ACC/PAC Merger Idea

[WoadBlue]

Cal brings nothing

You'd have to explain that not just to Stanford, but to schools like Oregon and Washington, as well as to TV people across CA.

 

[Orangefizz]

Yep. ND isn going to want that football claim to independence, and that means a 21 team ACC and pac meter of some type could work very well, with 7 Pac and then 14 in EST (s well as ND). Then once Pac schools would have 6 football games per year against each other. which would keep them grounded inn their how area, but then also play a bunch of games against the ACC-East, and all Pac teams need to play teams from the east to secure larger audiences.

And making that big type move is when the ACC would make sense to drop Wake and BC, and replace with WVU and probably Cincinnati.

That 21 member ACC-Pac, plus ND as part time for football, would not make as much money as BT or SEC but would get reasonably close, and have all kinds of top teams in both revenue sports.

It is much better to try that than to just accept ESAPN squeezing the ACC to death so the SEC can take what it wants and the BT can get what it can take.

The easiest path is for the ACC to acquire the 7 PAC schools. Colorado could go back to the big 12 and Oregon St/Washington St to the mountain west conference.

There’s no way the ACC is dropping Wake Forest as a founding member and we are not breaking the big 12 grant the right by adding West Virginia or Cincinnati. It’s unlikely Notre Dame ever fully joins a conference in football.

If there was 3 seven-team divisions, each team plays their own division 6 games and a home/home with the other two divisions. Notre Dame would rotate through the teams and play everyone once every three years (7 games annual schedule commitment).

Protected rivalries like Duke-Carolina and Miami-FSU would need to be built into the schedule agreement.

If there were unequal revenue sharing amongst teams based on field performance,that could placate the large factory southern schools (Clemson, FSU, Miami etc). A model like the top three teams receive 100% of the SEC money, The next tier receive 75%, next tier 60%, bottom tier 50% of SEC $ could work if the teams agreed to this type of model. It appears the ACC is likely to follow the unequal revenue sharing model.

Boston College
Syracuse
Pittsburgh
Louisville
Duke
Wake Forest
Miami

Virginia
Virginia Tech
North Carolina
NC State
Clemson
Georgia Tech
Florida St

Arizona
Arizona St
Utah
Stanford
California
Oregon
Washington

 

[Dinkyspond]

Why would anyone want UConn?

The problems with the Pac start with the fact that Colorado is huge dud - being the very bottom or next to bottom of the Pac in TV viewers for basketball and ranging from 9-12 in football TV viewers. If you are trying to secure the 8 best of the Pac 10 in terms of TV viewers drawn to their games, Colorado aint going to make it. In fact only 7 Pac schools have enough combined football and basketball TV viewers to matter: Oregon, Washington, Cal, Stanford, Utah, Arizona, Arizona St.

If you could get that 7, then you have 21 football members play ND as a football partial.

Colorado is going to be the talk of college football with Coach Prime if he turns it around and I believe he will.

 

[WoadBlue]

Colorado is going to be the talk of college football with Coach Prime if he turns it around and I believe he will.

Even if the Buffs get back to a bunch of 8 win teams, they still draw no TV audience. The Avalanche are 2 or 3 times bigger in the Denver market than is Colorado football. And the Broncos power is about 10 times that of the Avalanche.

No funny flashy coach can change that.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Even if the Buffs get back to a bunch of 8 win teams, they still draw no TV audience. The Avalanche are 2 or 3 times bigger in the Denver market than is Colorado football. And the Broncos power is about 10 times that of the Avalanche.

No funny flashy coach can change that.

They draw no TV audience because they stink and are relegated to the bottom TV options. That shouldn't be hard to understand. That would be true for Oregon as well if the roles were reversed.


Edit

So Cal who has in their market the 49ers, the Warriors, the Giants, the Sharks, the Earthquakes, Stanford, San Jose State, San Fransisco, Saint Mary's, and Santa Clara is a great add but Colorado is not? Good thing the Raiders and the A's are gone too.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

You'd have to explain that not just to Stanford, but to schools like Oregon and Washington, as well as to TV people across CA.

They all already know that Cal adds nothing. What exactly do YOU think Cal adds? You never explain it. It should be pretty darn easy.

Stanford and Cal are rivals but adding Cal would be like the SEC taking Duke because they are UNC's rival. Actually worse since Duke has BBall at least. Also unlike UNC, Stanford has no pull in this. They get left behind or go forward.

You really think Washington and Oregon are turning down invites to other conferences unless Cal is included? That is funny.

If Cal was a big TV draw the B16 would not have left them behind. And the P10 would be getting a good TV contract.

Cal has no FB and no BBall brand. No one outside of Cal fans cares about watching a Cal game. They have a weak history in both sports. In terms of geographic footprint they are redundant if you take Stanford, and both together are not worth it. They are not committed to big time sports. Their fan base is small, and won't provide much in subscription revenue. Unlike Stanford, they don't have ties to Notre Dame.


Cal's main hope in expansion is that someone finds them more attractive than Stanford, and Stanford gets left behind. The B16 already has Cal (LA), they don't need Cal (Berkeley).

 

[HRE Otto IV]

The easiest path is for the ACC to acquire the 7 PAC schools. Colorado could go back to the big 12 and Oregon St/Washington St to the mountain west conference.

There’s no way the ACC is dropping Wake Forest as a founding member and we are not breaking the big 12 grant the right by adding West Virginia or Cincinnati. It’s unlikely Notre Dame ever fully joins a conference in football.

If there was 3 seven-team divisions, each team plays their own division 6 games and a home/home with the other two divisions. Notre Dame would rotate through the teams and play everyone once every three years (7 games annual schedule commitment).

Protected rivalries like Duke-Carolina and Miami-FSU would need to be built into the schedule agreement.

If there were unequal revenue sharing amongst teams based on field performance,that could placate the large factory southern schools (Clemson, FSU, Miami etc). A model like the top three teams receive 100% of the SEC money, The next tier receive 75%, next tier 60%, bottom tier 50% of SEC $ could work if the teams agreed to this type of model. It appears the ACC is likely to follow the unequal revenue sharing model.

Boston College
Syracuse
Pittsburgh
Louisville
Duke
Wake Forest
Miami

Virginia
Virginia Tech
North Carolina
NC State
Clemson
Georgia Tech
Florida St

Arizona
Arizona St
Utah
Stanford
California
Oregon
Washington

Show me the money. Where is it coming from? ESPN isn't going to pay the ACC 2x as much money because the P10 (who ESPN thinks is worth less than the ACC) is now an ACC division.

The bottom tier is going to want their bottom line to be the same as today. So how do you justify ESPN paying the bottom 1/3 the same, the middle 1/3 25% more, the next 1/3 50% more, and the top 3 teams 2x as much as they currently do?

If your argument is the bottom and middle 1/3s would be paid less, WHY would they AGREE to that? That makes them worse off than currently.

Within the ACC you are losing rivalries. Or if you protect those cross over games, you play the other teams once every 7 years. How is that beneficial for anyone?

Three divisions of 7 will never work. Four divisions of 5 or Six divisions of 4 could work for scheduling but the money is NOT there to make it happen.

 

[Orangefizz]

Show me the money. Where is it coming from? ESPN isn't going to pay the ACC 2x as much money because the P10 (who ESPN thinks is worth less than the ACC) is now an ACC division.

The bottom tier is going to want their bottom line to be the same as today. So how do you justify ESPN paying the bottom 1/3 the same, the middle 1/3 25% more, the next 1/3 50% more, and the top 3 teams 2x as much as they currently do?

If your argument is the bottom and middle 1/3s would be paid less, WHY would they AGREE to that? That makes them worse off than currently.

Within the ACC you are losing rivalries. Or if you protect those cross over games, you play the other teams once every 7 years. How is that beneficial for anyone?

Three divisions of 7 will never work. Four divisions of 5 or Six divisions of 4 could work for scheduling but the money is NOT there to make it happen.

here are some ways that ESPN could generate greater revenue to pay higher amounts for its most valuable properties. One would be to fold the PAC teams into an expanded ACC network. This would provide inventory across multiple time zones. The second would be to have a final four conference championship semifinals. Third would be to require Notre Dame to play seven annual games against expanded ACC teams.

The top 3 teams would earn 100% of SEC dollars, teams 4-10 80% and teams 11-21 60%

 

[HRE Otto IV]

here are some ways that ESPN could generate greater revenue to pay higher amounts for its most valuable properties. One would be to fold the PAC teams into an expanded ACC network. This would provide inventory across multiple time zones. The second would be to have a final four conference championship semifinals. Third would be to require Notre Dame to play seven annual games against expanded ACC teams.

That isn't even close to the amount of money needed to advocate the payouts you are proposing.

IMO the future budgets for the networks will go toward acquiring partial TV rights for the B16 and SEC. Those payouts will keep rising, but the overall budgets will not. Which means the amount of money going out to non B16 and SEC teams will start going down. The gap will only get larger. There is no way to close the gap as there isn't enough money to go around.

Edit

To expand further on what I think will eventually happen for TV:

Package 1: Saturday Night Game of the Week (likely CBS/NBC). This is the first pick and the 7:30 game.

Package 2: Division Game of the Week (likely ESPN/FOX). So if the conferences go to six divisions of four, that means 6 games to be split between Noon or 3:30. For example the regional market game will be on ABC/FOX, the best out of market game on ESPN/FS1, the other game on ESPN+/FSG.

Package 3: Friday Night Game (likely Amazon/Apple). This will be at best the 3rd best game and at worst 8th best game.

Then the conference network would have games at Noon, 3:30, and 7:30.

Before conference play there will be weeks where you have several more games. During conference season that covers most games since some teams will have byes. But there will be weeks where you have a 12th game. In both cases these can be streamed by the conference network.

With several TV packages the networks will be exhausting their budgets to acquire the B16/SEC rights. Which leaves AACesque money to be used on the ACC/B12/P10 TV rights. While the left behinds are making $30Mish now, in 15 years they might be making $15Mish while the B16/SEC are making $150Mish.

There is only so much money to go around. Even if the ACC/B12/P10 TV rights are worth more, there is no money left for the payout.

 

[sufandu]

That's easy. Plug WVU into the UConn slot. They shouldn't be at the big boy table anyway.

Yeah, I get that. The idea of having UConn as a basketball rival is appealing. I wanna eat my cake and have it too.

 

[sufandu]

Football being at least 4 times more valuable than basketball means a great deal. Specifically it means that UConn has no real value.

I don't care about value. I'm sick of money ruining college sports. If we're talking about hypotheticals, all I care about is the game. Good rivals make that better for both players and fans.

 

[TexanMark]

Colorado is going to be the talk of college football with Coach Prime if he turns it around and I believe he will.

Not convinced yet...but we'll see.

He has to first get healthy.

 

[All4SU]

Regardless of which teams bring what, if you were starting a conference from scratch, you would never have four teams from one state not named Texas.

 

[WoadBlue]

Not convinced yet...but we'll see.

He has to first get healthy.

He also has to prove he can win at a top level. JSU is not just 1AA (FCS) but the lowest 1AA. No SWAC team wins the 1AA National Championship or even reaches the semis. I doubt one has reached the quarters in at least 25 years.

Winning in the SWAC is like the 1A version of winning in CUSA.

 

[WoadBlue]

I don't care about value. I'm sick of money ruining college sports. If we're talking about hypotheticals, all I care about is the game. Good rivals make that better for both players and fans.

UConn makes a good rival for no one in 1A football - except maybe UMass. So unless we are talking about Syracuse going back to the BE, the Syracuse-UConn hoops rivalry of old has no meaning or value.

 

[WoadBlue]

Regardless of which teams bring what, if you were starting a conference from scratch, you would never have four teams from one state not named Texas.

That is especially true of NC, but I do get the CA quartet as belonging.

 

[sufandu]

UConn makes a good rival for no one in 1A football - except maybe UMass. So unless we are talking about Syracuse going back to the BE, the Syracuse-UConn hoops rivalry of old has no meaning or value.

Did you read my previous posts? Again, I care nothing about value.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Regardless of which teams bring what, if you were starting a conference from scratch, you would never have four teams from one state not named Texas.

You can make a pretty good argument that no conference should have more than 2 from the same state. And most states it is hard to even justify two. The only state that has a legit justification for three is Florida.

The ACC financially is better off dumping Duke and Wake.

I have always thought the B12 adding Houston was a mistake financially, but makes sense athletically.

It is possible that the only state that will have three teams within the B16 or SEC is Indiana

 

[WoadBlue]

Did you read my previous posts? Again, I care nothing about value.

Not caring about value at all is the way to find yourself in a lose-lose situation fiscally. UConn vs UMass might seem like a great border state rivalry if played annually, but it can never have any value even just within New England. So if pursued, it would not help UConn at all and probably would hurt UConn a good deal. Actual value must be taken into account. Eventually value matters a great deal. The ACC's great failure has been to avoid playing hardball fiscally in early stages while acting always to think in terms of protecting the closeness (geographic and otherwise) of the league at its start. So while the SEC was focused always on maximizing football value and quality, the ACC was focused on saving closeness. And that has meant that the ACC always has reacted too late to what the SEC has done to maximize its football value.

The flaw in a Tragic Hero is always bound up tightly, even inextricably, with what makes him a hero. He is brought down by something that was necessary to making him great. He fails to discern what ws necessary to discern in order not to fall. And he fails to discern precisely because of what and how he became great.

 

[WoadBlue]

You can make a pretty good argument that no conference should have more than 2 from the same state. And most states it is hard to even justify two. The only state that has a legit justification for three is Florida.

The ACC financially is better off dumping Duke and Wake.

I have always thought the B12 adding Houston was a mistake financially, but makes sense athletically.

It is possible that the only state that will have three teams within the B16 or SEC is Indiana

States are not the same. The key to how many Major conference teams a state can support is how many people in that state love Major college athletics, with the secondary key being how many top level recruits are produced in that state. TX has enough passionate fans and top recruits to have 5 or maybe 6 teams in a Major conference. MA has not enough of either for even 1 such school.

 

[sufandu]

Not caring about value at all is the way to find yourself in a lose-lose situation fiscally. UConn vs UMass might seem like a great border state rivalry if played annually, but it can never have any value even just within New England. So if pursued, it would not help UConn at all and probably would hurt UConn a good deal. Actual value must be taken into account. Eventually value matters a great deal. The ACC's great failure has been to avoid playing hardball fiscally in early stages while acting always to think in terms of protecting the closeness (geographic and otherwise) of the league at its start. So while the SEC was focused always on maximizing football value and quality, the ACC was focused on saving closeness. And that has meant that the ACC always has reacted too late to what the SEC has done to maximize its football value.

The flaw in a Tragic Hero is always bound up tightly, even inextricably, with what makes him a hero. He is brought down by something that was necessary to making him great. He fails to discern what ws necessary to discern in order not to fall. And he fails to discern precisely because of what and how he became great.

I am a fan. I am not an analyst. I am not a school administrator. I am not an employee of any conference. I hate how money has ruined college sports. I want good rivalries with history. I want a relatively even playing field.

Nobody discussing what was in the OP has any power to actually make any of it happen, so why do I care whether it is feasible or if there is any value in team x versus team y? People take themselves way too seriously in these discussions as if they have the power to make happen the things they suggest.

What needs to happen, if we care about the health of college sports, is a nation wide TV contract where conferences don't compete with one another and each one gets the same cut. Then we could get away from all the stupid conference realignment crap and reestablish regional rivalries and geographically based divisions.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

States are not the same. The key to how many Major conference teams a state can support is how many people in that state love Major college athletics, with the secondary key being how many top level recruits are produced in that state. TX has enough passionate fans and top recruits to have 5 or maybe 6 teams in a Major conference. MA has not enough of either for even 1 such school.

Nope Texas really doesn’t. You have the big 2 then Texas Tech who is a tweezer, two small privates, and a bunch of G5 types. They only deserve two teams in the big boy club.

 

[baggerbob]

I am a fan. I am not an analyst. I am not a school administrator. I am not an employee of any conference. I hate how money has ruined college sports. I want good rivalries with history. I want a relatively even playing field.

Nobody discussing what was in the OP has any power to actually make any of it happen, so why do I care whether it is feasible or if there is any value in team x versus team y? People take themselves way too seriously in these discussions as if they have the power to make happen the things they suggest.

What needs to happen, if we care about the health of college sports, is a nation wide TV contract where conferences don't compete with one another and each one gets the same cut. Then we could get away from all the stupid conference realignment crap and reestablish regional rivalries and geographically based divisions.

Unfortunately the only thing the SEC and Big care about is more money.
Within the next 10 years the majority of Americans won't be watching college football.
Their are too many other sports and entertainment on TV, that those schools will regret destroying the other conferences.

 

[TexanMark]

UConn makes a good rival for no one in 1A football - except maybe UMass. So unless we are talking about Syracuse going back to the BE, the Syracuse-UConn hoops rivalry of old has no meaning or value.

We actually enjoyed motor boating UConn at their house last year.

 

[CousCuse]

UConn vs UMass might seem like a great border state rivalry if played annually, but it can never have any value even just within New England. So if pursued, it would not help UConn at all and probably would hurt UConn a good deal. Actual value must be taken into account.

Don't get the logic in this line of reasoning. Is the Pitt/WVU rivalry game the Backyard Brawl, a value proportion?