Big East completes football-basketball breakup
NEW YORK (AP) -- The Big East made its split official Friday, with seven basketball schools breaking away from the football-playing members in a deal that takes effect on July 1.
Commissioner Mike Aresco told The Associated Press that the seven Catholic schools which are leaving to form a basketball-centric conference will get the Big East name, along with the opportunity to play their league tournament in Madison Square Garden.
The football members, most of which are newcomers to a conference that has been ravaged by realignment, get a cash haul of roughly $100 million. That group includes just one founding Big East member - Connecticut - and will have to find a name for what is essentially a new league.
"It's been an arduous four months but we got to the right place," Aresco said in a phone interview. "I think both conferences have good futures."
Aresco, who will remain commissioner of the football league, would not disclose the financial part of the settlement.
A person familiar with the negotiations told the AP earlier this week that the football schools will receive about $100 million from a $110 million stash the conference had built up over the last two and a half years through exit and entry fees as well as NCAA men's basketball tournament funds.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-basketball/news/20130308/big-east-football-basketball.ap/#ixzz2MzjiBYKV
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