Ackerman hopes hoops can contend with football
Also James Bouknight’s troubles, MLB playoffs
NEW YORK — For 10 years commissioner Val Ackerman has steered the “new” Big East as it successfully sails against the tide as a basketball-driven conference in football-dominated waters.
The momentum for further consolidation and growth of football in the form of super conferences has only picked up steam with the moves of UCLA and UCLA to the Big Ten, and Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC.
“Basketball is more overshadowed at the moment,” Ackerman told The Courant this week at Big East media day. “And I hope that corrects itself when the season starts, but what is clear to us is these moves we’re seeing around realignment, media rights, are clearly football-driven. There is no question football is a dominant force here. That said, everybody plays basketball, not everybody plays football, and it’s the sport that brings the country together in March. No other sport does that, so everybody involved has a vested interest in keeping the sport relevant, strong, exciting.”
Ideas like summer league play and tournament expansion are intriguing, Ackerman said, but are complex and will require vetting.
UConn, of course, is the only Big East member with an FBS program, which now functions as an independent. The latest churning opened new speculation over the summer that one of the other power conferences, such as the ACC, could come looking for new members such as UConn. That doesn’t appear on the horizon but UConn AD David Benedict has been saying the time might be ripe for a new football conference or perhaps separating football from other sports where coast-to-coast travel is more problematic.
“People talk in general terms about FBS football needing to pull away,” Ackerman said. “Nobody I’ve spoken to has ever said, ‘Here is exactly how it would work,’ what it would mean for those schools who would be part of this new football-governing body, what it would mean on their campuses to manage two different sets of rules, how the money works. One thing I am interested in, if football does break away, I would like the idea it would eliminate legal liability for football-related litigations for conferences like ours, because right now we’re pulled into the exposure of football-driven litigations whenever the NCAA gets sued.
“An independent football structure might be able to eliminate that problem. Right now college football playoff revenues go only to those conferences, not shared with the rest of the NCAA member schools, so the anomaly
we have is the CFP revenues are going here, but the expenses borne by the sport of football are housed within the NCAA, so leagues like ours are paying for the football expenses. Those kind of adjustments are of interest to us.”
There is no talk of the
Big East trying to dip a toe back in the football business, “It doesn’t even come up,” Ackerman said. But the possibility of expanding to add basketball-first schools looms as the next negotiating window with Fox, which is in February 2024, gets closer.
“Might this group of schools decide to add other schools to fortify our basketball prospects? Possibly,” she said. “There’s nothing cooking right now on that.”
In the next TV deal, Ackerman hopes, among other things, to get women’s basketball more exposure.
“You all are the epicenter of basketball in Connecticut and we have places like that in this country,” Ackerman said. “College football is regional in its appeal, in the Southeastern Conference, it’s a religion. Up in this part of the world it’s not like it is in the SEC or the Big Ten or the Big 12.”
More for your Sunday Read:
The trouble with James Bouknight
Despite what people around him wanted to believe, James Bouknight, 22, did not learn from the trouble he got into before his freshman season at UConn. The former Husky, as of now a member of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, was arrested this week for driving under the influence, and according to the police report, was observed “unconscious in his car in an uptown parking deck, hit two police vehicles, and had a gun.” He was released on $2,500 bond, but he also has two pending tickets for speeding and reckless driving.
At Big East Media Day, Dan Hurley, who has kept in touch, said Bouknight is “a great young man, but he’s still a very young, young man that I think is at a very important point in his life right now.”
Several incidents since his brush with UConn police in September 2019 suggest immaturity — his dramatic act over cramping at the Big East tournament in 2020, his pouting over getting picked 11th in the NBA Draft, his ejection from a front row seat during a game at Gampel Pavilion last season.
But now, for at least the second time, Bouknight has put his life, and potentially the lives of others in danger. This suggests far more than just a need to grow up, but a need for major behavior modification.
For the sake of avoiding a tragedy, let’s hope Bouknight gets whatever help he needs to make that modification take place. As for his basketball future, that modification must come now, if it’s not already too late. Having yet to prove he’s more than a marginal player in the NBA Bouknight cannot expect to get multiple chances.
Sunday short takes
◼ Quinnipiac’s Rebecca Cooke leads all of NCAA Division I women’s soccer with 19 goals, and teammate Courtney Chochol is second in the nation with 11 assists. The Bobcats were 11-2-1, 7-1 in the MAAC, going into a game at St. Peter’s Saturday. Meanwhile, UHart’s Imani Jenkins is fourth in D-1 with 14 goals, and tied for first with six game-winners. The Hawks are 9-3-1.
◼ The University of New Haven football team is 6-1, on a six-game winning streak going into this bye week. The Chargers, with three games left, are in good shape for the Division II playoffs.
◼ Managers usually don’t reveal all they know about players’ health, so I’d give future Hall of Famer Terry Francona benefit of the doubt in his decision to start East Windsor’s Aaron Civale, who hadn’t pitched in two weeks, over ace Shane Bieber on three-days rest in Game 5 of the ALDS last Tuesday. However based on what information was public you can’t blame Guardians’ fans for second-guessing the decision.
◼ UConn has been holding a plaque and a place for