From Fran SI interview;
SI.com: One story that everyone is interested in is realignment. You were part of the last era at St. Johns where they were really nationally relevant. How much of a help do you think it will be for programs like St. Johns, DePaul, Providence in getting out of the mega-Big East under the impact of the football schools?
FF: I think theres going to be an aspect of the realignment thats going to help them in their Big East, but honestly, and I say this as a partisan, the fact that the Big East will not be on ESPN is going to be a detriment to them, at least in the early going as FOX gets their network up and running, because I cant imagine theyre going to get the kind of exposure they deserve based on the history and tradition of those programs. So that will be interesting to see how that plays out.
Youve seen it to a lesser degree with the Mountain West and how little exposure really good teams have gotten the last five to 10 years, so Ill be anxious to see, despite with my buddy Bill Raftery being over there, how that all shakes not. Not from a network competition standpoint, but just in terms of exposure of that conference.
Its never going to be the same as long as you dont have the rivalries of the Notre Dames and the Syracuses and the Pittsburghs. Thats what made that league so spectacular over 30 years, so Im anxious to see how the Big East, in particular, with all basketball-playing schools, whether it can thrive or not given it will be one of the few conferences thats basketball only.
@tsnmike: My friend @AndyGlockner interviews my friend @FranFraschilla. How can that not be worth your time? http://college-basketball.si.com/2013/07/22/fran-fraschilla/ via @SI_NCAABB
he nails the problem...and the greek chorus comes in to trash him.
What problem? Fox sports is launching an entirely different scale of network and he compares our league to the Mountain West? C'mon Newsie. It's easy to see that this is just a jab at the league and Fox. No rivalries like Notre Dame? Who's rival has Notre Dame been? I don't think we'll miss Pitt much either. I think Syracuse and Uconn are big losses but we added some good bball schools. We still have rivals like Nova, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence etc. New ones will be built.
What you don't seem to grasp Newsie, is that this is the best case scenario by far for all the bball-only schools. This is as happy an ending and anyof us could have hoped for. The basketball will be very good, the money is coming in and we are on a real network with great network deal as well as MSG.
Franny is just spitting out the company line basically saying we'll be obsolete if not playing on the network that he is a mouthpiece for.
first, marcus, fran isn't saying we'll be obsolete.
he says there will be an aspect that will help us. that aspect is a weaker league. you have to agree we really hadn't been competitive in the big east, with the exception of lavin's year one, since jarvis was our coach. a much weaker big east will give us a temporary boost. after that, players who are acc, big ten, sec, etc quality will opt for those big time conferences over us. we'll compete with the mountain west and the aac and the atlantic ten for the leftovers. we'll have no shot at being a perennial top ten program. we'll be a perennial top twenty five, probably as long as we have lavin.
on some level, not being on espn will hurt. who knows where we can find fox? we'll look, but most viewers won't. that's fran's point. i'm glad we went to fox because of the backstabbing paper bags at espn and because fox supposedly broke the bank to get the league. however, exposure is important. having little exposure is a league killer. you know that.
rivalries are important. that's one reason the league should have at least sixteen teams. we shouldn't have to crap in our pants when a coach leaves one of our schools for a better job. the already weak league got softer with the stevens departure. this shouldn't happen.
in other words, a minute shouldn't go by without the league heavily promoting itself...and looking for serious programs to join. no matter what the greek chorus says, this year's version of the big east isn't as good as it was in the recent past. it could be, but it's not.
this wasn't a case of fran shilling for espn. someone asked him a serious question and he gave a serious answer.