Rumored to be headed to the Big East for the past few weeks, Boise State is now on the verge of making that conference move official.
While an official invitation has yet to be extended, Boise State requested Thursday permission from the Idaho State Board of Education “to change conference affiliation for its intercollegiate athletics teams.” The motion passed, which will allow the athletic department to move forward with a change in conference affiliation.
"[T]he University anticipates an offer is imminent and is requesting Board approval to proceed in the best interests of the University should an offer be extended,” the motion read prior to its passing. Big East commissioner John Marinatto announced earlier this week that he had received unanimous approval from the conference presidents to extend invitations. No specific numbers or schools were mentioned, although it has been widely believed BSU would be one of six institutions to receive an invite.
President Bob Kustra said a resolution of the Big East matter should be wrapped up by next week, adding that “an agreement or set of conditions” could be forthcoming in the next day or so for the school’s non-football sports.
In the motion put in front of the Board, BSU states that the move, which would involve the football program only, would take effect July 1, 2013. The timing of the move would exempt the school from paying the $5 million exit fee currently called for in the Mountain West Conference bylaws. The only financial penalty BSU would face is the forfeiture of “the annual conference-wide distribution for the 2012 season,” which BSU notes is “between $1,400,000 and $1,900,000 per year, depending upon football bowl and basketball post season performance of conference teams.”
BSU could expect to receive $3.7 million annually from the Big East’s current media rights deal. However, BSU made sure to point out to the Board that “the Big East Conference is the only member of the BCS automatic qualifying conferences that has its media rights package coming due for renewal in 2012", and that “bidding its media rights on the open market in the fall of 2012 will result in a significant increase in the conference media revenue.”
As for the increased travel costs arising from the Big East being in the eastern portion of the country and Boise not being anywhere remotely close to the Atlantic, the school has figured its travel cost for charter flights will increase by $200,000 and $300,000.
In addition to Boise State, Air Force and Navy are expected to get football-only invitations from the Big East, while SMU, UCF and Houston will be on the receiving end of all sports invitations.