NEW YORK — Tim Brosnan brought the business chops to the job of Big East Commissioner, as the search to replace Val Ackerman last summer began to bend toward professional sports experience.

This is how the nature and the challenge of the job has changed. Ackerman tended to focus on collegial, NCAA and legal issues, prominent during most of her time, as college athletics was swamped with seismic change in recent years. The Big East, reconfigured as a basketball-centric conference in 2013, bolstered by UConn’s joining the fold in 2020, did remarkably well in the football-driven world, but last season the conference sent only three teams to the NCAA men’s tournament, and two to the women’s tournament. These things “are not the standard,” said Brosnan, who came with long experience with MLB and its TV arrangements.

“Some of it is the scheduling,” Brosnan said, in an interview with The Courant following his first conference Media Day address. “Our guys play 20 games against the toughest teams in the country, the round-robin within our conference, but we have an opportunity in the pre-conference play, and to make a mark is critical. Going into next year, we’re going to encourage people to reach out. We have a deal with Fox where they control play in a certain number of territories, and we had a conversation with them about our need to play nonconference games in those territories and they’re receptive to it. So we have to take advantage of the opportunity.”

There is only so much within the commissioner’s control. In a metrics-driven selection process, teams cannot be lobbied into what will now be the 76-team NCAA fields. It will have to be done with more impressive successes … and we all know what that will take. Brosnan will be counted upon to use his TV and commercial know-how to wring more revenue where he can, and maybe search under car seats and couch cushions. He has some ideas afloat, and as a Georgetown alum, a mover behind an NIL collective there, he has inside, as well as outside knowledge of what the Big East faces.

“It’s one thing to have those kind of expectations,” UConn AD David Benedict said. “But you can’t necessarily drive that down to the institutions. Ultimately, the institutions have to make those decisions to invest the resources they need to achieve those types of things. The conference can help by generating more money that will give us more resources to invest, but you really have to get the buy in from membership. There’s a desire and a want-to on the men’s side.”

Last year, UConn, St. John’s and Villanova went to the NCAA Tournament, with Seton Hall on the bubble but left out. Brosnan said he believes at least half of the 11 teams should be tournament teams.

“A lot of it’s going to come down to NIL and hiring the right coaches first and foremost, because in college the coach is really important,” UConn men’s coach Dan Hurley said, “and getting the resources. You’ve got to fully invest if you want to consistently be a tournament team, let alone compete for championships, and I’m not sure every team in the league is doing that.”

Last year, UConn and Villanova represented the Big East in the women’s basketball tournament, while UConn went undefeated through the regular season and conference tournament again. The Huskies have lost only three conference games since joining the new Big East.

“On the women’s side, we’ve got a long way to go,” UConn AD David Benedict said. “We’re a one-bid league right now and the challenge we have, we don’t get competitive games in our league and winning games by 30 or 40-point margins, that doesn’t prepare you for what we’re trying to accomplish at the end of the year.”

UConn has assembled an even more challenging pre-conference schedule than usual to try to harden itself for March Madness, but was not able to fit in a high-leverage game after Jan. 1, so the Huskies will go into the NCAA Tournament more than two months removed from their last big test.

“You can talk about all the revenue you want, but the key is, can we get more teams in the tournament?” Geno Auriemma said. “Five out of 22 isn’t necessarily the winning edge when, back in the day, it used to be 20 out of 32 when we had 16 teams. So you either have to get more teams in the league, or get the teams who are already in, figure out a way to pump them up. Maybe we don’t do a great enough job as a conference of pushing our agenda.”

The decline of the conference, in terms of NCAA bids, has certainly been beeping on UConn’s radar, even though both programs have had enormous success in the 2020s. UConn left the American Athletic Conference to prioritize its basketball programs, which were suffering there. That meant taking its chances with independence with its FBS football program. UConn’s ultimate goal is to join one of the four remaining power conferences, more realistic with the football program becoming more competitive over the last five seasons, and it could get a boost if the Protect College Sports Act becomes law. Parting from its old Big East rivals a second time is a much easier sell if it is done to help basketball as well as football.

“Of course, I want to have a great relationship with UConn,” Brosnan said. “They’re a critical member of the conference. They have ambitions for a football program. I have to make sure that Coach Hurley and Coach Auriemma have just as much say as the football guys in that equation. I have great respect for David Benedict. At the end of the day, the headliners are the basketball programs. Over the course of time, I don’t mean long range but short range, there’s going to be a winnowing of what schools actually think they can compete for the (College Football Playoff). The money is going to get out of control and the reward is going to be intermittent unless you’re top 12. So I think there is an opportunity for something short of the (playoffs) to be really meaningful, and that could be a resting place for a lot of schools instead of taking $50 million and burning it in a barrel in the hope of getting to the (playoffs) once every 10 years.”

So as another season draws near, the relationship between UConn and its conference is precarious, something in which the new commissioner and the course he sets can make a difference. Expanding the conference, or forging an alliance of some sort with a power conference like the ACC has been floated, often by St. John’s Rick Pitino, but has not gained traction.

“We are open to everything,” Brosnan said. “Whatever insures the health of the Big East is what I’m charged with pursuing. But remember, we are the best basketball conference in the country, we’re not selling short, we’re not selling cheap and I think in the course of the next couple of years there are going to be opportunities to add on, but we’re going to be selective about it.”

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