So fill out the application.
If the ACC is truly worried about SEC/Big10 poaching and ND doesn’t want commit, then we should add Army and Navy and dare the SEC to fuck with the athletic futures of those two institutions.
I mean with added funding and exposure I could see both schools being fairly competitive and making bowls every 2-3 years. Hell they’d probably leap us.
If expansion is about adding media markets, neither Navy or Army move the needle on that front. Annapolis is essentially a suburb of DC, and other than the Army/Navy football game, Navy football gets very little attention in the DC area; way less than University of Maryland, and even less than UVA or VT, even though those schools are well beyond the DC Metro area.
Navy basketball may as well be a D3 program as far as DC coverage goes. Big HS basketball games are better attended and get better coverage in DC.
Ranked WF teams have played Army and Navy football teams with very good records over the years, and even then, the game stirs very little interest comparative to WF football games against either other ACC teams or Power V OOC opponents. I would be very wary of adding Army and/or Navy to think that it would create a net benefit for the ACC.
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.
ESPN and the SEC are trying to create monopoly. Besides ND the only thing the ACC can do is hope other teams step up and are competitive besides Clemson on a national level. It would help if FSU and Miami got back to their power days since they are national brands.
I think the only thing other conferences can do to fight back against the SEC is the new playoff format. There is going to have to be a limit on teams per conference at say 3. Otherwise the propaganda machine at ESPN is going to push for 5-6 SEC teams in the 12 team playoff each year. It's part of the reason I mostly preferred an 8 team playoff; take 6 conference champs and 2 wildcards, max 2 teams per conference.
By picking off Oklahoma and Texas, the SEC is changing the game. This all seemed like it was heading to a four league, 64 team, breakaway from the NCAA at some point, but the SEC is going about it differently. They can just keep picking off the schools they want and end up with a 24-32 team break away league. They won't need the Big10, PAC 10 and ACC to joint them, they'll pick off the carcass of the ACC and then be big enough to do the same to the Big10.
LOL - No chance.
Do you understand how big of an annual TV contract will be required to support a 24 to 32 team league providing each current member their prorata share of revenue?
Much less than an NFL contract. Salaries would be much less. So would the overhead since much of that comes out of university budgets.
Once the football programs cut loose from the academics, I could see lawsuits that pull back the use of student activity fees to subsidize a professional football team.