Big East Names Mike Aresco as New Commissioner

Shortly after 11 AM today the Big East Conference officially announced that they had filled the commissioner position which had been vacant since John Marinatto stepped down on May 7, 2012.

Aresco takes over the helm as Big East commissioner after working as CBS’s Vice President of Programming dating back to 1996. During his time spent at CBS, Aresco helped to handle contact negotiations with the NCAA for the rights to the NCAA Tournament. In addition to assisting with that major contract, he also negotiated a 15 year deal with the Southeastern Conference.

Since Marinatto stepped down as Big East Commissioner earlier this year, there as has been a lot of conversation surrounding the next person to take over the conference. Rick Pitino lobbied heavily for ESPN’s Jay Bilas as he felt the Big East Commissioner should possess the following abilities:

-A presence that Presidents and Athletic Directors will respect.

-A strong personality and creative thinker.

-A television background and a total understanding of the diversity of its constituents.

-An ability to bring football into the limelight .

Despite the fact that the Big East chose someone other than Bilas, it certainly appears that Aresco fits the bill that Pitino called for. Most importantly Aresco comes in with an extremely strong background in television, as he worked for the NCAA Tournament’s television home, CBS, for 15+ years. In addition to working for CBS for an extensive period of time, he has experience with another one of sport’s television monsters, ESPN. During his time with ESPN, Aresco was responsible for the overseeing the acquisition, scheduling and development of long-term strategies for all of ESPN and ESPN2’s college sports properties.

With Aresco’s extensive background in the sports television industry, it looks as though the Big East has made an excellent choice for their newest leader. Shortly after the announcement of his hiring, FriarBasketball.com reached out to Providence College Athletic Director, Bob Driscoll, to find out how he felt about the new conference commissioner. Driscoll had this to say, “We are excited about Mike Aresco being named the Commissioner of the Big East Conference. Mike has an extensive background in college sports television at CBS and ESPN.  His knowledge and experience make him an ideal person to lead the Big East in the new world that is collegiate athletics.  We look forward to working with him and seeing the league continue to prosper as one of the top conferences in the nation.”

There is no question that Aresco walks into a difficult road ahead as the conference is set to lose two of its most recognizable schools in Syracuse and Pittsburgh after this season. The conference will also be without West Virginia for this upcoming season as they settled a deal with the Big East to allow them to enter the season with the Big 12. In response to the shifting of teams within the conference Aresco told the Associated Press, “They have reconstituted the conference, it’s bigger and stronger. It’s got stability. Clearly, the schools want to stay to together. I wouldn’t have taken the job if I didn’t believe that.”

At season’s end, six new members are scheduled to join the conference, including Boise St. and San Diego St. for football only. On top of that, the conference will be welcoming Memphis, Central Florida, Houston and SMU in 2013, plus Navy for the 2015 season.

The first assignment that Aresco will have to address will be securing the heavily talked about television contract for the Big East. Beginning on September 1st, the conference and ESPN will enter a 60-day exclusive negotiating window. If the two parties are unable to come to an agreement within that time frame, the Big East’s media rights will be opened up for the market.

At this point in time it is unclear of how much impact the hiring of Aresco will have on PC itself but his hiring marks the first time that the Big East commissioner doesn’t have some sort of tie with Providence College. It will be interesting to see how things pan out moving forward but from here, it appears that the future is bright for the new Big East Conference.

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