Fox-y And You Know It: Big East Announces TV Deal, MSG Deal, New Partners

The New Big East made a bunch of announcements today.

• They will be joined on July 1, 2013 by Butler, Creighton, and Xavier, bringing the conference to 10 members.
• They have a 12 year contract with Fox Sports as a cornerstone of the new Fox Sports 1 network. The contract encompasses all sports sponsored by the Big East
  
• The men's basketball tournament will continue to be held at Madison Square Garden through the 2025-26 season.

Amongst the highlights of the press conference:

• Gus Johnson as master of ceremonies
• Highlight package of Big East basketball with Gus-gasm audio laid over the top of it.
• Providence College President Fr. Brian Shanley stating "We're at 10 for next year," when asked about expansion by SNY's Adam Zagoria.
• Fox Sports President/COO Randy Freer specifically mentioned women's basketball, lacrosse, and baseball as interests for broadcasting on the various Fox properties as well as helping the conference set up a digital platform.
• The camera guy and director not being on the same page with the order that Gus read off the university presidents, which caused quite a stir in Cincinnati.
• Fr. Shanley joking that the only thing not to like about Creighton was the flight time to Omaha.
• Georgetown President Dr. John DeGioia accidentally (on purpose?) ticking off Villanova football fans when he declared the Hoyas to be "the dominant football power" of the Big East.

You can check out this link for the official Marquette University release on the announcements. There's a bunch of quotes from both President Fr. Scott Pilarz, S.J. and athletic director Larry Williams, but this one from Fr. Pilarz is the most important one, in my opinion:

So I'm very proud of the role Marquette has played here, and I can't give enough credit to the way Larry was a real leader among athletic directors.

We'll take a closer look at how this new conference affects Marquette's sports other than men's basketball in the near future.