The Big East may turn back into the Beast:

We all know that the Big East has been on shaky ground lately. I have even been its biggest critic making it widely known that I wanted our Cards out.

But in the words of my favorite Howard Stern staffer “Wo Wo Wo Wo stop da clock”. We may be underestimating the potential of this conference. The Big East may be on shaky legs as a BCS league these days, but its announcement of its engagement with Bevilacqua Helfant Ventures, a sports media business that most recently negotiated a $3 billion multi-platform deal for the Pac-12, shows that the league doesn’t see it that way.

Coming up on September 1st the Big East will have 60 days to negotiate their deal with ESPN and will also be able to field offers from other networks. It’s obvious that the league feels pretty confident about the fact that they have a conference footprint in 13 of the 50 largest television markets holding a population base of 32 million people.

The question remains if most of those folks actually care about the local programs in the Big East. Or if they will watch or support teams like UCF and San Diego State. But that’s the reason the Firm was brought in to deflect those questions.

And today we found out that the Big East will hire a TV guy CBS Sports VP Mike Aresco as its New Commissioner. This move really wasn’t a surprise considering that their upcoming tv negotiations are integral piece of the conference’s future.

Folks don’t be surprised if in a few months we are all sitting around wondering how the Big East is worth more than the ACC. I know I’m gonna lay off my rants about the dying conference. It may very well be on life support but it doesn’t look like they are ready for us to pull the plug.