Whats the background of Notre Dames current discussions with the Big Ten Conference?
A. Notre Dame was approached by the commissioner of the Big Ten, Jim Delany, wanting us to explore the prospect of membership in the conference. At that time, we made known to him our position that we were very pleased with our association with the BIG EAST Conference for those sports that compete as part of that league. We’ve been very successful when you look at our three years of competition there. We’ve been very comfortable in terms of our identification with the schools in the BIG EAST. In addition, and we’ve said this very consistently, we prize the independence of our football program. Q. Can you compare the decision to move the men’s basketball program to a conference setting with the possibility of doing the same thing for football? A. When we moved the men’s basketball program from independence to conference membership, it was because we were having difficulty scheduling and because we wanted the advantage of having greater television exposure, not only because of the financ
