Big East falling to big money

   By this part of the season, anyone who even has a passing interest in college football knows that both Miami and Virginia Tech are leaving the Big East Conference and moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference next season.
   The move caused shock waves throughout college sports because of the sudden shift in collegiate power and the Big East’s reaction.
   Colleges’ shifting from one conference to the next has been a trend since Arkansas left the South-west Conference in the early ’90s. The Big East, on the other hand, refused to go as quietly into the night as the Southwest Conference.
   The conference decided to sue Miami and VT for breach of contract, for lost television revenue and for entering into that contract under false pretenses.
   Luckily, for all sports fans, the case was thrown out of court before getting near trial. The judge ruled the case not only frivolous but false.
   That brings the ACC up to 11 teams, one team short of a coveted 12 teams needed to divide a conference and use a championship game.
   The Big Twelve championship game receives huge publicity, as well as national TV time. That kind of exposure is huge for those teams playing that big game.
   After all, it is TV that truly rules college sports since TV pays for those programs that use huge amounts of money.
   With dollar bills in their eyes, the ACC last week offered another Big East team an invitation to jump conferences, and Boston College said yes the next day.
   This time Big East schools are not going after BC as a whole, but have turned their attention to the athletic director and four other BC officials.
   Big East bylaws, passed after Miami and VT announced their departures, state that a team must give 27 months’ notice before leaving the conference or pay $5 million in exit fees.
   Boston College officials say the law was passed in an invalid procedure, so they do not have to follow those rules.
   All in all, it is a huge mess made worse only by the name-calling and petty accusations being hurled by both sides.
   With three of its major teams gone, the Big East must now scramble to bring in other teams to keep its NCAA certification.
   The Big East is also considered a BCS conference. That distinction gives not only status to its teams, but also much greater chances of playing in more lucrative bowl games.
   In the long run, teams will go where the money is. If Pittsburgh or West Virginia, two teams disputing the departure of the Big East teams, had been offered a chance at more money, would they have said no out of conference loyalty? I seriously doubt it.
   The whole of collegiate sports will feel each blow of any lawsuits that make it to court. Every team could lose money because of resentment.
   Will the lawsuits stop BC from leaving? No it won’t.
   The suits will cause more resentment, killing off any chance the Big East had of keeping BC and making all hopefuls wary of joining the Big East.