By every piece of info I can gather....the meeting was left with the concept to gather as much information as possible - about the best alignments to meet a certain set of goals. Among those goals, include the following, but not limited to.....and in no particular order.
The ability to schedule as many games as possible, in local primetime viewing slots - reach as many potential viewers as possible. (to me - football that means Saturday afternoons, and basketball - weeknights.....remember basketball scheduling was discussed in the past 48 hours too)
This is important, b/c the big east has potential viewership reach to approx 32 million television households. That's more than double any other conference in the country. Before some nitwit, and I know you are, jumps on that statment, I"m not saying that the Big East is going to draw 32 million households, but the ability to reach that number is there, and there's plenty of room for growth. That's TWO things, that no other conference in the country has going for them. A number anywhere near that large, and the ability to grow.
Remember that, next time you look at that island of misfit toys, IF, you can get over the nostalgia of the big east football conference, that never was.
Next- maintaining and establishing rivalries. Memphis v. Louisville, SMU v. Houston, UCF v. USF, Rutgers v. UConn.....there are most definitely going to be local rivalries that are going to get scheduled every year. That's a big priority.
Another priority I've read discussed, is the ability for fans to travel to as many games as possible, which feeds back into the rivalry.
Apparently each big east football member left the meetings with a mission to go out and gather as much info as possible as to what's going to be most valueable according to these basic criteria, and again, including but not limited to, there are probably a lot more criteria that were listed as desireable in conference divisions and scheduling.
But these are probably highest priority.
I think that the biggest one, that I've only touched on very lightly, b/c TV money is the driver.......but when it comes to actual football, the ability to play regularly in every region we have teams ahs got to be a big priority - for the single most important reason that leads to a quality product on the field - RECRUITING.
We've got a conference now with reach into florida, texas and southern california. That has GOT to be taken advantage of when it comes to recruiting, and scheduling is the way to make that happen quickly.