Due to the lack of recent investigations in college sports, I directed this week’s focus to the hot topic regarding schools like Pittsburgh and Syracuse changing their athletic conference. These schools have been two of the longest tenured member in the Big East conference as Pittsburgh has been a member past 30 years, and Syracuse a founding member. As of September 18th, the two schools announced their plans to vacate to the ACC conference for all sports. While the Big East still maintains its strength in basketball with 14 teams, the league of football teams has been cut down to 6, which is considered to be inadequate for league play. Consequently, there are scares now that Big East football will cease to exist.
Pittsburgh and Syracuse claim that their main reasons for joining the ACC is to unite with a community of schools with strong academic values and football spirit. But when looking at the outcomes economically of this adjustment, it clearly shows that these schools are simply looking to play a roll in the 1.86 billion dollar television contract that comes with their addition. News likes this just frustrates me more and more because collegiate athletics is becoming more of a financial industry, than it is about pure athletics. Similar to what I said in a previous blog post, people are beginning to discuss about whether college athletes should be receiving benefits or not. This will certainly add heat to the conversation, especially if fans of football teams in the Big East find themselves without their sport in the coming seasons.
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