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[QUOTE="Townie72, post: 455443, member: 780"]
I can't think of a single issue in which the basketball schools held the football schools back from anything they wanted to do. But I guess there were some.
 
And Syracuse ---- because of the larger role that basketball plays at SU than at the other schools --- reportedly voted frequently with the basketball schools. The football schools couldn't count on our vote because we sell 500,000 tickets to BB games a year and make a lot of money off of BB-related TV and merchandise royalties. (When football attendance fell, our solution to the revenue shortfall was to schedule more BB games at the Carrier Dome ... in spite of the never-ending criticism associated with that.
 
In retrospect, none of the schools wanted to give up BE basketball. Starting with when Penn State wanted to form an all sports conference in the East that would have required us to leave the Big East (and to share basketball revenue but not football revenue --- Thanks, JoePa, but no thanks)
 
What held the football schools back was their own timidity and not wanting to let go of the BE BB sure thing to steer off into uncharted waters. And the fact the conference leadership was paid to hold the conference together.
 
That, plus the fact, that there just weren't enough schools available to form a good all sports conference in the East without BC and PSU. And the Big East didn't have enough money coming in to lure a Maryland away from the ACC or a PSU away from the B1G.
 
There's a good book in this for someone to write. About how the Big East failed and why.
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