Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 24, 1992 TAG: 9201240134
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BILL BRILL SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BLOCKBUSTER BOWL FUTURE IN JEOPARDY
DURHAM, N.C. - ACC and Big East football conference champions will participate in a bowl alliance, beginning Jan. 1, 1993, but, according to terms of the nine-year agreement announced Thursday, they may not know which bowl until the first week in December.The alliance was confirmed during a conference call involving officials from the four bowls - Orange, Sugar, Cotton and Fiesta - plus the commissioners of the two leagues and Notre Dame athletic director Dick Rosenthal.
After 11 months of discussion - "We had 15 meetings," said Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese - the two leagues elected to stay with the alliance and turn down an offer from the Blockbuster Bowl, a 2-year-old game for which the future is in doubt.
New wrinkles to the agreement were explained Thursday:
The nine-year deal includes a review after three and six years. After 1995, the Orange's contract with the Big Eight and the Cotton's deal with the Southwest Conference expire. At that time, something different could be proposed.
The Big East was assured its champion would play in one of the three traditional major bowls, not the Fiesta, unless it was a game matching the Nos. 1 and 2 teams.
Deals haven't yet been struck with a second tier of bowls, and the Southeastern Conference hasn't decided whether to send its runner-up to the Citrus Bowl. A meeting to discuss the SEC team is scheduled for Feb. 17.
However, Mickey Holmes of the Sugar Bowl said, "It's a second team, not necessarily the second-place team."
There will be a pecking order in selection among the Orange, Sugar and Cotton. The bowl that has the highest-ranked champion will get first pick.
Starting in December, the SEC will play a title game between its two division winners. Since one of the SEC teams might be the highest ranked in The Associated Press' poll, no game would be set until after that championship had been decided because the other SEC team might have to select third.
"We felt it was the best thing for football and the ACC to be part of the coalition," ACC Commissioner Gene Corrigan said.
"The [offer from] the Blockbuster forced all people to look at the coalition. If we accepted that, we [the leagues] would all end up in closed games and that's not what the public wants," Tranghese said.
With the failure of its plan to lure the ACC and Big East, the Blockbuster faces a gloomy future.
Wayne Huizenga, Blockbuster Entertainment Corp. chairman, had said he might withdraw his sponsorship if his 10-year offer of $4.3 million annually to the ACC and Big East to send their champions to Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami was turned down. The deal included lucrative, year-round merchandising and scholarship deals in each college town.
"I don't know that there is a future. What's left?" said Bob Guerin, executive vice-president of Blockbuster. "We've got to sit down and look at our options.
"Our philosophy has always been to build the bowl into a major event, to become a contender for a national championship game. If we're artificially restrained from pursuing those teams that would make such a game, you have to wonder why you're in the business."
The Fiesta's Chuck Johnson said he was pleased that his game will have the ACC and Big East only "when they want to come." It also is mandated that the bowl get the No. 1 vs. No. 2 game if those teams come from within those two leagues or Notre Dame.
Orange Bowl President Harper Davidson said, "This is the best thing we could do for college football, the conferences involved and Notre Dame."
If there is a tie in one of the leagues, the bowls would get their choice of the teams they wanted, Holmes said.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press.