The Catholic 7 aren’t slated to leave the Big East until June 2015, but Commissioner Mike Aresco said Friday it could happen in 2014.
“As commissioner of the entire conference, our intention is to get this done as quickly as possible and as amicably as possible.,” Aresco said, according to the Hartford Courant.
“We’ll figure our what each side needs, we’ll negotiate it and figure our a fair resolution. Everybody feels that’s in the best interest of each conference going forward. … They had their reasons for doing this and we obviously would have liked for them to have stayed, but they were concerned about the winds of realignment and a lot of that was football driven. But there are long-term relationships that have been strong and everybody wants to figure this out. It’s not an easy situation. On the other hand, if you take it a day at a time, an issue at a time and everyone stays calm and deliberate about it, it will work out. And that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
The heads of the seven schools — DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s and Villanova — met Friday in New York and issued a statement indicating they had hired the New York law firm Proskauer Rose LLP and Pilson Communications, Inc. for television negotiations.
They are expected to three to five more schools to form a 10- or 12- team league.
“We had a very productive engagement among our group of seven and expect that there will be ongoing discussion and conversation among our group and colleagues in the Big East as we continue to pursue our evolution,” the statement said.
