AP source: BYU, Big East end negotiations

Negotiations between the Big East and Brigham Young have broken off and the school will not be joining the conference, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press.

The person spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity because the conference and school have not been making their talks public.

“BYU to the Big East is dead. It’s not going to happen,” the person said.

The Big East was trying to add BYU as part of its plan to expand westward and become a 12-team football league.

At issue are television rights. The person says BYU wanted to retain the rights to its home football games and the league could not agree to that.

No other school in a major conference has such a deal.

BYU, based in Provo, Utah, left the Mountain West Conference after last season, entered the West Coast Conference for all other sports besides football and struck an eight-year-deal with ESPN.

The Big 12 had courted BYU earlier this year when it was looking to replace Texas A&M and later Missouri, but working out a television agreement prevented a deal.

The Big East ultimately ran into the same problem as it tried to persuade the school to become a football-only member.

The Big East had been talking to BYU about joining the league for weeks. But the school’s desire to retain the TV rights to its home games did not come up until late in the discussions, the person said.

Negotiations between the league and school ended in the last 48 hours, the person said.

The fruitless negotiations with BYU have held up the Big East’s expansion plans. The league for weeks has been courting Boise State, Air Force and Navy as football-only members, and Conference USA schools SMU, Houston and Central Florida to join in all sports.

Boise State and Air Force play in the MWC. Navy is a football independent.

The move west for the Big East was prompted by the announced departures of Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the Atlantic Coast Conference in September.

Then West Virginia announced late last month that it was leaving the Big East for the Big 12, leaving the Big East with five long-term football members and opening another spot. Adding BYU then became a priority.

Now that BYU is off the table, the Big East will move on to other schools.

Temple, which plays in the Mid-American Conference and was once in the Big East, has been trying to get back in. East Carolina, another C-USA school, publicly announced it had applied for membership last month, and C-USA rival Memphis has also been pushed by some in the Big East for its excellent basketball program, most notably Louisville coach Rick Pitino.

But Boise State, which is nearly 1,900 miles away from the closest current Big East member — Louisville — would prefer the Big East bulk up its new western division.

Provo is 382 miles from Boise, Idaho.

CBSSports.com reported Tuesday that San Diego State of the Mountain West is the Big East’s next western target.