Fanning The Flames - Big East Expansion

[matt trick]

I feel like if they ask, we say yes. Baseball as a pretty solid program, soccer has potential, but basketball is everything in Spokane. Zags have got a good thing going financially, but I’ve got to think revenue from a big East deal including Gonzaga would cover the extra chattering costs.

The ‘but they don’t play anyone’ gets replaced with ‘sure you play a ten elite in conference per year, but you’ll have 5 long flights to the Midwest (probably replacing 2-3 ooc games) and northeast.

[Jedster]

As Kidwell alluded to, it might mean a multi-game trip back east for travel, so not a 2 game weekend set, but maybe 3-4 games over the course of a week. Those would be long for sure, but you'd only need to do a few of those and negotiate that maybe the one game opponents are played back home.

With a 12 team league and 20 game schedule (trying to expand on the article linked above) you would play 9 teams twice (so home and home) and two 1 game opponents (or skip a team each year to play a home and home). So that's 10 road games. If you did a long trip back east for four games over a week, you'd have two of those and then another more traditional two game weekend road trip (maybe that's a midwest trip). Thee upside is you'll have long stretches back home in between the road trips.

Of course I'm just spitballing this and this would have to work as part of a larger overall schedule of games for all 12 teams. Bigger issue might be what would the other teams do when they fly out here? Fly all the way to Spokane for one game and then all the way back east for another game? You only have to do that once a season, but that's quite a lot of flying for one game.

[Zagceo]

For 100% personal reasons… need this to happen so I can see the zags in person every year

I live Orange County and been to many games in Cali….would love love love the chance to travel back East and see Zags play in BE conference and drink beers in LI

[MDABE80]

Always good to remember that very few teams in the BE have our record the past 10 or so years. NC in2017 and back to back last and the upcoming year most likely. We ARE thee commodity. They should be bending over backwards to figure this out.
Our mission hasn’t really changed up but the Basketball program has.

[jayray]

Thanks. I'm thinking of the physical effects of being cooped up in a small space. Muscle, joints, and similar. Plus, the guys's conference trips on a chartered jet, so far, have been short trips compared to flying to Washington, Philly, and similar.




:]

Florida, Hawaii, Bahamas, they travel every year. 2 east coast trips and 1 Midwest trip a year is nothing.

[jazzdelmar]

The BE tournament at the Garden would become a #1 bucket list item. Start spreading the news….

[strikenowhere]

Anyone more familiar with Zag sports such as Golf, Tennis, Track & Field, Rowing, & Cross Country explain how their scheduling works regarding conference opponents? I looked through the various sports schedules on Gozags.com and the only sports I see where the team is actually traveling to their conference opponents seems to be baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, & soccer. The other sports seem to have a bunch of meets, many of which are already scattered around the country.

[strikenowhere]

The BE tournament at the Garden would become a #1 bucket list item. Start spreading the news….

Good god yes I would be there in a heartbeat - drive to Secaucus, park, and take the PATH train into Penn Station!

[willandi]

The BE tournament at the Garden would become a #1 bucket list item. Start spreading the news….

It is interesting that, despite all those basketball powerhouses, it would be the addition of Gonzaga that would make it a #1 bucket list item.

[Zagceo]

idea from a comment section

The New Big East could be divided into 3 pods:

Pod 1. Gonzaga, Creighton, Marquette, Depaul

Pod 2: Bulter, Xavier, Villanova, Georgetown

Pod 4. Seton Hall, St. Johns, UConn, Providence.

You play teams in your pod twice a year every year, play teams 2 teams in each of the other pods twice/year and the other two teams once/year. The scheduled would require 3 east coast swings per year, 1 chicago/milwaukee swing, and only one one-off trip to Omaha.

[jazzdelmar]

It is interesting that, despite all those basketball powerhouses, it would be the addition of Gonzaga that would make it a #1 bucket list item.

It’s already extremely popular back East. Adding GU makes it #1 for us, was my thought.

[jazzdelmar]

Good god yes I would be there in a heartbeat - drive to Secaucus, park, and take the PATH train into Penn Station!

See-caucus, isn’t that, um, a popular organized crime burial site?

[Martin Centre Mad Man]

I’m starting to believe that the Big East might be feasible as a destination for Gonzaga.

The Big East wants Gonzaga games as a marketing opportunity for the league’s next round of television rights negotiations. Gonzaga obviously brings the interest of a top ten national program, but it also brings something that no Big East program presently offers - live programming in the Pacific Time Zone. The league could sell eleven late night games to any bidding network each year, if Gonzaga hosts every Big East team. The league would be able to pitch that Big East programming could run from prime time on the East Coast to late night without interruption.

The travel challenges for Gonzaga would be huge, but what if Gonzaga didn’t reciprocate with eleven return games? What if Gonzaga took just three two-game road trips per year to play Big East opponents? The Big East teams might cry foul, because the Zags would have more games with the home court advantage, but the Zags would still have a greater travel burden than any other team in the league. Each team would have one cross country trip versus Gonzaga’s three long road trips. The Zags could require that the Gonzaga men and women play the same opponents each week to put both programs on the same charter planes. The Lady Zags might visit Xavier on Wednesday and Butler on Friday with the men playing those teams on Thursday and Saturday. Gonzaga would likely require that all road trips hit two programs in close proximity, such as Marquette/DePaul or UConn/Providence, or St. John’s/Seton Hall.

Gonzaga wouldn’t necessarily need to move the non-basketball sports. We could ask the WCC to keep those programs. We might sweeten the deal by offering guaranteed non-conference basketball games against the Zags and Lady Zags. If the WCC still declines, the school could move those sports to another league, such as the Mountain West, WAC, Big West or Big Sky.

Could it work? Would the Big East agree to that arrangement?

[MDABE80]

See-caucus, isn’t that, um, a popular organized crime burial site?

The pines Jazz... the Pinebarrens..

[jazzdelmar]

The pines Jazz... the Pinebarrens..

“Get yourself a gun……”