By John Ostapowicz / The Jambar
Since 1979, the Big East Conference achieved national attention with its 11 institutions earning 44 national championships between eight different sports.
With March Madness officially underway, the Big East sent a combined seven universities to the 2025 NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
Vince Nicastro, deputy commissioner and chief operating officer of the Big East, said the advancement of several programs to the NCAA Tournament benefits the conference both financially and qualitatively.
“The conference receives payouts from the NCAA based on the number of teams that qualify for the tournament and how far they advance,” Nicastro said. “In addition, there are many other benefits that accrue from NCAA tourney participation and success — exposure, brand recognition, influence [and] recruiting.”
For men’s and women’s college basketball, the Big East is highly regarded as a Power Five conference. Nicastro said the metrics support the Big East’s position as a competitive conference based on its number of NCAA Tournament qualifiers and appearances on various conference-strength rankings.
“On the men’s side, we have won four of the last eight national championships, and on the women’s side, we have one of the greatest programs in the history of college sports along with several others, who are perennial NCAA Tournament teams,” Nicastro said.
With conference tournament wins, St. John’s University claimed its first Big East Men’s Basketball Conference Championship in 25 years, while the University of Connecticut claimed its 23rd title in the women’s tournament. Both programs received automatic qualification for this year’s NCAA Tournament.
Since 1985, the Big East has captured 11 NCAA Championship crowns in men’s basketball — with UConn earning six since 1999. Villanova University has three championships, while Georgetown University and Marquette University have one apiece.
Besides basketball, the Big East sponsors 22 sports as a non-football conference. Its primary membership with football programs such as Butler University, Villanova and Georgetown hold affiliate memberships in other conferences. UConn also has a football program and is a Football Bowl Subdivision Independent.
The conference also maintains affiliate members such as the University of Akron, University of Denver and Quinnipiac University. The NCAA requires teams to have a minimum of six members to qualify for competition.
Nicastro said the members were invited by the Big East to preserve the conference’s automatic qualification for certain sports, such as field hockey and lacrosse.
“In those two sports, the affiliate members have been outstanding and have strengthened the quality of play for the Big East,” Nicastro said.
The Big East also receives finances from TV deals, with its main partnership being Fox Sports. Nicastro said starting fall this year, the conference will extend its broadcasting rights to TNT Sports and NBC for cable network packages, in addition to Peacock for streaming.
“We are thrilled to be able to extend our long relationship with Fox, as well as to add these two new partners who provide us with extended national reach for our schools,” Nicastro said.
Nicastro also said the conference produces and distributes hundreds of events, such as women’s basketball and Olympic sports competitions through the BIG EAST Digital Network, using FloSports as its distribution partner for the past several years.
For a complete list of upcoming Big East games, visit its website at bigeast.com.