Big East emails obtained by CBSSports.com show the league's reluctance to accommodate Boise State's demands in the days before the Broncos returned to the Mountain West.
In the process, Boise floated to Big East Commissioner Mike Aresco a potential three-game television deal with NBC built around Notre Dame games.
'[Boise State President Bob Kustra's] preferred tactic is to still put pressure on us,' Aresco told his membership [presidents and athletic directors] in a Dec. 30 email.
Boise rejoined the Mountain West after the league restructured its revenue sharing, including a bonus system for teams playing football on national television and a 50/50 split of revenue paid for making a BCS bowl game.
New York-based attorney Joel Lulla, who consulted Boise in its dealings with the Big East, said Boise staying no longer made economic sense after original projections of $7 million per year in television money dipped to less than $2 million in December.
Boise proposed to sell its own home games while the Big East sold Boise away games. Lulla said research showed Boise's football value justified the requests.
'Mike tried, but membership didn't support a special arrangement,' Lulla said. 'There was just no chance Boise could stay in the Big East without some sort of incentive of a bigger payout.'
Below is the email correspondence between key players: Aresco, Kustra and Lulla, along with a comment from SMU
President Gerald Turner about the difficulty of pleasing Boise. The information was obtained based on a public records request of Cincinnati President Santa J. Ono from December to mid-January.
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