Report: Big East Might Have Its New Commissioner Even As New Names Emerge

According to Mark Blaudschun, the Big East has found its new commissioner. Just don't ask him, or us, who it is. Blaudschun reports that the Big East has settled on a candidate and could announce it as early as tomorrow. He writes:

Although it is still a tightly kept secret, the Big East apparently is ready to introduce its newcommissioner. According to several sources, the Big East presidents will conduct a conference call on Tuesday morning to give final approval of the selection...If there are no snags, the announcement should come Tuesday afternoon.

Blaudschun seems more certain of who hasn't been picked than of who the selection will actually be. As many have noted throughout this process, the firm the Big East hired to evaluate and interview targets for the job has been remarkably secretive.

Speculation ranged internally from Big East Senior Associate Commissioner Nick Carparelli to former Patriot counsel Jack Mula to Pac-12 Deputy Commissioner Kevin Weiberg to Major League Baseball executive Vice President Tim Brosnan. All were considered, none were apparently chosen.

Other possibilites included former NCAA executive Greg Shaheen and Boston Celtic President Rich Gotham.

The Big East has stated publicly that it would like to have its commissioner in place by September 1 if for no other reason than that's the beginning of the 60-day exclusive negotiating window with ESPN for a new television contract that could very well decide the future makeup and relative standing of the conference in the future. An announcement tomorrow of the new commissioner would give the conference its new leader to go along with Chris Bevilacqua and his firm to engage in media rights negotiations. Though, as Dennis Dodd notes, the Big East could allow Bevilacqua to handle the TV negotiations and take longer to name a permanent commissioner.

According to Dennis Dodd, two new names have surfaced as candidates for the commissioner's position. Dodd writes tonight:

The names of Major League Soccer president Mark Abbott and UNLV AD Jim Livengood have surfaced in the Big East commissioner search, CBSSports.com has learned.

Those are certainly not names we'd heard up to this point, so if there is an announcement tomorrow, it could be someone nobody has expected up to now. Stay tuned to Big East Coast Bias as we update the site as new reports surface.