UConn’s Basketball Title Just Creates More Tension

At some point, they have to figure out what to do with football. It’s a delicate balancing act

by John Furgele (The Tension Filled 228)

The Connecticut Huskies are a blueblood, whatever that means in today’s age of professional college sports. Beginning in 1999, the Huskies have won six NCAA basketball championships. They have made the Final Four six times and have never lost, a 12-0 record. Bottom line–when they get there, they win, and usually do so in convincing fashion.

But unlike the other “bluebloods,” there will always been tension in Storrs, CT. Right now, it’s just simmering, but Connecticut is different than Duke, North Carolina. Kansas, and Kentucky, and that is the cause for concern.

That cause: Football

Basketball-wise, Connecticut has it made. They win, they have an alpha-dog head coach, and they play in a conference that loves basketball. They have regional rivalries with St. John’s, Providence, Seton Hall, and Villanova; new ones with Creighton, Butler, Xavier; and ones renewed with DePaul, Marquette, and Georgetown.

What could possibly go wrong? 

Unfortunately for Connecticut, football has all the power in college athletics. They get the big ratings, they get talked about daily during the regular season, and most importantly, the networks are paying big bucks to broadcast football games.

Connecticut has a problem that no other Big East school faces because they have a FBS football team that is struggling to survive. Villanova has a football team but it’s not a threat because it plays at the lower FCS level. Butler also has a FCS football–in the non-scholarship Pioneer League—that will never threaten basketball.

Connecticut has to figure out what to do. Soon, the Big East basketball package will expire and go out to bid. Currently, the conference has a 12-year $500 million deal with Fox that runs out after the 2024-25 season. Each school receives about $5 million per year.

To compare, the Big 12’s new TV deal will pay each football member $31.7 million per year starting in 2025-26. Marquette and St. John’s aren’t starting football programs to get in on the action, so for them, basketball will always be number one. As long as the Big East keeps getting TV deals, the other 10 schools are going nowhere in this seemingly endless conference realignment game. 

As great as Connecticut basketball is, they have to save football, or admit defeat and either dissolve it or drop to FCS. They’re trying to survive as an independent, but they’re not Notre Dame. They don’t have NBC throwing $50 million at them to show their home games (plus the $17 million they’ll get from the ACC). 

Massachusetts were in a similar boat. The Minutemen were in the Atlantic 10, a basketball centric league that only has FCS football members in it. Of course, the Minutemen are not half the basketball program that Connecticut is, but they had the same football dilemma. 

Officials in Amherst no doubt wanted to stay in the A 10, but they had to save the football program, or put up the white flag and drop to FCS or dissolve it.

The decision was easier because they’re not a blueblood, so they opted to leave the A 10 for the MAC. That certainly is a step down in basketball, but it saved the football program. Fans may not like it, but those in charge in Amherst made it clear:  football is here to stay.

There is no chance that Connecticut would leave the Big East for the MAC, we all know that, but because they have to save, downgrade, or kill football, they will always be open to conversations from the existing power conferences.

They flirted with the Big 12 last summer, but the members didn’t want Connecticut football, but if they, the Big Ten, the SEC, or even the beleaguered ACC called, they’d have to listen. And, if offered a spot, they might have to go.

That would hurt and anger many of their basketball fans. When the university put football first (in 2013) by joining the American Athletic Conference, basketball suffered. Sure, they won the NCAA title in 2014, but that was their (in the American) first year; they still had that Big East pedigree and of course Big East quality players. Fans begged for them to go back to the Big East and surprisingly, the conference took them back, but that left football out in the cold as an independent.

As long as Connecticut has FBS football, this tension will continue to exist. I’m sure there isn’t friction between the programs per se, but you know each day, athletic director is David Benedict is trying to figure out what the future is for football and his entire athletic program.

If we looked at this purely from a success rate, why would Connecticut ever leave the Big East? They’ve won two straight titles, they get to play at Madison Square Garden, and they get to play–and beat up—their old rivals. Oh, they also get to play and beat up the rest of the country, too.

That’s pragmatic, which sadly, doesn’t exist anymore in professional college sports. That went out the window when USC and UCLA left the Pac 12 to play in the Big Ten and all those Eastern Time Zone games. It eroded further when Stanford thought traveling to Syracuse for an ACC soccer game on Wednesday night was a good idea.

Would Connecticut thrive playing at Kansas and hosting Arizona in basketball? Yes, but what they have going on right now is working perfectly so why move away from it?

The reason, of course, is money. You’re trading the packed Madison Square Garden game versus St. John’s for playing Kansas in Hartford. But, you’re also getting to play power conference football with a robust TV deal.

This tension will not go away until Connecticut figures out how to handle football in this new era of professional college sports.

And that, is cause for concern.