The Big East Conference (stylized as BIG EAST) is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in all sports except football, which is not sponsored. The conference has been officially recognized as a Division I multi-sport conference, effective on August 1, 2013. The conference was originally founded by Dave Gavitt on May 31, 1979.
Its nucleus is composed of the “Catholic Seven” members of the original Big East Conference: DePaul University, Georgetown University, Marquette University, Providence College, Seton Hall University, St. John’s University, and Villanova University. In December 2012, these schools chose to split from the football playing schools to focus on basketball, and in March 2013 reached a settlement, whereby they acquired the Big East Conference name, logos, history, and the rights to the men’s basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden. Butler University, Creighton University, and Xavier University also joined the conference on its July 1, 2013 launch date. The conference also entered into a 12-year, $500 million television contract with Fox Sports, Fox Sports 1 (FS1), Fox Sports 2 (FS2), and Fox Sports Networks (FSN) and a 6-year television contract with CBS and CBS Sports Network (CBSSN). On June 24, 2019 the member schools of the Big East all voted to extend an invitation to the University of Connecticut (UConn) to “rejoin” the conference, which was accepted two days later. UConn officially joined the Big East on July 1, 2020.
The football-playing members of the old Big East, along with several other schools, formed the American Athletic Conference, which is the legal successor to the first Big East Conference and retains its charter and structure. Both the new Big East Conference and the American Athletic Conference claim 1979 as their founding date. As part of the separation agreement, the basketball schools were able to retain the basketball records while the football schools retained the football records respectively.
Val Ackerman, former WNBA president, has been commissioner since June 26, 2013. On the same day Ackerman was named as commissioner, it announced that the league would be headquartered in New York City. UConn is the only member of the Big East to sponsor varsity football in the top-level Division I FBS. Georgetown, Villanova, and Butler do operate football programs in the second-level Division I FCS, though of these only Villanova offers scholarships to its players.
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