Viewpoint: Aresco is the right man to resuscitate the Big East
Mike Aresco has handled CBS's contract negotiations with the NCAA for the rights to the men's basketball tournament and negotiated a 15-year deal with the Southeastern Conference.
Last week, the Big East announced the hiring of a new commissioner to replace John Marinatto, who resigned from the post in May following a rash of defections from the conference.
Former CBS executive Mike Aresco, announced as the new commish last Tuesday, has a clear mandate: Prevent the once-proud conference from becoming no more than a haven for washed-up basketball powers and wannabe football powers.
Should be easy, right?
With the confidence Aresco displayed in his inaugaural press conference, you might think it were actually a simple job. In reality, the challenges Aresco faces over the next few years are tougher than any other major conference exec’s worst nightmare.
The plight of the Big East is familiar to many a college sports fan: Consistently mentioned in the conversation about the best basketball conference in the nation, it has suffered a lack of competitive football and lost three high-profile members to the ACC and Big 12 in the past year.
Because football and the TV deals that come with it bring schools huge amounts of money, the conference must find a way to keep its remaining football schools around.
The Marinatto administration saw this coming and quickly moved to combat it, inviting nearly every respectable, non-Big-Six football school to join the Big East. While probably wise moves, the invitations appeared to border on desperation at times -- Temple is one thing, but why would San Diego State be in the Big East?
Add in the fact that several of the conference’s flagship basketball schools have no serious football program to speak of -- looking at you, Georgetown and Villanova -- and it’s easy to see why some see Aresco as simply the Titanic’s newest deck-chair arranger.
Whether the Big East will remain afloat remains to be seen, but the hiring of Aresco should allow for some cautious optimism for fans of the storied conference.
First off, Aresco’s background is tailor-made for the job. No matter who the new commissioner was, his first priority would have been securing a lucrative TV deal for the conference.
The Big East didn’t pull any punches there, bringing in a former executive vice president of CBS Sports to lead negotiations. If Aresco can’t secure a good deal on that front, nobody can.
If Aresco’s resume didn’t give Big East fans hope, his first press conference should have.
"The Big East deserves to be one of the Big Six,” Aresco said. “What I want people to recognize is this conference has reconstituted itself. People might be overlooking the strength of the institutions that have been added, especially in football, and the quality in football and the major markets they’re in and the possibilities.”
The much-needed shift from defense to offense is palpable in the new commissioner’s tone.
Marinatto and interim commissioner Joe Bailey were often non-committal, defensive or -- worst of all -- silent in the debate that has raged for much of the past year over whether the conference can remain competitive in the newly realigned landscape.
It will truly take a miracle worker to keep the Big East alive and on the same level as the rest of the Big Six. But for the job at hand, Aresco might be just that.
Patrick Curran is a Summer 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about him here.
This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.