The Big East cleared its last hurdle Tuesday with the announcement it had reached an agreement with Notre Dame that allows the Irish to leave July 1 for the ACC. So where does the Big East and the yet-to-be named conference that will be anchored by Cincinnati and Connecticut go?
Dayton will join Butler and Xavier next season in the new Big East, which is said to be looking at corporate offices in the metropolitan area. Creighton and St. Louis come on board for 2014-15.
Meanwhile, the unnamed conference of football-playing schools already is looking to expand, with Tulsa a likely candidate. The league, which has not settled on the America 12 name, will keep its league office in Providence, and is poised to implement some of the most innovative and interaction telecasts in college football history.
The league already is working with concepts such as in-game interviews with assistant coaches and coordinators on the sidelines, outside the restricted team areas. National coaches caravans also are in play.
Although the new ESPN/ABC deal is not nearly as lucrative as the one left on the table about 18 months ago, many of the new members such as East Carolina, Tulane, Houston and SMU will have a chance to play on national TV in prime-time slots on Thursday and Friday nights, and noon and 3:30 on Saturdays, with the opportunity to earn the prized Saturday night slots.
All of the schools have begun preliminarily exploring significant upgrades in out-of-conference scheduling.
Commissioner Mike Aresco wouldn’t confirm or deny any details but left no doubt about the league’s goal.
“We want to challenge the five power conferences,’’ he said. “And we fully expect to emerge as the best conference outside those five and play in top bowls. The core of our basketball conference is very solid with Cincinnati, Connecticut, Memphis and Temple. And we have football programs with tremendous upside that we intend to realize.’’
* Sources tell The Post that Barclays Center is getting “extremely’’ significant interest from Fox Sports and NBC to make a deal for all of the college basketball games that the arena controls.
Both networks need quality inventory (how many times can you watch Brian’s Song?). Barclays has been pushing its college basketball and boxing. The new gem in Brooklyn could get an exclusive deal for its college basketball games that are not under contract with ESPN, as it has for boxing — Barclays has an exclusive agreement with Golden Boy Promotions for boxing.
* Queens native Kenny Smith, one of TNT’s best studio hosts for its NBA telecasts, did the best job we’ve heard of differentiating between why the NCAA Tournament is so much more exciting than the NBA playoffs.
“There are 30 teams when the NCAA Tournament starts that have a legitimate chance to win,’’ he said. ‘‘In the NBA, there’s going to be four out of the 16 [teams that make the playoffs] that have a legitimate chance to win. Everybody else is just trying to play to get there. There’s no shocks.’’