• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Conference Expansion: Stanford, California and SMU Join the ACC

BarcaDeac said:
will ESPN even have enough money to pay all its media rights between then and now? especially if Disney sells them off?
Click to expand...
Good point. ESPN's viability could be the key to this entire discussion.
 
Personal preference but I would prefer Wake be a top tier Group of 5 team playing App and Charlotte every year etc, than go back to being a major conference doormat like Vandy. You probably lose any chance of a miracle season championship run, but as a townie I’m not really affected by national relevance or lack thereof
 
Oh man, remember back before Wake got Tommy Bowden fired and Clemson was known for screaming about their national championship in the 80s while they shat the bed every year. Good times. Good times.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Personal preference but I would prefer Wake be a top tier Group of 5 team playing App and Charlotte every year etc, than go back to being a major conference doormat like Vandy. You probably lose any chance of a miracle season championship run, but as a townie I’m not really affected by national relevance or lack thereof
Click to expand...
But the national fanbase, alums and brand would be massively hurt by this.
 
Pilchard said:
There is no "legal" way out of the GOR. At least no legal way that wouldn't require protracted litigation which might not even be over before the GOR penalty (the value of the GOR reduces each year) would no longer be effective. Clemson's or FSU's "out" of the GOR is financial, not legal. They are going to have to pay to get out of it.

So, Clemson and FSU continued membership in the ACC (they are already locked in through the 2024-5 season) will depend on:

  • Whether the Big 10 or SEC really feel like its in their interest to add Clemson and/or FSU
    • In my limited and possibly wrong view, I don't see either team offering enough value for the conference membership to further cut the pie; the Big 10 membership wouldn't take Washington and Oregon until and unless they agreed to fractional shares (and even then it was a close call whether to add the Ducks and the Huskies); the Big 10 is about to become the Big 18; don't think that conference really has the desire to go to 20 or 24; their conference tournaments are going to take a couple of weeks now;
    • Biff brought up a great point this week; the SEC doesn't want Clemson or FSU; they already have maximum coverage in those states; neither school adds anything to pie or brings increased dollars in markets they have saturated; they just don't want the Big 10 in SEC Country; so, unless the Big 10 interest is real; the SEC is good at 16
  • If the Big 10 or SEC are interested, at what point does it make financial sense to Clemson or FSU to buy their way out of the GOR;
    • Whether its $500 million or $900 million, right now, it doesn't make financial sense for either school to leave; neither school is in position to offer up a a half a billion to leave the ACC; if they do, its windfall for the rest of the ACC schools;
    • At some point as the GOR penalty diminishes, it might make sense to pay the GOR, but the terms of the Big 10 or SEC offer will play a role as, to the extent an offer is made by the Big 10 or SEC, its unlikely to offer full memberships to either school; right now, Washington and Oregon will essentially make what ACC teams get; so, the terms of the offer (to the extent there is one) will also determine when it makes sense to go.
  • Finally, I'm far from convinced that either FSU or Clemson are the most desirable ACC targets; I have always heard from a number of sources that the the top ACC targets are UNC and UVA; perhaps, the conference would take Clemson or FSU as part of package with UNC and UVA, but I'm not even sure about that. Yes, Clemson has been a hot football program for a decade; kudos to Dabo, Trevor Lawrence and DeShaun Watson, but Clemson went through a 20+ year period when they were just another school in a smallish state with a decent football program. Those days will return; Clemson is not Alabama. Clemson is still a good football program, but they are declining. Clemson might be happy to be in any Power conference 5 years from now.
Click to expand...
I'd like to think all of this is reasonable and true. The other thing I've been thinking about are the downstream logistics of adding these new teams, and at what point needing to focus on that pulls your attention away from thinking about expansion.

I read an Athletic article earlier today about the process the B1G just went through to figure out the conference scheduling model once the four former Pac 12 schools join. They went through hundreds of permutations and possible schedules, and finally agreed on one that is going to be in place for 2024-2028. I suppose they could blow that all up again if you suddenly went from 18 to 20 teams, but at a certain point, you have to move forward and focus on executing the day to day of running everything.
 
deacdixieboy said:
This. We would not be as strong of an academic school without P5 sports.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that's true. I'm all for doing everything we can to stay in a P4 conference, and athletics no doubt helps with branding, but there are a lot of really good schools without P5 sports - Emory, Wash U, all the Ivies, MIT, Cal Tech, Rice, Johns Hopkins, U Chicago, Carnegie Melon, NYU, etc. For those schools, most of their donations go toward academic programs, and they don't have to compete with athletics for their alumni donations.
 
Rafi said:
I'm not sure that's true. I'm all for doing everything we can to stay in a P4 conference, and athletics no doubt helps with branding, but there are a lot of really good schools without P5 sports - Emory, Wash U, all the Ivies, MIT, Cal Tech, Rice, Johns Hopkins, U Chicago, Carnegie Melon, NYU, etc. For those schools, most of their donations go toward academic programs, and they don't have to compete with athletics for their alumni donations.
Click to expand...
Wake is not on the same level as most of those schools and it’s located in something much less than a major city. The unique thing about Wake is that it’s a very good small school with big time sports.
 
Sure, Rafi. But every iteration of Wake Forest leadership has decided against being like those schools in terms of athletics while trying to position MSD as their academic peers. It's a tough needle to thread. Based on the status of college football and the US News rankings, Wake may not be able to do that much longer.
 
awakegirl said:
Wake is not on the same level as most of those schools and it’s located in something much less than a major city. The unique thing about Wake is that it’s a very good small school with big time sports.
Click to expand...
Absolutely, and I think the school should lean harder into this narrative than they have been. But, I don't think that means that we wouldn't be as strong an academic school without P 5sports, as was suggested. Take U Chicago. They were founding members of the Big Ten, had the first Heisman winner, and then decided to deemphasize sports and went D3. They are now #12 in the US News ranking. Dropping P5 sports doesn't seem to have hurt their academics.
 
Rafi said:
Absolutely, and I think the school should lean harder into this narrative than they have been. But, I don't think that means that we wouldn't be as strong an academic school without P 5sports, as was suggested. Take U Chicago. They were founding members of the Big Ten, had the first Heisman winner, and then decided to deemphasize sports and went D3. They are now #12 in the US News ranking. Dropping P5 sports doesn't seem to have hurt their academics.
Click to expand...
That decision happened long ago. Same with the other schools mentioned. It’s now a different world. It’s not a coincidence that our most competitive admissions year was when CP was at Wake.
 
deacdixieboy said:
That decision happened long ago. Same with the other schools mentioned. It’s now a different world. It’s not a coincidence that our most competitive admissions year was when CP was at Wake.
Click to expand...

No doubt applications go up when football or bball are highly ranked, but that’s different from maintaining or increasing academic excellence. There are schools in the middle of nowhere with weak D3 athletics that have academic excellence. Ever been to northfield, mn? It’s in a tiny town and bitterly cold yet Carleton College is #9 in the rankings. Same with Grinnell, number 11 in the rankings and a huge endowment.

I used to think athletics were necessary for academic excellence at Wake, but having gone through the college search last year with a child it became clear that there are a massive number of applicants that don’t care one bit about athletics. On this message board we’re in the top 1% of caring about athletics when thinking about college. There is a huge number that just doesn’t care. I was listening in on a zoom last year for students interested in Notre dame, Johns Hopkins, and Wash u and it wasn’t until 45 minutes in that someone asked about athletics and it was a 30 second answer and then they moved on to other topics. I was on tours of schools with 30 people on the tour and no one else had a clue about athletics at the schools.
 
I see your point, Rafi, athletics are necessary for academic excellence at Wake because Wake decided to make athletics part of the academic identity of Wake. Athletics are a reason students come to Wake instead of some of those schools.
 
Rafi said:
No doubt applications go up when football or bball are highly ranked, but that’s different from maintaining or increasing academic excellence. There are schools in the middle of nowhere with weak D3 athletics that have academic excellence. Ever been to northfield, mn? It’s in a tiny town and bitterly cold yet Carleton College is #9 in the rankings. Same with Grinnell, number 11 in the rankings and a huge endowment.

I used to think athletics were necessary for academic excellence at Wake, but having gone through the college search last year with a child it became clear that there are a massive number of applicants that don’t care one bit about athletics. On this message board we’re in the top 1% of caring about athletics when thinking about college. There is a huge number that just doesn’t care. I was listening in on a zoom last year for students interested in Notre dame, Johns Hopkins, and Wash u and it wasn’t until 45 minutes in that someone asked about athletics and it was a 30 second answer and then they moved on to other topics. I was on tours of schools with 30 people on the tour and no one else had a clue about athletics at the schools.
Click to expand...
I think this really depends on area of the country tbh. I went to grad school at several of the schools in your category. In the south, outside of Emory, it’s difficult to find an elite academic institution without D1 athletics (Davidson is D1). We go to being just another one of those schools listed, and honestly not as good as most of them on paper, if we don’t have P5 athletics. There is little to differentiate us in that case.
 
I don't think I would've given Wake as much consideration as I did if it wasn't P5. At that point, why not just go to UNC or State? Or Davidson like dixie brought up? Probably shallow on my part, but there's a handful of schools I didn't consider as much because a lack of athletics.
 
PhDeac said:
I see your point, Rafi, athletics are necessary for academic excellence at Wake because Wake decided to make athletics part of the academic identity of Wake. Athletics are a reason students come to Wake instead of some of those schools.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Wake has chosen this route. I like it, and I'm sure 100% of people on this message board do too, but it's certainly not the only way to have academic excellence. And, I think if we're really honest with ourselves, we likely did not put as much emphasis on athletics when we were applying or even in school, as we do now. This quote from the UC Berkeley president rings true, "I find that the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni and parking for the faculty."

Additionally, what I have seen of high school students is that for the very small percentage that focus on athletics when considering colleges, they now tend to go to Tennessee, UGA, etc. - looking for huge attendance at football games.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top