools based on projected higher television revenue.

 

[oldpinepoint]

cliff notes please, i dont poop enough in a day to read all that!

 

[IthacaMatt]

cliff notes please, i dont poop enough in a day to read all that!

Summary - Big East was thisclose to breaking up in 2003. Shaw suggested that negotiations with the basketball onlies be undertaken to start the process, and it seemed destined to happen to the football representatives in the room, 8 years ago.

In addition to Jake threatening to resign if they went to 16 teams, Father Leahy of Boston College agreed, and was strongly against it.

Tranghese offered to resign because of his inherent conflict of interest. They talked him out of it and offered him a 2 years contract w/ a possible 1 year extension. Marinatto attended these meetings, as Tranghese's second in command.

Formal efforts were made to reach out to Penn State and Notre Dame again. Serious, private converastions. So, FYI, if the ACC were to approach Penn State about membership, it wouldn't be the first time that people were asking them if they were *really* happy in the Big 10.

Of particular interest to me, being a lawyer - the Big East wasn't even formally established as an organization as recently as 2003. It was an informal confederation; there was no separate actual entity that existed. This is quite remarkable, if you think about it. They were talking about just beginning to set up a 501 (c)(3) entity - a not for profit - in 2003, after the raid !!!!

For those of you who say, "so what?" - ask yourself, 1. How were TV contracts negotiated? Who was the party that signed for "The Big East", when the "Big East" was not offically an entity? How was Tranghese and his staff paid? What about the trademark and copyright rights in the Big East logo, name, records, goodwill in the business, etc.? How do you have any of these things without having an actual business entity to which they belong?

 

[MaxwellCuse]

Do we know that the BE is now a 501 (c) (3) entity? The guy who posted this information on the Connecticut board made the same comment you did about what was the most interesting find in the documents, and he wasn't sure if the BE ever acted to rectify this situation.

 

[Scooch]

For all the grief that BC takes, they really were clear that they didn't want any part of a 16 team BE. Now, one could argue that they knew the ACC would be back to invite them, so their intentions may not have been pure, but still, in some ways they did hold true to their word.

Most SU alums and fans are totally unaware at how many times we've come thisclose to leaving the hoops schools behind. When you frame our exit to the ACC in that context, it's hardly surprising, and in fact seems like a weird kind of destiny.

 

[orangepassion]

Interesting that they originally had UCF in ahead of USF and WVU wanted Marshall in-Kinda surprising they'd want another BCS school so close to them for recruiting purposes.

 

[texascpa]

What's interesting to me is that in the September meetings, it seems to indicate that the $5M/27 month rule may not apply after a 5 or 7 year period. I could be reading that wrong or it was later amended.

 

[Cheriehoop]

What's interesting to me is that in the September meetings, it seems to indicate that the $5M/27 month rule may not apply after a 5 or 7 year period. I could be reading that wrong or it was later amended.

Noticed that too. It appears that these 2 meeting notes was released by someone from BC , and less than 2 weeks later from the October 1st meeting, BC announced they were leaving for the ACC. From references made in the October meeting, it appears there was a meeting in September and those meeting notes aren't included in this release to see the full timeline of the discussion points. It would be interesting to see all the meeting notes. It's just July's and October's. Bet Novembers would have been interesting too.