The Big East officially announced the addition of the Temple Owls as an all sport member on Wednesday.
The Big East highlighted Villanova's role in bringing Temple aboard. In addition, Villanova's president Fr. Peter Donahue said that the "Big East positions itself to back Villanova's potential move to FBS football."
What did that mean exactly? Not much for now as it turns out. Questions related to Villanova moving up to FBS were answered to the effect that the Wildcats have not yet received an invitation to the Big East nor is there a commitment to inviting Villanova if membership changes in the future.
Oddly enough, most of the initial statements and early questions dealt with Villanova instead of Temple. Temple's Board of Trustees Chairman Lewis Katz did say that if the time comes to invite Villanova in for football, Temple's vote will be yes.
About the rumors of the Big East paying the Mid-American Conference and Atlantic 10 Conference exit fees for Temple, Big East commissioner John Marinatto said
John Marinatto says Big East conference is "assisting" Temple with its exit fees to MAC and A-10, but declines to elaborate.
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) March 7, 2012
As for as the delay in bringing in Temple basketball until 2013, Marinatto said that the conference is using the next year as a transition year. There was an earlier report that the $1 million difference in the exit fee from the Atlantic 10 Conference with notice vs. without notice was the holdup on the addition of Temple's Olympic sports.
For more on Temple, visit our team pages for football and basketball. For more on Villanova, visit our team page or our blog The Nova Blog. For more on the Big East, visit Big East Coast Bias, or visit our page for conference realignment news.