College football and the conference expansion it’s driven is ruining college sports. F**k the SEC and the B1G! If the ACC disappears, my already waning interest in college sports will too.
USC and UCLA reportedly headed to Big 10.
- Thread starter hill6
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You didn't understand what I was saying. Let me rephrase. The ACC won't have the same membership ten years from now. I'd be surprised if it looks the same five years from now. But I understand why you want to live in your fantasy world. I'd like to be there too, because it's better to think the ACC can survive. Unfortunately I have to live in reality.
You said the same thing about NIL, yet here you are, threatening to have no interest again.
No one. Not even ND would be enough at this point. The ACC is too far behind in the money game. Although if I'm ESPN, I would consider giving the ACC at least a little bump. They don't want to lose half of the ACC to Fox. That's exactly what will happen with teams that go to the Big.
The Big Ten will want UNC, not Duke. UNC is the prize, you will bring the North Carolina TV markets, big state school with competitive football, and good academics.
North Carolina, Clemson, Virginia, maybe Georgia Tech for the Atlanta market, and the Florida schools are the prizes of the ACC. It is all about football. As an Indiana fan we lucked out that we were grandfathered into one of the big two conferences.
No, but that won't matter to the SEC.
You guys and UVA are the names we hear the most over here from the ACC (asterisk for Notre Dame since they only dip a toe into the conference on the sport driving all of this).
UNC is a prize, but it has nothing to do with the market in the world of streaming. It's all about brand. These super conferences are going to have 20-24 teams.. There aren't 40+ teams with a strong football brand. When you're starting to look at 20-24 teams, then duke is an obvious team to take. because of their brand name. Especially as an incentive to get UNC. Not saying UNC will make a decision solely based on that, but it won't hurt. But you're right about football being the main driver for this.
Streaming matters and schools that command big population centers will be a bigger prize. Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, Arizona, UNC, UVA, Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Colorado, and Notre Dame are all higher. That is enough schools to get both conferences to 40 with a few left over. You need four more to this list to get to 24 schools in each conference. I don't know if Duke is in that next 4 list.
Look how much trouble Kansas is having getting out of the Big 12. Duke has less bargaining power than they do IMO. The TV markets/attached population centers have contributed to who the Big Ten has added.
Edit to add Georgia Tech. So assuming that GA Tech and Kansas are 2 of next 4, is Duke one of last two? Ahead of Utah? Of Cincinnati? Of West Virginia? I don't know if they are.
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The fact the Big just added two schools in the same market shows you that they are going after brand first. About half of those schools you mentioned have no brand. That's why I think duke makes the final cut. It has a national brand.
There are more people from PA that live in NC than from Mass. So yes it could come a great rivalry. You have a lot of connectivity. Between the two states.
Penn State has 1 Sweet Sixteen appearance since 1955. Penn State basketball only has 2 NCAA tournament appearances this century. You must be drunk if you think UNC basketball will ever enter into a "great rivalry" with a bottom feeder basketball program like Penn State.
That is the LA, southern California market (Huge population). That market can and does carry far more then just 2 teams in actuality for worth market wise, just look at their multiple pro teams in the LA market, it is not a one team market. Brand matters, but market certainly matters too. Duke is only a basketball brand, and not a market. They are similar to Kansas in their worth to these conferences.
If you think Rutgers got added for their brand and not the market they are in, I think you are fooling yourself.
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Rutgers was added for the NY/NJ market. But things have changed. Streaming has made cable footprints far less valuable. The whole country now has access to every team thanks to streaming. So now it is more about how many eyeballs will a new school deliver if you add them to your conference. Do they have a big fan base that will stream games?
I doubt the B1G conference would add Rutgers if they had to do it again today. Because people in NYC can stream any B1G game they want. And Rutgers likely isn't adding a whole lot of additional viewers.
But the same could be said for the ACC. We added Boston College for the Boston cable footprint. We added Syracuse to get into New York. Would the ACC do that in today's world of streaming services?
If all of this is true, WV is a far better add than duke. WV fans are football fans. duke fans do not watch duke football even if it's on tv. They deliver zero "eyeballs" in the sport that makes the money and what conference would want to give them $100M for a few basketball games a year?
No one seriously believes dook is going to get an invite to the B1G/SEC. They are a small private school with a small alumni base and they don't have a good football team. The only way dook gets an invite is if UNC forces one. Unless UNC puts its foot down and says "we will only join your conference if you add our rival too," dook is going to end up a midmajor.
However, no one wants West Virginia either. The SEC has passed on them time after time. I doubt that changes. And the B1G will never invite a school with academics as bad as WVU. There is a reason WVU had to go across the country to find a conference when the Big East imploded.
I agree that no one wants WV...but they would still be a better add than duke if your interest is eyeballs on football. Waaaaay better. And that leaves duke waaaaay out.
GFY. I’ll stop watching when I decide, you‘ll play no part in the decision. If you enjoy college sports and like the direction they’re headed fine. Many of us don’t.
Notre Dame as full football member, and then drop Wake and perhaps BC and also add WVU and Cincy. We'd still get less money than the SEC and BT, but it would better than we get now.
But ND is not going to do that.
Dook is half of the biggest rivalry in the #2 revenue sport. That makes Dook valuable if paired with UNC.
But they didn't need two teams to capture the market. If the market was the main driver, they could have stopped with USC. But the brand of UCLA is very valuable. That's why teams like Oregon, Washington are ND will be playing in the Big.
You're absolutely correct, but this is a completely different world now. The reasons for adding teams now are different. The market doesn't have the same value as the brand.
Agreed. I don't think I've said anything to the contrary. They are a consideration for the 20-24 slot. Not the 16 slot.
I was just pointing out that this isn't the first time you've said you would give up on college sports. If it makes you feel better, you're not the only one here that continues to make that statement. You aren't alone in the hollow threats group.
I wonder how this will affect the fan bases. It's going to MAJORLY shake-up the whole freaking system. I mean, I'm really happy that these rich people have found ways to make more money. I'm just wondering if it will be something that the fans will be receptive to, in the long run. A lot of the appeal of sports- especially college sports- is the traditions. I dunno... maybe they'll just adapt and won't care about it.
I see your points, but if SC went Big 10 and UCLA went SEC it splits the market somewhat. UCLA has a very good football tradition as well, not quite SC, but very good. The SC/UCLA football rivalry is much more heated and storied then their basketball rivalry. The Big 10 getting the 2 big dogs in the 2nd largest market is huge.
Even with streaming it is eyes on the product that brings the profit, I agree it has changed the landscape, but we disagree a bit on the role market still plays.
I predict the fans will still tune in. During commercials, you'll hear the old guys talk about the good old days before everyone got greedy. The middle aged guys talk about how you just got to roll with it and the young guys asking why does anyone care about an old conference. The end result is fans still watch and the schools keep making money. It's really no different than any other changes in sports or society at large.
The world is changing. Sometimes that change is good, sometimes bad. I think the future of college sports are in the latter group.
I think one of the changes we are facing is the shift toward catering to the younger demographic! It used to be the oldsters who called the shots because they had all the money and power. Older peeps are far more likely to hold to and value tradition as opposed to youngsters who can't even remember the traditions! The latest generations grew up in a world with absolutely no tie to their neighborhood or city. They literally have access to the entire world in a box; they consider peeps met online as their tribe and many of them are spread around the world! The old days when you loved and fought for your neighborhood or city are gone and this is just the latest example! Sports holds a mirror to society and sometimes we just don't like what we see in the mirror!
That rivalry... 2-3 games every year...is not worth $100M+/yr.
Next on the horizon, I see, the teams of those two conferences that aren't in the playoff, will seed the conference and play head to head. Getting rid of the bowl games..
Adding some school/team for a cable footprint that school/team cannot deliver beccause it does not have nearly enough fans is just plain stupid. You can add Tulane, but Tulane cannot hope to deliver the New Orleans market to you. Ditto Rice and the Houston market. SMU and the Dallas market.
What the ACC did in adding BC is assume that adding a small private school located in a huge market would mean fans suddenly appear that the school has never had before. Syracuse delivers in basketball, but not in football, which is at least 4 times bigger and more powerful than basketball.
At every step of the way, the ACC has acted too little and far too late, as well as stupidly because we wanted to avoid acting like the redneck SEC. When we added FSU, we should have then gone to 12. We should have re-added SoCar to keep the SEC out of the Carolinas. Members #11 and 12 should have been VT and WVU. That 12 member league would have very fun to watch in football, and its football quality would have been second only to the SEC most years. The ACC then would have held a football Championship Game the same year as the SEC. The ACC would have been a leader rather than a very late follower.
It's not, which tells you how much negative value Wake has.
I think he's saying it adds no value, which is true. Since it adds no value it hurts the ACC, which is debatable.
In terms of network money, Wake absolutely hurts the ACC. They add less than nothing and take a full share. UNC has to abandon the ACC much as I hate it. Can't wait until '36, either. They should already be negotiating with the big two and figure out what it will cost later. Waiting until 2036 guarantees they fall to second-tier status across the board...no athletic program can compete with a $60M+ deficit every year in funding.
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