Big East Conference Negotiates to Sell Name, New York Times Says

The Big East conference, which will be left with one of its founding schools by 2014, is negotiating the sale of its name to a new group of seven Catholic universities, the New York Times reported.

The schools -- St. John’s, Seton Hall, Marquette, DePaul, Georgetown, Villanova and Providence -- are starting their own basketball conference.

The price will be based on pools of revenue that include exit fees from departing universities, entry fees for new members and cash earned for games played in the National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s basketball tournament, the newspaper said. From 2006 to 2011, the conference amassed $17.7 million from those units, the Times said, citing the NCAA.

The Big East lacks the geographic boundaries it originally had as Central Florida, Houston, Memphis, Southern Methodist, Tulane, Eastern Carolina and Navy join Connecticut, Cincinnati, Temple and South Florida. The conference is seeking to add a 12th member.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nancy Kercheval in Washington at nkercheval@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net