Changes create the shrinking East

Women's Basketball, Oct 2003 by Day, Katie

The Atlantic Coast Conference's (ACC) game of university Troulette came to end in July, when both the University of Miami and Virginia Polytechnic Institute announced their decisions to leave the Big East Conference in favor of the ACC. The declaration ended a three-month-long affair that began when the ACC extended invitations to the University of Syracuse, Boston College and Miami.

From the beginning, the ACC's interest in the three teams was football-based. Three programs added to the ACC's existing nine (Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, North Carolina-Chapel Hill, N.C. State, Virginia, and Wake Forest) would have brought the conference's total to 12, the minimum number required by the NCAA in order to hold a lucrative conference championship game. After months of lawsuits and counterproposals from the Big East, Syracuse and BC were dropped from the list, to be replaced by Virginia Tech. The changes will go into effect in the 2004-05 season.

Collegiate football's National Championship is decided by the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), rather than the NCAA. Participation in one of the four official BCS Bowls (the Fiesta, the Sugar, the Orange and the Rose) promises a large payout - between 10 and 15 million dollars for each school.

Only six Division I conferences have a guaranteed bid into the Bowls: the Pacific 10, the Big 10, the SEC, the ACC, the Big East and the Big 12. The money that a football team pulls in from a BCS Bowl game is distributed among all the football-playing universities in the conference to which the team belongs. For example, in the Big East, five programs play Division I football (other than Miami and Virginia Tech); each of those schools got a cut of the 12.5 million dollars that Miami received for appearing in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl. Once a conference distributes its Bowl money, universities are free to spend it as they see fit.

What does the ACC's expansion mean for women's basketball? In losing Miami and Virginia Tech, the Big East loses its two premier football programs - teams that, combined, have won nine of the past 12 Big East Championships. When it comes time for the BCS' contract to be renewed in 2005, the Big East will find its automatic BCS bid in jeopardy, along with its share of millions of football dollars. Big East universities face the possibility of losing a significant amount of overall sports revenue.

Will the budget cuts affect the balance of power in Big East women's basketball? In all likelihood, no. The dominant programs, like Connecticut and Notre Dame, are immune to the cuts that might result from the Big East's overall drop in athletic revenue. Connecticut is the one program in the Big East that is financially self-sufficient. Notre Dame is a football independent, and operates without the BCS payouts to the Big East.

Might the cuts affect smaller, less prestigious programs? Chris Masters, assistant director of sports information at Notre Dame, said, "We've progressed beyond the point of using women's basketball as a chopping block. At many schools, women's basketball is the third highest revenue producer, behind football and men's basketball."

A presence in the women's NCAA Tournament guarantees its fair share of dollars.

The Big East will remain stable until 2005, when its BCS contract expires. The ACC, however, stands to be more immediately affected by the decision. Two additional games will disrupt the ACC's once-even home and away schedule: If the conference decides to maintain its current number of conference games (16), then some teams will play each other only once.

In her official statement, Duke president Nan Keohane said, "Duke's faculty leaders, athletic officials, coaches, senior administrative officials and trustees have been united in our deep concern about expansion, and particularly its implications for our student-athletes. Our issues have always focused on student-athlete welfare, including travel time and complex scheduling logistics, and on the preservation of traditional rivalries and competitive equity within the conference."

Sylvia Hatchell, head coach of the North Carolina women's basketball team, voiced similar concerns. "There's no question that, in the ACC, academics are the top priority. I think our people were concerned about athletes missing class because of the added travel time."

However, Hatchell made a point of saying that the addition of Miami and Virginia Tech will raise the caliber of ACC basketball, mentioning that both universities were NCAA tournament teams last year.

It seems that athletes in the ACC - those most directly affected by additional travel demands - share Hatchell's optimism. One Duke player theorized that more teams (thus less repetition) would improve game quality.

Complicated scheduling logistics notwithstanding, financially, the ACC stands only to gain from expansion. There's no guarantee that a significant portion of that additional money would go directly to women's basketball. But every sports program in the ACC would certainly feel its effects in the construction of new facilities, the implementation of new recruiting hooks and the increasing national prestige of the conference as a whole.