ND and the Big Prime Number

With all of the talk and articles about the potential Big Ten (or eleven) expansion, my question is; why in the world aren't the midwest Catholic universities in a major basketball conference of their own? Ok, I'll admit that we may have to call it the Fisheaters Conference, but what's wrong with this picture?

1. Notre Dame
2. DePaul
3. Loyola (Chicago)
4. Marquette
5. St. Louis
6. Detroit
7. Dayton
8. Xavier
9. Duquesne
and just to show we're ecumenical,
10. Butler

Let's analyze:

Conference overall: Cuts travel budgets, restores traditional rivalries, and has teams in ALL of the midwest media markets with the exception of Cleveland. You think this conference would draw attention the way the Big East did when it was formed?

Notre Dame, DePaul and Marquette: The Big East still has plenty of teams at 13, and still a top conference for basketball. Big East football is unaffected by this conference, they
have more to fear from the Big Ten trying to grab some of their teams. Notre Dame keeps their independent standing in football, provided they don't give it away. These rivalries grab major Chicago and midwest media attention away from the Big Ten during basketball season.

Dayton, Xavier, Duquesne and St. Louis: Curently in the Atlantic 10, another conference that can't count (14 current teams). And as I look on the map, I don't see any of these 4 teams near the Atlantic Ocean.

Detroit, Loyola and Butler: All three make a jump from the mid-major Horizon League into a potential major conference listed above. No question this would
upgrade their recruiting, and would be a catalyst for expansion of facilities at Detroit, Loyola(and Duquense). No messing with Hinkle Fieldhouse at Butler however, the Wrigley Field of college basketball and the centerpiece of the movie "Hoosiers". This move benefits all, especially Butler, who has labored too long having a top 20 basketball program stuck in a mid-major.

I'm sure there are other factors making this problematic, especially concerning the other varsity teams these schools field, Title 9 and who knows what else, well maybe money. It seems to me that this proposed conference would make perfect sense.

Living in the Dayton, Ohio area all of my life, I remember when the University of Dayton played every one of these teams every season (except for Butler) and for many years did home and home games per season with these schools. Marquette with Al McGuire, DePaul with Ray Meyer, ND with Digger, even Detroit with Dickie V; those were HUGE home games. All we have left from this is Xavier twice a year as the big rival (no offense meant to Xavier),Duquense twice a year in the A-10, and far too few games with their other natural historical rivals.

If Pope Benedict XVI stepped aside, as some suggest, hopefully the new Supreme Pontiff would make the forming of this conference his number one priority. I'm content with God handling everything else…Unfortunately with ND, the money lure seems to cloud the longer term view…

If they expand east, the Big East would likely cease to exist after the SEC and ACC raid it to keep up. If they expand through the Big XII, the Big East still gets raided of its best teams, and Notre Dame is left in a "mid major" conference for all other sports outside of football and hockey.

Supporting an entire athletic department on the back of one sport and a comparatively small television contract that may or may not be extended in the future (more on that below) would leave Notre Dame at an even more defined competitive disadvantage than joining a conference would. What happens when facilities need improving or replacing? Will Notre Dame choose to bleed their donors dry when the NEED to do so would have easily been mitigated by joining a conference?

Big Ten teams are currently receiving $22 million per year from TV revenue alone. And that's every institution. Northwestern got more television revenue last year than any other school outside the Big Ten conference, and they're HORRIBLE in most sports. Think about that. Northwestern.

Add Connecticut, Syracuse, Rutgers and Pitt and that number gets slightly larger. Add Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and Texas A&M; and it gets enormous. It could, on the conservative side, at least double by adding the Texas, Oklahoma, and St. Louis markets. Notice there are only 4 teams in each of those lists. I think the Big Ten will add 4 to get the dominoes falling and then wait to offer Notre Dame that last spot. That will be the crossroads, because that spot will be filled regardless of Notre Dame's decision and the conference will be closed forever at that point.

And this doesn't even touch the recruiting aspect, which requires teams to get national exposure at some point. We all know that TV contracts float to where the money is. But now there would be 4 conference championship games to bid on. And with those come 4 schedules full of conference regular season games. And there are only 4 major networks to bid on these conferences. And one of them is NBC. ESPN/ABC already owns the Big Ten and part of the Big XII. CBS already owns the SEC. Fox owns the remainder of the Big XII. That leaves the Pac 10 without a home. And NBC isn't going to stand by and be left behind.

In addition to television exposure, how will Notre Dame schedule anybody decent when every conference expands to 16 teams and 10-11 games are taken up in conference or with traditional rivalries from previous conferences? How will they get big name teams to give up the huge revenue from home games to play at Notre Dame?

In addition, this aligns things for a much more realistic possibility of a 4 team playoff which would include the conference champions, but would probably not include an independent Notre Dame.

These are all questions that rational thinking people have to ask themselves without bias. As things stand right now, the Big Ten doesn't need Notre Dame, and Notre Dame doesn't need the Big Ten. But the harsh reality is, once the Big Ten starts the dominoes falling, that situation will change drastically. The only question will be, can the Irish alumni base swallow their pride to save their athletic teams, or will they be left behind as all the super conferences fill their spots with other teams?

Finally, ND doesn't need to join a so-called "power conference" to "rule the BCS" — Brian Kelly will see to that in short order. Hopefully we can then put this garbage talk about joining the Big 10 to rest.