Big East sues West Virginia

Two days ago I posted about West Virginia University’s (WVU) lawsuit against the Big East to allow them to leave the conference before the mandatory 27 month waiting period that is imposed among Big East teams.  The Big East has fired back, suing WVU to force them to comply with Big East rules.  This case will be quite interesting, as the Big East allowed TCU to go ahead and leave, and has not gave any hint they will enforce the 27 month rule with that school, as they had never officially played any games in Big East football.  It does present a challenge to Syracuse and Pitt who have announced they will be leaving the Big East to go to the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), as the Big East says they fully expect to enforce the rules for everyone.

What does this mean?  It could mean at least 2 more years before these schools are allowed to become members of other conferences, which may confuse the national conference realignment picture even more.  If these schools do leave, the Big East will be left with only 5 member institutions which play football, meaning they will need to bring in many football members fast, or face more schools leaving.  Really, the Big East looks to be falling apart, and this lawsuit seems like the conference trying to grasp for anything they can to stay alive just a little bit longer and give themselves some hope.

Of course, this could end up costing schools like WVU, Syracuse and Pitt, as interest in the conference, and thus revenues will probably be on the decline.

The NBA Lockout is a mess

Today the owners and union reps will meet again to try and iron out the NBA collective bargaining agreement (CBA), and actually get the season started.  As discussed in previous posts this week, it seems that the chances of getting a deal done are quite small.  Things have been interesting, as it has been reported that Michael Jordan (now an owner) will lead the group of hardline owners who want a 50-50 split or nothing.  Which is opposite of Michael Jordan the player, who of course wanted the players to get a better deal.  It is quite amazing to see the case a single person, 23 years apart, being on opposite sides of the bargaining table in professional sport CBA talks.  It does also show us that in these CBA talks, both sides can have quite legitimate arguments for taking hardline stances… or maybe Michael Jordan is just that competitive, that he doesn’t even want to give small concessions in the CBA talks.

The union which seems to be having splits, is even having splits among the group that is causing the split.  A new article noted that the group that was threatening to decertify today actually did not fully support the decertification process.  Because they would need 30% of individuals to vote in order to start moving towards decertification, and they couldn’t even get 50 people to agree to it out of 400, it looks like the NBA players union may not decertify after all.  What does this mean?  Well, it could mean the chance of talks continuing to try and get a new CBA… but they can only last so long before the season just has to be canned.