Sports

‘New’ Big East announces additional teams, MSG to remain tournament host

Welcome to the New Big East.

The historic basketball conference officially announced that it would be expanding to 10 teams by accepting three new members, Butler, Creighton and Xavier, to join what was being referred to as the “Catholic 7.”

“Today we re-launch the Big East,” Providence College president Fr. Brian Shanley said. “In building upon our firm traditions of spirited competition, intense rivalries and high achievement in intercollegiate sports, the Big East will continue to be a source of tremendous excitement.”

In addition to the new members, the conference will be keeping the Big East name and Madison Square Garden as the site of its conference tournament.

Seven of the original Big East members, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s and Villanova will continue the basketball-rich tradition that started in 1979, adding Butler and Xavier, who will be leaving the Atlantic 10, and Creighton, which will be leaving the Missouri Valley Conference.

“I am especially honored to be here today because what we relaunch today is really the culmination of the work of [Former Big East commissioner] Dave Gavitt,” Shanley said.

“We used the same [criteria for expansion] as when the conference was founded way back when. We came to the conclusion that [Butler, Xavier and Creighton] were the best possible schools we could ask to join us.”

Butler, the only non-Catholic university in the new Big East, joined the Atlantic 10 prior to this season.

Despite rumors that the Big East would also look to add Dayton and St. Louis to its ranks, the conference will remain 10 teams through the 2013-14 season at the very least.

“We have discussed actively a number of schools that are really strong potential partners for us,” Shanley said. “We also believe that the landscape of college sports has not stopped morphing and there may be more movement. For now, we are very happy at 10.”

The Big East also officially announced that it will keep its conference tournament at Madison Square Garden, where it has been held since 1983.

“We are pleased to announce the continuation of a long and happy marriage with Madison Square Garden,” Shanley said. “There’s nothing like Madison Square Garden and the Big East tournament. The Garden is the temple of basketball, there is no better place to watch basketball.”

The new Big East will differ from the previous incarnation in the sense that it will be a basketball-centric conference. The original members of the Big East schools had attempted to accommodate its football members over the 30-year history, adding members such as Rutgers, West Virginia, Miami, and Virginia Tech.

The conference was able to withstand the departures of Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech ten years ago but when Notre Dame, Louisville and Rutgers all announced they would be leaving during a three-month period in 2012, a move needed to be made.

“We had lost three members,” Georgetown president Dr. John DiGioia said. “We were really trying to wrestle with what was the long term future for us. The logic that had held us together [previously] was the sense that we would be stronger as basketball programs if we were affiliated with other basketball programs that accommodated football, and that dynamic was coming apart in the fall.”

“Our decision to separate from the football schools was based on a feeling that the [seven former Big East schools] football-basketball model was unstable,” Shanley said. “We were looking for stability.”

The conference also announced a 12-year multi-platform media partnership with the newly announced Fox Sports 1 network, which will broadcast more than 100 men’s regular season basketball games and will carry the Big East Tournament each March.

Announced earlier this month by News Corporation, which also owns The Post, Fox Sports 1 will launch on August 17 and is expected to take aim at ESPN as a national sports media outlet.

asulla-heffinger@nypost.com