ACC/Big East Merger?

[HRE Otto IV]

Syracuse going to the ACC wasn’t just a good decision - it was literally the only viable decision. People who bemoan Syracuse joining the ACC are delusional.

If you think otherwise, you need to explain where you think Syracuse football ends up if basketball remained in the Big East. The most likely outcome would have been football becomes an independent, money hemorrhaging disaster (like what happened to UConn). Syracuse is not a public university that can just fill the gaps with taxpayer money, so that’s probably fatal to football and disastrous to the athletic department generally. So after they drop football (or drop down to FCS) - you have a big old building in a premium location dedicated primarily to a sport Syracuse doesn’t play (or play at a high level) anymore - eventually the Dome goes bye-bye and basketball is playing elsewhere. Just making the economical decision would need to be on the table - so Syracuse basketball at the War Memorial! If you think thats likely to be a “good product” - you would be in the minority.

Syracuse needed to find a stable home for football. That was priority #1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, & 10. Because without a stable home for football, nothing else in Syracuse athletics matters. They needed to worry less about being able to provide a good product - and more with being able to provide any product, at all.

Big East 1.0 died in the 90s. So had we turned down the ACC, we would have been a part of Big East 4.0 which is not even close to the original Big East. So even taking FB out of the equation, it was not really the Big East that we left behind.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I posted this elsewhere... ACC needs to add Houston, Arizona, ASU, Kansas, West Virginia, and UConn. If nobody leaves... you have 2 No Cal (Stanford/Cal), 2 Arizona, 2 Texas, 2 Florida, Ga Tech/Clemson, 4 NC, 2 VA, Pitt/WVU, BC/UConn, Louisville/Kansas, and ND/Syracuse. That would be 26 national champions going back to 1980. Easy to do 6 pods of 4 teams and make a balanced schedule, playing every team every other year... and roundrobin with rivalries. If some teams leave, so be it. As good a backfill as you can find. No basketball fan could lament this too much. Kansas, Arizona, Houston, UConn, Duke, UNC, Syracuse, Louisville... all in one conference?

For football, 23 teams + ND is no dumber or clumsier than 17 + ND. I guess you just give ND its 5 games, making 3 of them always FSU, Clemson, and Miami somehow.

If schools leave, THEN consider taking on some hoops teams just for hoops.

Disagree. Not taking the $ aspect into account (those schools do not add any money to our pockets), these mega conferences are killing brands. Very few have sustained success. You cannot survive these conference without getting a bunch of Ls. The sport IMO is better off being a bunch of 10 team conferences. When you have a conference full of kings, no one is king.

 

[DoctorBombay]

Syracuse going to the ACC wasn’t just a good decision - it was literally the only viable decision. People who bemoan Syracuse joining the ACC are delusional...


Syracuse needed to find a stable home for football. That was priority #1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, & 10. Because without a stable home for football, nothing else in Syracuse athletics matters. They needed to worry less about being able to provide a good product - and more with being able to provide any product, at all.

Yeah, I get tired of the whiny "shoulda, coulda, woulda, stayed in the Big East" folks too. It's totally delusional.

 

[Cusefan95]

Big East 1.0 died in the 90s. So had we turned down the ACC, we would have been a part of Big East 4.0 which is not even close to the original Big East. So even taking FB out of the equation, it was not really the Big East that we left behind.

You don’t have to sell me on the idea the fans who bemoan us joining the ACC and wish we’d stayed in the BE are delusional. That the Big East they long for isn’t the Big East they would have gotten is just another example of the unwillingness of a certain segment of the fan base to live in the real world.

 

[AcAndAc]

Disagree. Not taking the $ aspect into account (those schools do not add any money to our pockets), these mega conferences are killing brands. Very few have sustained success. You cannot survive these conference without getting a bunch of Ls. The sport IMO is better off being a bunch of 10 team conferences. When you have a conference full of kings, no one is king.

There are no other options. Nobody is going backward until the SEC/B1G do it or force everyone else to do it somehow (taking away several teams ). Nobody cares about success. Just short-term revenue (not even sure if profit is relevant anymore). We either stay the same and wait to be gutted... or add from a position of relative strength in advance of being gutted.

 

[AcAndAc]

Disagree. Not taking the $ aspect into account (those schools do not add any money to our pockets), these mega conferences are killing brands. Very few have sustained success. You cannot survive these conference without getting a bunch of Ls. The sport IMO is better off being a bunch of 10 team conferences. When you have a conference full of kings, no one is king.

BTW, the sports as a whole were much better with 8 to 10 team conferences. But they stopped asking me for advice long ago. Truth be told, they never asked me in the first place.

 

[Scooch]

I posted this elsewhere... ACC needs to add Houston, Arizona, ASU, Kansas, West Virginia, and UConn. If nobody leaves... you have 2 No Cal (Stanford/Cal), 2 Arizona, 2 Texas, 2 Florida, Ga Tech/Clemson, 4 NC, 2 VA, Pitt/WVU, BC/UConn, Louisville/Kansas, and ND/Syracuse. That would be 26 national champions going back to 1980. Easy to do 6 pods of 4 teams and make a balanced schedule, playing every team every other year... and roundrobin with rivalries. If some teams leave, so be it. As good a backfill as you can find. No basketball fan could lament this too much. Kansas, Arizona, Houston, UConn, Duke, UNC, Syracuse, Louisville... all in one conference?

For football, 23 teams + ND is no dumber or clumsier than 17 + ND. I guess you just give ND its 5 games, making 3 of them always FSU, Clemson, and Miami somehow.

If schools leave, THEN consider taking on some hoops teams just for hoops.

The current ACC schools don't get a dime more than the deal they're currently in with that expansion.

Which means there's no reason to do it. None.

 

[Cusefan95]

There are no other options. Nobody is going backward until the SEC/B1G do it or force everyone else to do it somehow (taking away several teams ). Nobody cares about success. Just short-term revenue (not even sure if profit is relevant anymore). We either stay the same and wait to be gutted... or add from a position of relative strength in advance of being gutted.

Can you think of any recent realignment that was primarily motivated by basketball? It doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen for a reason.

In the grand scheme of things, basketball is barely relevant. The ACC adding all those teams does less than nothing to put the conference or Syracuse in a position of “relative strength”. If that conference is created and the SEC/B10 poach all the current football powers so the ACC is no longer a power conference in football - we (Syracuse) are completely, totally, 1000% screwed.

 

[AcAndAc]

The current ACC schools don't get a dime more than the deal they're currently in with that expansion.

Which means there's no reason to do it. None.

There is no team to add that adds money. It is unclear that anyone other than UNC and Notre Dame will add money to the B10. But they are competing with the SEC and vice versa. So who knows what will happen. At this point, it is about keeping aconference. If the B1G and SEC take 4-8 ACC schools... and the B12 adds some other ACC schools, we could be left out. It will likely end up being either ACC absorbing B12, B12 absorbing ACC, or a mega conference. Sorry, just the reality. I'd rather the ACC be proactive.

As for money, if it keeps us similar DESPITE losing FSU, Clemson, UNC, etc... then so be it. Forget making more money, not losing revenue is a good thing too. And if people want to merge with the Big East, that is entirely basketball-centric... I am just saying to be proactive and take the valuable basketball schools from the B12 that fit from a geographic/scheduling standpoint, while also being P4 football.