Football holdovers sell Big East name

New York, NY, United States (4E Sports) – The Big East announced an agreement to sell its name to the seven Catholic universities that are forming a basketball-only conference.

The new league will also assume the old one’s contract to play its conference tournament at Madison Square Garden.

The Catholic 7 will pay by leaving behind the money they would have received from the exit fees of other departing universities and the entry fees from new members.

According to a document that detailed the terms of the Catholic 7′s separation from the Big East, the pool of revenue stood at $68.8 million.

The current football schools must have a new conference name by July 1 and were reportedly favoring “America 12 Conference” as its new name.

The conference’s law firm, Covington & Burling, has reportedly purchased and registered domain names of several variations of America 12 Conference such as America12.org, America12Conference.com, America12Sports.com, American12.org, American12conference.com, AmericaTwelve.com and TheAmerica12Conference.com.

But Big East commisioner Mike Aresco said during the conference call Friday that they have not chosen a new conference name nor have favorites.

“We want to spend a lot of time discussing who we are. We have more geographic coherence than we did during the past six months. We’ll have a name that’s appropriate and a name that gives us a fresh start,” he ssaidd.

The Big East football universities are not expected to add a 12th school until 2015, when Navy joins. It will have 10 members in 2013, and East Carolina and Tulane will replace departing Louisville and Rutgers the following year.

Sources said Tulsa is the only school the league is considering to become its 12th member. It hasn’t been determined yet whether the Golden Hurricane would be invited to join in 2014 or 2015.

“We’re all hoping for stability,” said Aresco, who recently negotiated a cable TV deal with ESPN that was far below what ESPN offered two years ago before the shocks of realignment. Aresco’s soon-to-be-renamed conference is expected to have a broadcast deal in place soon. The new Big East is expected to announce a deal with Fox next week.

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