Memphis will join Big East in 2013-14

NCAA Basketball Betting Lines

02/08/2012 - Providence, RI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The ongoing game of musical chairs in college athletics has its newest player.

The Big East made it official on Wednesday, welcoming Memphis in all sports for the 2013-14 season, completing the conference's goal of having 12 football members.

"This is an historical day for the University of Memphis," said Dr. Shirley C. Raines, University of Memphis President. "On behalf of the faculty, staff, alumni, fans, students and especially, our student-athletes, we are thrilled to accept the invitation from the Big East Conference to become a member in all sports in 2013. We are grateful to president Judy Genshaft and the entire Conference Board for their unanimous vote for the University of Memphis and Tiger athletics."

The conference, once a basketball powerhouse confined to the largest markets in the northeastern part of the country, has recently been adding members to offset the eventual exits of Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia and to reach its goal of having 12 football teams.

Memphis, in leaving Conference USA, would be the 12th.

"It is with great pleasure that we officially welcome the University of Memphis to the Big East Conference," stated Genshaft, University of South Florida president and chair of the conference's board of directors. "Our Board was very impressed with the University, its ongoing commitment to academic and athletic excellence, as well as its strong community support. We are excited about renewing old relationships, starting new ones and look forward to working together with president Raines and her team in the future."

The Big East had already announced the additions of Central Florida, SMU and Houston as full members and Boise State, San Diego State and Navy for football only.

It hopes to create two divisions and stage an annual conference championship game.

Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced in September that they were leaving for the ACC and West Virginia is moving to the Big 12. TCU, which had agreed to leave the Mountain West for the Big East, decided instead to join the Big 12.

In 2015, the football-playing teams in the Big East are slated to be Boise State, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, Navy, Rutgers, San Diego State, South Florida and SMU.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.