Sports

Game of name in Big East split

For the first time in forever I got to watch a college basketball game as a fan, not a reporter, and it nearly brought me to tears.

Sitting in Section 105 in the Garden, surrounded by thousands of Syracuse fans and my 8-year-old son who consumed a bag of cotton candy as big as a fire hydrant, I was reminded of the greatness of the game, the effort and desire of the players, the current that runs through the building.

Temple upset Syracuse in a riveting affair. It could have been the start of something special. It could have been March, a Big East Conference Tournament game, a Friday night semifinal. All that was missing was Bill Clinton in the stands.

But Temple and Syracuse will never play in a Big East tournament game. The Orange head to the ACC next season. Temple joins the Big East, at least for one season.

So what does the future hold?

The plan is that starting in 2014 there will be two conferences, sources told The Post.

One league will comprise the seven Catholic schools — DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Villanova — plus five schools from the following group: Butler, Creighton, Dayton, Duquesne, George Mason, St. Louis and Xavier.

A Post source said though St. Mary’s and Gonzaga are attractive candidates, the travel costs to fly non-revenue teams cross-country will almost surely make adding them prohibitive. The source said Butler, Dayton, George Mason, St. Louis and Xavier are the top five options as the league seeks to transform into an elite, 12-team, hoops conference.

The other league will be spearheaded by Connecticut, Cincinnati, Memphis and Temple — a solid core for a basketball league — while Boise State, BYU, Central Florida and South Florida anchor the football side. That league’s goal, bolstered by its standing as the only grouping with a presence in all four time zones, will be to establish itself as the No. 6 conference after the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC.

Questions that remain to be answered include when the conferences form and which keeps the Big East name.

“The dispute over the Big East name has all the earmarks of a one-of-a-kind case like the Indianapolis Colts trademark dispute in the early ’90s,’’ Mimi K. Rupp, a noted trademark attorney with the firm of Kenyon & Kenyon, told The Post. “Because the dispute could turn on so many different factors, this is the type of case trademark attorneys dream about trying in court.”

That means if an agreement is not reached between the seven programs that are leaving and the three that are staying, a long, expensive and potentially nasty court battle could be waged, something neither side wants nor can afford in time and money.

Rupp said the three that stay probably would win the case, but at what cost? And do they want the name in the long term?

“The three schools that are staying in the Big East will argue that the trademark registrations and name are no different than any other Big East property, which belongs to the Big East Corporation,” Rupp said. “When the Catholic Seven leave the Big East, the name stays with the corporation.’’

But it’s not a lock, not by a long shot.

“The Catholic Seven, on the other hand, will claim that the name belongs to them because they are synonymous with the Big East brand,’’ Rupp said. “Like trademark disputes over rock band names, the Catholic Seven will likely argue that they are like Mick Jagger, who was largely responsible for making the Rolling Stones, the Rolling Stones. “This argument is more likely to succeed if the Catholic Seven can show that they and not the three schools that are staying controlled how the mark was licensed. In trademark law, if you control the quality of the product sold under a trademark, you have standing to claim that you own that mark.’’

No one knows this better than former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, a Georgetown alum who was hired as a consultant by former Big East commissioner John Marinatto. Tagliabue knows the ins and outs of the Colts’ notorious midnight move from Baltimore to Indianapolis and the machinations that went on when the Browns were considering an exodus from Cleveland.

In other words, long before the Catholic Seven decided to secede, they knew what the legal challenges might be. Fortunately for everyone involved, the Big East once again has a strong commissioner who likely can get the split done as expeditiously as possible.

Mike Aresco, sources said, has been working tirelessly toward this solution: After the 2013 football season, the last year in the current BCS system, and the 2013-14 basketball season, he will sell the rights to the Big East name to the Catholic Seven. The league with those teams will continue to play its postseason tournament in the Garden.

The Big East is one of six Automatic Qualifying (AQ) conferences that are guaranteed a spot in the lucrative post-season football bowls, which makes the league name gold for a year. But going forward, the conference with football schools, according to several marketing experts, might be better off launching a new brand.

And, as Rupp suggests, the Catholic Seven would have a case as being more synonymous with the Big East than the three remaining schools. Georgetown, St. John’s and Villanova, the three schools from the same league that went to the 1985 Final Four, scream, “Big East.”

In order for it to work, Aresco must secure an automatic berth for the basketball champion of the non-Catholic school league in the 2015 NCAA Tournament. A newly formed conference must wait five years to earn an automatic berth, but the NCAA waived that policy as recently as 2000, when the new Mountain West was given a bid.

There are many obstacles to overcome. Boise State, for example, is in discussions with the Mountain West about returning to that league instead of joining the Big East. Television deals for both leagues will chart new territory because of their unique profiles: one mostly Catholic schools based in urban markets, the other a mix of basketball-heavy and football-heavy programs with members in four time zones.

Whatever the outcome, you can be sure trademark attorneys associated with every league are double-checking their bylaws.

“In pro football, we had the era of franchise free agency when the Colts, Oilers and Browns bolted their hometowns for shiny new stadiums,’’ Rupp said. “Now flash-forward to the era of ‘conference free agency.’ Will the dispute over the Big East name be like the Indianapolis Colts case, a wakeup call to conferences to lawyer up and hammer down their rights to billion-dollar brands before moving day?’’

This is what college athletics are all about now. Too bad, because that Syracuse-Temple game could have been the start of something special.