A large passionate fan base is always there, even with losing seasons. Syracuse football may have had that in the 1960s, but it sure as all Hell does not have anything close to that now. Neither does Pitt, which had that as late as the Sherrill years and began losing it very quickly thereafter. BC really didn't even have that when Flutie played. And it has lessened considerably since then. PSU has that still - and always will.
That is what the northeast is for Major CFB. The 3 northeastern states schools in the ACC plus Rutgers all have trouble regularly bringing in more TV viewers than Vanderbilt, which will always dead last in the SEC.
CBB is a very different animal as Dave Gavitte grasped. And the BE can be truly major in very basketball sense without playing any level of football. That is simply not possible in any other region of the country. And as Major CFB seems to be 10 times more valuable than CBB, what relay matters to. plague is having members that always have passionate CFB fans, not just when the team wins 9 or more games. That is the quandary the ACC faces in trying to cut that TV money disparity.
The really ugly part of the northeastern basketball thing for the ACC is that the only way to fully maximize the value of Syracuse is to have UConn, which would be worse for ACC football than even BC because UConn football has 0 history and legacy and has never developed any following even from among its alums and within CT.
The ACC is never going to get any appreciable money from any TV network for having 3 schools located in northeastern states. The four very large AAU state schools located in MT would bring value. Dropping Wake would bring some value even if the replacement were not a large state Flagship and/or Land Grant in a new state.
