Sports

Mecca may get mightier

Thursday night, at the Rangers’ stirring OT win over the Bruins, a columnist from Boston who hadn’t been in the Garden in years said he was dazzled by what he saw. Then he was dumbfounded when I told him about the changes yet to come, notably the sky bridges that will span the arena.

I told him he should get to Brooklyn one of these days and check out Barclays Center, a more vertical bowl than the Garden. Barclays is edgier. The Garden is more opulent. Both are hoops cathedrals.

No one wonder Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and Barclays CEO Brett Yormark had dinner together the other night. With Rutgers and Maryland joining Penn State as “Eastern” representatives in the Delaney’s monster Midwest conference, it makes sense, and cents, for the Big Ten to bring some games (perhaps an in-season tournament or conference challenge?) to the Metropolitan area.

The Big Ten is the preeminent conference in the nation and Delany has a lot to do with that. The creation of the Big Ten Network has provided the league and its member schools with financial stability unparalleled in college sports.

As much as Delany downplayed the fact there are more potential Big Ten Network TV subscribers in the Metropolitan area than all of Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin combined to the 10th power as the reason for adding Rutgers and Maryland, we’re pretty sure the TV markets of New York and Washington were a factor.

That’s fine, because in this day and age, college sports is big business. And when you think big business, you think New York.

The ACC, bolstered by the additions of Louisville, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, also is eyeing the Metropolitan area. Those schools, in addition to Duke and Miami, love the idea of playing more college hoops in this talent-rich area.

The ACC rotates its conference tournament. When the Big East announced its breakup, the ACC put out strong feelers about bringing its tournament to the Garden, several college basketball sources said.

But the ACC initially wanted to take the Garden for a test drive, kick the tires for one year and then consider a more significant commitment. The Garden wisely wasn’t going to gamble one year on the ACC against a long-term agreement with the new Big East, which retains basketball powers Georgetown, Marquette, St. John’s and Villanova.

Reports that the Garden can get out of its deal with the Big East are somewhat misleading. Only if the new Big East loses enough key members to make the league no longer is viable can the Garden terminate the contract.

With the additions of Butler, Creighton and Xavier, the Big East should continue to produce a great basketball tournament at the Garden. We dare say the day will come when Syracuse is hardly missed. So that’s it for the ACC, right? Wrong.

Sources said an outside-the-box idea is being bandied about that is brilliant, albeit daring: If the ACC were to move back its conference tournament one week, it could come to the Garden. That notion has been discussed with some prominent ACC coaches, who were receptive.

Of course, it’s a long way from appetizer to dessert. Such a move would necessitate significant regular-season scheduling changes and TV negotiations. And the ACC might not want to hold its tournament in the same week when most of the non-power conferences are holding theirs, even though the ACC would be front and center.

There’s no debate on one point, said a source: The ACC would prefer to plant its flag in the World’s Most Famous Arena. The Big Ten is thinking more Barclays.

Unless, of course, the ACC doesn’t move back its tournament. Then Barclays could become a legitimate option for the ACC after the Brooklyn arena’s contract with Atlantic 10 expires.

Can you imagine? The ACC, the Big East and the Big Ten playing meaningful games, if not their league tournaments, in the nation’s largest media market!

Some might say this is parochial thinking, even snobbish. Perhaps. But recently Miami, still one of the great college football programs in the nation, had coach Al Golden do a five-city fundraising tour.

The first four stops were in Florida. The fifth was in New York.

Penn State took several of its coaches, including football coach Bill O’Brien and hoops coach Pat Chambers, on a 12-stop caravan. Nine of the stops were in Pennsylvania. The other three were Baltimore, Washington and New York.

The ACC will bring its football coaches to the Metropolitan area in early July. The Pac 12 will bring its gridiron coaches to the metropolitan area for the third straight year later in the summer.

Coaches, commissioners and TV execs know where the recruits, money and exposure is. It’s right here. Everyone wants a slice of the Big Apple.