I'm not sure what is underlying the Stanford, Cal to ACC but it sure smells it was all for ND, then they get a contract with NBC for big money, now have control of ACC and get to play their teams out west - ACC teams are now stuck with low revenues for 13 years and end up not being able to compete. I could easily be wrong about this but it sure looks that way to me. It is always about ND and screw everybody else, never from the get-go did I think ACC should have given them a partial membership and now we find out they have a full vote on memberships for FB. What in the hell are we doing. Hope I'm all wrong about what I'm saying. The ACC is turning out to be a bigger disaster than I originally thought. My problem is I don't have all the info, I'm saying what I'm saying not seeing the full picture possibly.
Seeing the retiring ND AD on a National sports talk show lobbying for ACC to take Cal, Stanford was the real awakening for me, knowing they always get what they want and screw everybody else. And these fools in college sports fall all over themselves to accommodate them. Swafford and the tobacco road mafia are turning out to be a bigger disaster as each day passes. I'm about to get on the FSU side of things.
Let me ask a question or two.
First, if the ACC contract wasn't until 2036 do you think the ACC would garner a better deal than it currently has?
Second, if there was no GoR, do you think the schools in the ACC would get full share offers from the SEC and B1G?
Here are my thoughts on that.
On question 1. I don't believe the ACC would get a better contract if it was up sooner. ACC has the clear #3 media contract and that is likely to be the case out to 2036. It is unlikely if its contract was up right now that it would get a better offer than it currently has. B12 was fortunate to get a contract that pays its P5 members an avg of 31M per year (which doesn't mean that is what they get today, that is what the average is over the life of the contract) while their G5 members get significantly less. WA and OR got $30M to join the B1G. They will eventually get a full share, but what that full share is will be up to where the market is at the end of the decade. The vast majority of ACC schools if they left the ACC would not get any more money than they are getting today.
On question 2. There are likely only 3 programs right now that would get a full share from the B1G or SEC. ND, UNC and UVA. That is it. ND is beyond obvious, but it is also obvious as long as they have a legit path to the playoffs as a FB independent they will not join any conference. UVA and UNC are the only schools that fit into the strategic models that both the SEC and B1G are following and would therefore likely attract full share offers from either as their would likely be a bidding contest for them. I also believe if they were to leave the ACC both would choose the B1G over the SEC. There are other schools that might be able to snag on offer - a list would include FSU, Clemson, VT, NCSU, GT, Miami, and Stanford but none are likely to garner a full share from one of the Big 2 for 2 reasons. First, for most of them only one of the two conferences would have an interest in them so there is no bidding contest. Second, the market has spoken and the shares the current SEC and B1G members are receiving are higher than market level and there simply is not money left to bring on more at that level.
I believe college football has changed forever, but not for better. The idea of 20 team conferences really makes no sense. They destroy rivalries and make it more difficult for college football fans to stay bought into the game. Demographics are trending away from college football in a way that will make it more difficult to get better deals in the future (higher percentages of younger Millenials and Gen Z say they do not consider themselves college football fans - Neilson study put them at 44%, which is much higher than previous generations). College football has had consistent declines for over a decade with in-person attendance - and the real problem is worse than the figures suggest as most released numbers greatly overstate actual attendance as pretty much all colleges report tickets sold rather than people passing through gates. One recent study put the avg people attending vs tickets sold at about 70% across FBS. It also has a viewership that is aging and becoming less attractive to advertisers.
AD and fans think there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but in reality that pot of gold may be much smaller than they believe it to be.
