The people who claimed it was about markets, meaning largely just being in them, were always wrong. It always was about being able ro deliver those markets. BC never mattered no matter how big the Boston TV market because nobody in that market cared about BC sports.
Real CFB people, the ones who truly grasped what was what, and that means the SEC first and foremost, always knew it was far better to take an Arkansas than a BC or a Pitt or a Syracuse, because Arkansas has passionate fans and they watch, all the time. Proven fans that buy tickets and go to games. That is how to rank value. That means WVU is worth many times more than BC could ever hope to be worth. That sums the ACC failures in leadership that have gotten us to this pass.
Basketball works the same basic way, but as basketball is much less valuable than football, the ACC, which has all that passion and large TV audiences for basketball, is at a huge disadvantage vis a vis the SEC and BT.
The BE could never have become a 'permanent' Major conference in football. And once the BE got back to being just about basketball, the BE once again became a monster in basketball. The temptation for what I have always derisively canned ACC 'basketball-onlys' and 'basketball-firsters' should FSU and Clemson leave is to argue that the ACC should just return to being what to is in 1960 or 1980: happy to be also ran in football, with an occasional Top 10 team, but truly excellent in every way in basketball. So the fight would be between those folks and the football minded people at the remaining schools as to which schools to add to replenish the ACC membership.
Anybody who would want UConn and Temple in the ACC is wanting to focus all league energies on basketball. Anybody who would want WVU and UCF and CIncy, UCF, is all about trying to re-bolster football.
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