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Conference Expansion: Stanford, California and SMU Join the ACC

PhDeac said:
I haven’t seen anything about cutting loose from academics.
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Once the players are being paid and the schools finish pulling away from the NCAA, who manages academic eligibility? Many will quit going to class to concentrate on their primary interests.
 
Kent said:
Agree. Adding the academies does not save the ACC.

There is one path to permanently saving the ACC (as opposed to delaying the inevitable). Add ND and hope that triggers interest from other schools that move the needle.

Here's the risk: if ND is contractually obligated to join the ACC if it joins a conference but wants a better landing place, letting the ACC die would solve that problem.
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I'm not sure the ACC needs "saving," at least not for a long time. The ACC can "survive" by improving the quality of football (and other sports). Better teams, better schedules, and, in some cases, better coaches will "save" the ACC.
 
Wild bill said:
I'm not sure the ACC needs "saving," at least not for a long time. The ACC can "survive" by improving the quality of football (and other sports). Better teams, better schedules, and, in some cases, better coaches will "save" the ACC.
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Yes, if the ACC had three more teams in the top ten every year, the league would be on more solid footing. The only team in this league, other than Clemson, that is close to making a 12-team playoff is UNC-CH. The SEC would have had 4 teams last year and is going to get 4-6 teams every year.

If you had to bet on the next ACC team other than Clemson to make the CFP, who would you take ? I’d take UNC-CH first, then I’d be guessing. Now, the ACC has tons of upside, but that’s because the league stinks right now.
 
Mandel: The Pac-12 finally has options, including standing pat. But will a motivated ACC take a long look out West?
https://theathletic.com/2734693/202...resents-a-new-hurdle-in-conference-arms-race/

The ACC, far more than the Big Ten or Pac-12, is suddenly facing urgency to do something drastic. Former commissioner John Swofford locked the conference into a potentially disastrous long-term deal with ESPN through 2036. Not only will it soon be lapped by the other conferences financially, but ESPN is clearly putting all its eggs in the even-more-loaded SEC. ESPN takes over the current SEC on CBS package in 2024. Besides Clemson, most ACC programs will soon find themselves perpetually buried on ESPN2 due to the logjam of Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas and so on.
Most likely the only way new ACC commissioner Jim Phillips can renegotiate that ESPN deal early is to add new members. And no, Notre Dame will not be ditching independence soon.
Multiple Pac-12 sources wondered aloud whether the ACC will consider becoming the Atlantic and Pacific Coast Conference, teaming up with the Pac-12’s top brands (USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington) to become essentially a third superconference alongside the SEC and Big Ten.
Realistically, neither the ACC or Pac-12 can catch up to those two on their own.
It’s much the same concept Andy Staples proposed as a Big Ten-West Coast marriage, but the Big Ten, currently the sport’s most lucrative conference, is not facing the same pressure to act as the ACC, and Phillips is seen as more nimble and forward-thinking than counterpart Kevin Warren.
“It would be terrible for college football,” said one Pac-12 source. “But you can’t afford to do nothing.”
 
PhDeac said:
Mandel: The Pac-12 finally has options, including standing pat. But will a motivated ACC take a long look out West?
https://theathletic.com/2734693/202...resents-a-new-hurdle-in-conference-arms-race/

The ACC, far more than the Big Ten or Pac-12, is suddenly facing urgency to do something drastic. Former commissioner John Swofford locked the conference into a potentially disastrous long-term deal with ESPN through 2036. Not only will it soon be lapped by the other conferences financially, but ESPN is clearly putting all its eggs in the even-more-loaded SEC. ESPN takes over the current SEC on CBS package in 2024. Besides Clemson, most ACC programs will soon find themselves perpetually buried on ESPN2 due to the logjam of Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas and so on.
Most likely the only way new ACC commissioner Jim Phillips can renegotiate that ESPN deal early is to add new members. And no, Notre Dame will not be ditching independence soon.
Multiple Pac-12 sources wondered aloud whether the ACC will consider becoming the Atlantic and Pacific Coast Conference, teaming up with the Pac-12’s top brands (USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington) to become essentially a third superconference alongside the SEC and Big Ten.
Realistically, neither the ACC or Pac-12 can catch up to those two on their own.
It’s much the same concept Andy Staples proposed as a Big Ten-West Coast marriage, but the Big Ten, currently the sport’s most lucrative conference, is not facing the same pressure to act as the ACC, and Phillips is seen as more nimble and forward-thinking than counterpart Kevin Warren.
“It would be terrible for college football,” said one Pac-12 source. “But you can’t afford to do nothing.”
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That could be fun. Pac 12 could add BYU, Utah St and Boise St to get to 15 then we would have a 15 team Atlantic Division and a 15 team Pacific Division. Each team would schedule at least one cross division game in football and 2 in basketball each season.
 
PhDeac said:
Mandel: The Pac-12 finally has options, including standing pat. But will a motivated ACC take a long look out West?
https://theathletic.com/2734693/202...resents-a-new-hurdle-in-conference-arms-race/

The ACC, far more than the Big Ten or Pac-12, is suddenly facing urgency to do something drastic. Former commissioner John Swofford locked the conference into a potentially disastrous long-term deal with ESPN through 2036. Not only will it soon be lapped by the other conferences financially, but ESPN is clearly putting all its eggs in the even-more-loaded SEC. ESPN takes over the current SEC on CBS package in 2024. Besides Clemson, most ACC programs will soon find themselves perpetually buried on ESPN2 due to the logjam of Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas and so on.
Most likely the only way new ACC commissioner Jim Phillips can renegotiate that ESPN deal early is to add new members. And no, Notre Dame will not be ditching independence soon.
Multiple Pac-12 sources wondered aloud whether the ACC will consider becoming the Atlantic and Pacific Coast Conference, teaming up with the Pac-12’s top brands (USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington) to become essentially a third superconference alongside the SEC and Big Ten.
Realistically, neither the ACC or Pac-12 can catch up to those two on their own.
It’s much the same concept Andy Staples proposed as a Big Ten-West Coast marriage, but the Big Ten, currently the sport’s most lucrative conference, is not facing the same pressure to act as the ACC, and Phillips is seen as more nimble and forward-thinking than counterpart Kevin Warren.
“It would be terrible for college football,” said one Pac-12 source. “But you can’t afford to do nothing.”
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basically, a Catch-22. The ACC has schools locked in until 2036, but they are also locked into a non-competitive contract with ESPN. The ACC can negotiate that non-competitive contract and potentially make incremental improvement, but surely that would remove the lock on schools leaving - and some schools would immediately have a more attractive offer from elsewhere
 
thatguy2016 said:
basically, a Catch-22. The ACC has schools locked in until 2036, but they are also locked into a non-competitive contract with ESPN. The ACC can negotiate that non-competitive contract and potentially make incremental improvement, but surely that would remove the lock on schools leaving - and some schools would immediately have a more attractive offer from elsewhere
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I don't understand the logic that says the grant of rights is terminated because the league office negotiates a better payment to the schools for those rights.
 
The novelty of flying across the country to play Oregon State is going to wear off pretty quickly.
 
Deaconblue said:
I don't understand the logic that says the grant of rights is terminated because the league office negotiates a better payment to the schools for those rights.
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I'm haven't read the provisions of the current GOR policy, but I imagine any material change to the duration or scope of the agreement with ESPN would trigger a need to re-vote
 
BiffTannen said:
The novelty of flying across the country to play Oregon State is going to wear off pretty quickly.
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For football, I'd imagine the way they'd handle it is your primary opponents would be the ones from your original conference. And non-conference games would partly be replaced with the teams from the conference's "other coast".

For basketball, similar, except they'd probably do like a west coast swing or east coast swing. Be out on the other coast for maybe 10-14 days to hit those teams and then back to your primary conference rivals.

This could potentially work. We talk about the power of NYC-LA or everything happening on the coasts while the middle swath of the country is flyover country. Well, this would be the college sports equivalent of that.

And frankly, you get more of a palatable cultural fit with the PAC-12 teams (plus big state schools for revenue) than you do with adding WV or Cincy or some malcontent in the BIG 10. Stanford, UCLA, Cal, USC all pretty good schools.

Travel is a concern, but frankly, the student-athlete model is now completely over. Players are going to be paid and whatever help they need due to travel will continue to be provided.
 
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Yeah, and selling a ten day trip to the west coast to basketball recruits it sounds great, but it's expensive as hell and will be the thing that causes a players to become academically ineligible every year, if academic eligibility continues to exist. After the top 5 or 6 brands in the PAC 12, it's not that attractive of a league, just like the ACC. And I don't know how the ACC/PAC translates into more money for the individual schools involved. The PAC 12 is a mess financially for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is that nobody watches it on TV because of the quality of the product and the start times.
 
MichDeac25 said:
For football, I'd imagine the way they'd handle it is your primary opponents would be the ones from your original conference. And non-conference games would partly be replaced with the teams from the conference's "other coast".

For basketball, similar, except they'd probably do like a west coast swing or east coast swing. Be out on the other coast for maybe 10-14 days to hit those teams and then back to your primary conference rivals.
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I think that would be too much.

For football, we could have 3 annual games (for Wake, it would be Duke, UNC, NCSU) and then 4 games against the other ACC teams (on a regular rotation) and then 2 games versus PAC 12 teams, one home and one away. That would still leave 3 games- 1 for non-conference rivalries/other major conference opponent (UGa-GT, Clemson-SCar, FSU-Fla, etc) and 2 more for whatever teams a school can schedule.

For basketball, I would see the teams having 3 primary partners that you would play home and home every year. Then play one game each against the rest of the ACC teams and 4 games (2 away and 2 home) against PAC 12 teams. That makes for a 21 game conference schedule but we are already playing an 18 game conference schedule.
 
The Athletic article on the Big Ten poaching the Pac-12 has a better idea. Don’t join forces. Just poach Washington, Oregon, USC, and UCLA and throw in Cal and Stanford for the academic prestige.

There are no good options here. But staying pat or even just adding ND won’t be sufficient. The ACC has to make a bold move.
 
If we merge with the PAC-12, at least the Atlantic division will make sense!
 
The B1G could just add the whole PAC12 and it would connect geographically through Colorado (and possibly Kansas).
 
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