Conference Realignment

[JacketOff]

Ounce of caution here, I am sure that Washington St. and Oregon St. were thinking similar thoughts, until it was too late.

Ah yes, the WSU and OSU fan boards not taking rumors seriously is why they got bumped out of realignment.

 

[stinger78]

Ah yes, the WSU and OSU fan boards not taking rumors seriously is why they got bumped out of realignment.

Yes, they have to be thinking “if only” right about now.

 

[GTrob21]

Ok, Bold plan here, but I think the ACC should try and strike a death blow and firm up the best-of-rest conference. 24 full member institutions 25 with Notre Dame, 3 regions of 8. Rename the conference All Coast Conference. 7 guaranteed regional games, 2 cross-divisional ones. Re-ignite the regional rivalries, but you are bringing to market a National conference with a linear network. In this plan, we add the states of Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Utah, West Virginia and Ohio. Crazy idea, but we live in crazy times.

Have ACC West.
1) Stanford
2) Cal
3) Utah
4) Zona
5) Arizona State
6) SMU
7) Wash St
8) Oregon State


ACC South
1) Fla State
2) Miami
3) GT
4) Clemson
5) UND
6) Duke
7) NC State
8) Wake

ACC North
1) VA
2) Va Tech
3) Louisville
4) Pitt
5) Cuse
6) Boston College
7) WVU
8) Cincinnati

 

[stinger78]

Ok, Bold plan here, but I think the ACC should try and strike a death blow and firm up the best-of-rest conference. 24 full member institutions 25 with Notre Dame, 3 regions of 8. Rename the conference All Coast Conference. 7 guaranteed regional games, 2 cross-divisional ones. Re-ignite the regional rivalries, but you are bringing to market a National conference with a linear network. In this plan, we add the states of Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Utah, West Virginia and Ohio. Crazy idea, but we live in crazy times.

Have ACC West.
1) Stanford
2) Cal
3) Utah
4) Zona
5) Arizona State
6) SMU
7) Wash St
8) Oregon State


ACC South
1) Fla State
2) Miami
3) GT
4) Clemson
5) UND
6) Duke
7) NC State
8) Wake

ACC North
1) VA
2) Va Tech
3) Louisville
4) Pitt
5) Cuse
6) Boston College
7) WVU
8) Cincinnati

Ok… I can see it… but if you swap Miami and UVA how does this differ practically from the ACC, Big East, and Pac 12 of 20 years ago with agreements for inter-league play? This may be one of the better suggestions I’ve seen, but the more things change….

 

[stingerman]

We're ultimately moving toward consolidation. The questions are how we get there and what it looks like when we arrive.

 

[Techster]

Ok, Bold plan here, but I think the ACC should try and strike a death blow and firm up the best-of-rest conference. 24 full member institutions 25 with Notre Dame, 3 regions of 8. Rename the conference All Coast Conference. 7 guaranteed regional games, 2 cross-divisional ones. Re-ignite the regional rivalries, but you are bringing to market a National conference with a linear network. In this plan, we add the states of Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Utah, West Virginia and Ohio. Crazy idea, but we live in crazy times.

Have ACC West.
1) Stanford
2) Cal
3) Utah
4) Zona
5) Arizona State
6) SMU
7) Wash St
8) Oregon State


ACC South
1) Fla State
2) Miami
3) GT
4) Clemson
5) UND
6) Duke
7) NC State
8) Wake

ACC North
1) VA
2) Va Tech
3) Louisville
4) Pitt
5) Cuse
6) Boston College
7) WVU
8) Cincinnati

B1G and SEC will have something to say about that before it's all said and done...unfortunately.

You can pretty much count on FSU leaving. I don't see how UNC/Miami/GT/UVA/Clemson stays in the ACC if B1G or SEC invite any of them. The financial windfall would just be too big to turn the P2 down. The ACC won't be able to make up the gap.

I don't see the B1G leaving Stanford and that market out of next round of expansion, as well as one of the Arizona schools. Something tells me B1G will add a Texas school as well. Notre Dame will be an interesting watch to see how they respond. B1G has already said you either join as a full member, or not at all...they will not make a deal like the one ND has with the ACC.

The ACC will be changed drastically when it's all said and done.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Yes, they have to be thinking “if only” right about now.

You guys stop, you’re killing me

 

[Vespidae]

Ok, Bold plan here, but I think the ACC should try and strike a death blow and firm up the best-of-rest conference. 24 full member institutions 25 with Notre Dame, 3 regions of 8. Rename the conference All Coast Conference. 7 guaranteed regional games, 2 cross-divisional ones. Re-ignite the regional rivalries, but you are bringing to market a National conference with a linear network. In this plan, we add the states of Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Utah, West Virginia and Ohio. Crazy idea, but we live in crazy times.

Have ACC West.
1) Stanford
2) Cal
3) Utah
4) Zona
5) Arizona State
6) SMU
7) Wash St
8) Oregon State


ACC South
1) Fla State
2) Miami
3) GT
4) Clemson
5) UND
6) Duke
7) NC State
8) Wake

ACC North
1) VA
2) Va Tech
3) Louisville
4) Pitt
5) Cuse
6) Boston College
7) WVU
8) Cincinnati

Isn't this just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

The main issue, in my view, is that we have 134 teams in FBS ... of which, about 12% are profitable. Moreover, we have the same 134 teams that are not homogeneous .... there are schools with 50,000 students and a half million alumni competing against schools with a few thousand students and very low alumni bases. It's the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Pottsville Maroons.

Rather than Band-Aid conference affiliations, it's time to organize all 134 teams into Tiers so that like schools play against like schools. It's basically FBS-A, FBS-AA, FBS-AAA, etc. For marketing purposes, make it CFB Premier League, CFB Championship, etc ... just like the English soccer leagues and include the system of promotion and relegation. That is, win more and move up, lose more and move down.

They are going to have to get to a system that is transparent and fair to all. As long as conferences try to maintain a winner take all attitude, college sports will continue to skew towards the most heavily resourced programs and all the others ... will whither away.

 

[stinger78]

Isn't this just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

The main issue, in my view, is that we have 134 teams in FBS ... of which, about 12% are profitable. Moreover, we have the same 134 teams that are not homogeneous .... there are schools with 50,000 students and a half million alumni competing against schools with a few thousand students and very low alumni bases. It's the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Pottsville Maroons.

Rather than Band-Aid conference affiliations, it's time to organize all 134 teams into Tiers so that like schools play against like schools. It's basically FBS-A, FBS-AA, FBS-AAA, etc. For marketing purposes, make it CFB Premier League, CFB Championship, etc ... just like the English soccer leagues and include the system of promotion and relegation. That is, win more and move up, lose more and move down.

They are going to have to get to a system that is transparent and fair to all. As long as conferences try to maintain a winner take all attitude, college sports will continue to skew towards the most heavily resourced programs and all the others ... will whither away.

I like your concept, but the conference greed is just too strong. Don’t know you get that banana back in the peel. Who is the enforcer for that? Don’t answer “the NCAA.”

 

[Vespidae]

I like your concept, but the conference greed is just too strong. Don’t know you get that banana back in the peel. Who is the enforcer for that? Don’t answer “the NCAA.”

The goal is money. A "Premiere League" of the Top 20 National programs would be just that ... and probably have the viewership of the average NFL broadcast which was a goal of Sankey.

A conference won't "win" if 88% of football programs whither away. You will need an entirely new governance structure.

 

[stinger78]

The goal is money. A "Premiere League" of the Top 20 National programs would be just that ... and probably have the viewership of the average NFL broadcast which was a goal of Sankey.

A conference won't "win" if 88% of football programs whither away. You will need an entirely new governance structure.

I agree, but again, who makes that happen? Everything the P2 touch today is distorted to their advantage, sometimes horribly. The rest of the programs have pride, too, and won’t stand for that kind of gerrymandering of college football.

 

[RonJohn]

The goal is money. A "Premiere League" of the Top 20 National programs would be just that ... and probably have the viewership of the average NFL broadcast which was a goal of Sankey.

A conference won't "win" if 88% of football programs whither away. You will need an entirely new governance structure.

I have seen several people project that we will end up with a league of about 60-70 teams. Don't know that it will happen, but that seems reasonable. I don't know that 20 would be enough. That would roughly just be the equivalent of the current SEC or Big10. At 20, you wouldn't have the fanbase of the other 110 teams just pick one of the 20 to follow. If you had Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, ND, USC, etc, you would have a lot of fans watching the games. However, I don't think the games and the playoffs from such a small league would draw in a large swath of eyes from the other fan bases. It would just become it's own thing separate from other college football programs. If you have 70 teams, who all have a mathematical chance of making the playoffs at the beginning of the year, then those fans will follow the rest of the season and the playoffs. Hoping that the team in their division wins or loses. Hoping that the team that knocked them out wins or loses. Watching to see a dominate player that their team played against play well, or hope that he gets injured. If it is a very small league, you don't get that built in interest, even if they play money games against other teams. Your team playing for a paycheck doesn't develop the same respect/animosity as a team with a chance to compete for a championship.

 

[roadkill]

The goal is money. A "Premiere League" of the Top 20 National programs would be just that ... and probably have the viewership of the average NFL broadcast which was a goal of Sankey.

A conference won't "win" if 88% of football programs whither away. You will need an entirely new governance structure.

Agree that the goal is money. Also agree with @RonJohn that 20 doesn't seem like enough to avoid viewer fatigue, or tap into other fanbases enough to achieve NFL-like viewership. Outside of their immediate fanbase, folks will tire of seeing Bama/uga/Ohio St./Michigan plus an occasional wild card play each other for the championship every year. On the other hand, 20 teams at the highest tier might work if there existed a straightforward promotion/relegation process that ensured the top 20 always had an infusion of new, up-and-coming teams every year.

Edit to add: Navigating the current conference-centric deals is going to be one of the biggest challenges to making wholesale changes to the way teams are grouped together. If we follow the money, it will probably take the major networks getting together to propose the change and offer $ inducements that would be hard to turn down.

 

[iceeater1969]

Does anyone still think the ACC GOR has power outside of the ESPN ACC tv deal? I see some click sites saying its solely for the TV deal.

 

[AugustaSwarm]

Does anyone still think the ACC GOR has power outside of the ESPN ACC tv deal? I see some click sites saying its solely for the TV deal.

It applies to all media rights. Those media rights were sold to ESPN (ACC network) with a smattering of games on regional broadcasts.

 

[cpf2001]

I think the bulk of the current internet content mill basically is taking the discussions that go like “I wonder if there’d be a viable challenge to the GOR if the tv deal gets dropped” and leaping fully to “the tv deal is getting dropped and that will kill the GOR”

 

[AugustaSwarm]

Even if the TV deal was killed, the ACC would still hold the media rights for all the member schools...nothing would change. The GoR is simply the legally binding agreement which GRANTS the media RIGHTS of each school to the conference - think of it like a small union.

 

[RonJohn]

Does anyone still think the ACC GOR has power outside of the ESPN ACC tv deal? I see some click sites saying its solely for the TV deal.

I think there is a legal argument to be made that the language in the GOR is dependent on the ESPN contract. However, that doesn't mean that it is definite that the GOR doesn't apply if the contract is cancelled. It just means that someone can make a legal argument in court. Winning that case is a different thing.

FSU claimed that ESPN can simply walk away in January of next year. Random people have speculated that an argument can be made that the GOR would become unenforceable if there is no ESPN contract. There has been no confirmation that ESPN can just walk away from the entire contract. ESPN doesn't want the contract details to be public. ESPN isn't talking about any details of the contract. The ACC isn't talking about any details of the contract. FSU stopped talking about details of the contract after pressure from ESPN. As such, nobody in the public actually knows if such a clause exists in the contract.

The sites click bait sites you see are just people spouting off what they have read on message boards. Such people take the possibility that ESPN has an option to cancel the ACC contract, and just simply believe it with zero confirmation. Such people take the possibility that someone could argue in court that the GOR depends on the ESPN contract and believe that the GOR just spontaneously combusts if there is no ESPN contract. They then say things like "ESPN is cancelling the ACC contract in January, the GOR will end, and FSU will be in the Big10 in 2025". Some people just believe those statements. The big issue to me is that such "reporting" is never called out. The swaim guy kept saying last year (2023) that FSU is announcing the departure from the ACC next Friday. Then two weeks from tomorrow. Then on such and such a date. People kept repeating him over and over again even though he was wrong every time. If he ever gets something correct, people will froth over him and talk about how he knew what was going to happen. They never remember the 10s or 100s of times that he is completely wrong.

EDIT: One thing I neglected to say. If FSU knew that ESPN has such an option and plan to cancel the contract next January, and they know that the GOR is invalid once the contract is cancelled, then why file a lawsuit last December? Why publish NDA information about the ESPN contract? Why have the Florida AG antagonize ESPN? They could have placated their fans for one year, and then left the easy way, and the lawsuit doesn't really mean anything under that scenario.

 

[jgtengineer]

Ok… I can see it… but if you swap Miami and UVA how does this differ practically from the ACC, Big East, and Pac 12 of 20 years ago with agreements for inter-league play? This may be one of the better suggestions I’ve seen, but the more things change….

Thats the neat part.. it doesn't.

 

[bobongo]

Ok, Bold plan here, but I think the ACC should try and strike a death blow and firm up the best-of-rest conference. 24 full member institutions 25 with Notre Dame, 3 regions of 8. Rename the conference All Coast Conference. 7 guaranteed regional games, 2 cross-divisional ones. Re-ignite the regional rivalries, but you are bringing to market a National conference with a linear network. In this plan, we add the states of Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Utah, West Virginia and Ohio. Crazy idea, but we live in crazy times.

Have ACC West.
1) Stanford
2) Cal
3) Utah
4) Zona
5) Arizona State
6) SMU
7) Wash St
8) Oregon State


ACC South
1) Fla State
2) Miami
3) GT
4) Clemson
5) UND
6) Duke
7) NC State
8) Wake

ACC North
1) VA
2) Va Tech
3) Louisville
4) Pitt
5) Cuse
6) Boston College
7) WVU
8) Cincinnati

I like it. I usually don't like the idea of mega conferences but given current realities, this one preserves some regionality.
I take it "UND" is supposed to be "UNC". As for UND, tell them to either get all the way in or all the way out. Tired of watching them have their cake and eat it, too.