Conference Realignment

[Dman374]

I'd say the same thing about the SEC. They're garbage at the bottom, mediocre in the middle, and pretty strong on top. When the SEC starts playing a real OOC schedule, then we can start comparing conferences.

The middle of the SEC is stronger than I think you'd like to admit. Stack it up, even if you don't agree with my list from Fanduel odds to win their conference, you're not taking any team in the ACC to win the SEC. I could argue even make the SEC championship. Out of the BIG10 next year, I agree with Vegas, but only Ohio State and maybe, key word, maybe Oregon. No BIG12 team would stand a chance, and I could go pretty far down the SEC list and transplant into the BIG12, and have probably the odds favorite to win that conference.

I'll stacked them up top to bottom, but this comment was regarding fan engagement for butts in seats and eyes on TV. With the exception of Vandy, the SEC teams finishing at the bottom have a more active fan base than the majority of teams in any other conference. Pick any lower end SEC team on this list, and even if you don't think they'd win on the field, look at fan support, resources, recruiting, those middle and even lower end SEC teams are much better equipped than the other conference counterparts. We live in the south, college football is king. Unlike the great state of Georgia, the majority of those SEC schools are located in states that have no professional sports teams. So there's a little more die hard fan that's naturally built in when you're the only game in town. What does that equate to? Other than Vandy, you could argue there are no take the check take the loss teams. There are quite a few in the other three conferences.

I also want to hit the OOC schedule argument that I really hate. I'm going to preference, the SEC isn't perfect, and I'm excited to see FSU take down LSU, but I also know in my head that's our best team beating up their 4th or 5th best team. Love to see Miami beat A&M and one of their higher ranked teams falls to a lower ranked team in another conference, but more often than not, that's not what ends up happening. I hope Miami wipes the floor with Florida this year, but for adding context, a "bad" Florida team is under a six point spread against Miami to start the season. If I took this same list and did third best odds SEC team vs the 13th best odds ACC team, that spread would be heavy double digits. That's really my biggest argument when people start talking OOC games, is are you really comparing apples to apples where these teams are? I agree years ago when it was just Bama really in the national championship game on where your heads at with the SEC being over rated, but in 2024 it just is what is it.

The ACC let it get that way, and my earlier comment about laughing at the idea of the ACC poaching a team from the BIG10 or SEC was to show my frustration with the ACC today. What's going to happen in the next round of realignment are teams will leave the ACC, and the ACC will backfill those with whatever is the best group of 5 teams left. The BIG12 will surpass the ACC as the third best, and if they actually have a power house program emerge they'll market the heck out of themselves to get a higher media rights deal when it comes up before any of the other conferences. There will be too many teams left that can't find homes in the ACC for it to suffer the same fate as the PAC12, but it'll end up sitting between the BIG12 and the American.

I think if Tech gets rolling like it looks like we're starting to, I could see winning the ACC, even with all of the current teams still here if that somehow happens in a few years. I don't see that in the SEC, but I could see if the stars align in the BIG10. Yes, the BIG10 did great on the media rights deal, good on them, but if the teams in the ACC that are supposed to be good, actually were good, I could argue the ACC is better than the BIG10. The gap between Iowa and Georgia Tech is a lot smaller than the gap between Tennessee and Georgia Tech.

My only other hot take, is if Tech somehow finds a new dance partner in the next round of realignment, I wouldn't be surprised if the ACC snags Georgia State. If, key word, if Dell McGee makes that a winning program that is a no brainer for the ACC.

SEC	BIG10	ACC	BIG12
Mutts	Ohio State	Florida State	Kansas State
Texas	Oregon	Clemson	Utah
Ole Piss	Penn State	Miami	Kansas
Bama	Michigan	Louisville	Arizona
LSU	USC	NC State	Texas Tech
Tenn	Iowa	Virginia Tech	Iowa State
Missouri	Washington	SMU	Oklahoma State
TAMU	Nebraska	North Carolina	UCF
Oklahoma	Wisconsin	Syracuse	TCU
Auburn	Maryland	California	West Virginia
Kentucky	UCLA	Georgia Tech	Colorado
South Carolina	Illinois	Pitt	Baylor
Florida	Northwestern	Duke	Cincinnati
Arkansas	Mich State	Boston College	Arizona State
Miss St.	Minnesota	Virginia	Houston
Vandy	Purdue then Indiana	Wake Forest then Stanford	BYU

 

[ThatGuy]

I did turnarounds for a living. While you can greatly improve prospects and profitability, it’s rare to become the market leader in a mature industry. So I disagree with you, plain and simple.

As to Taurus, you introduced the example. Not me.

And you falsely equated his statement that perception of a company can improve with an argument that, like Taurus, the ACC will take 60%+ market share in college football. There was no statement about anyone becoming the "market leader."

As an educator, I'm sure you've called out many straw man arguments. He was right to call you out on it.

If you had found a metric of consumer sentiment improvement for Taurus, that would be analogically correct. But you made a few too many leaps equating consumer sentiment to quantified market share, and then putting those figures in Yeti's mouth. While one is usually necessary for the other, one does not automatically beget the other.

 

[Vespidae]

And you falsely equated his statement that perception of a company can improve with an argument that, like Taurus, the ACC will take 60%+ market share in college football. There was no statement about anyone becoming the "market leader."

As an educator, I'm sure you've called out many straw man arguments. He was right to call you out on it.

If you had found a metric of consumer sentiment improvement for Taurus, that would be analogically correct. But you made a few too many leaps equating consumer sentiment to quantified market share, and then putting those figures in Yeti's mouth. While one is usually necessary for the other, one does not automatically beget the other.

I disagree. He introduced Taurus as his example of what improvement looks like. So I looked at how much Taurus improved. It improved a lot. Applicable to the ACC? No.

The ACC is third. “Improving” means increasing at someone else’s expense. The driver of virtually everything in CFB today is media dollars which associated with viewership … aka ratings. I would argue ratings is market share for that reason. I think it’s a valid point. If not, use another example.

To sum up, the ACC isn’t going to overtake either the SEC or B1G. And back to my ORIGINAL point … Greg Sankey, were he ACC commissioner… isn’t going to lead the ACC to glory. The underlying economics of the ACC fanbase are too weak … too many schools with smaller fan bases, fewer resources, less media interest.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

Now, I am curious as to how you know this.

My uncle works for UT and my cousin is a season ticket holder there. She frequently posts pictures of the full stadium.

 

[Root4GT]

Of course we have a fan attendance problem, all you have to do is watch one of our games on TV to know that, it goes with what I talked about in my previous listing in this thread. I believe that will get taken care of in due time with what I see we're trying to do, I'm not looking at this year to tell me whether we will get it corrected or not, for me that would be foolish. What we're trying to do will not get done in one or two years, I'm expecting it to take roughly 5 years ( that's my uninformed estimate) in the meantime we will be building a winning program which I see going on now.

It all will take time, but the comittment has and is being made and I personally believe GT FB and sports will become an Atlanta thing as much as a GT thing. Yes in a major city with all that goes on it will never be THE Atlanta thing but it can be an Atlanta thing and I believe it will do so. I believe Big 10 fans would love to visit Atlanta and the CFBHOF and other things. Do I know that we will end up in the Big 10 absolutely not, but why wouldn't they want a fine AAU academic institution that is committed to CFB and sports programs located in the 6/7 largest media mkt and next door to the CFBHOF? I believe they absolutely would love to have that, knowing they badly want in the SE which is the best CFB area in the country. Many CFB teams will not need the really large stadium that some have going fwd because TV is where it is going to be more than game attendance, but stadiums with amenities for an outing will be where it is IMO. The cap over the freeway making the potential for our version of the grove along with things they can do inside the stadium will be important. There will be people that want to do that outing, watch number 8 SC play number 12 GT.

Some on here get upset with the lack of vision by others, but I try and remember we have engineers on here and they are trained to look at "what is" so to speak, data, documents, they don't live in the visionary world like some do, it is why some engineering companies have business people running the company. I'm not saying an engineer cannot become a good businessman/woman because many do.

Very optimistic view. The GT fan base is older than most college fanbases. The GT student body does not lend itself a a natural source for college football fans as many large state Universities do. GT's football stadium is old and lacks the modern amenities fans in a city with Pro Teams have come to expect. It will take a lot of good fortune for GT to start drawing 45K on a regular basis for football.

Basketball could do better more quickly. Still there is a long way to go there as well.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

My granddaughter lives in Athens. She said they are in the Atlanta dma, but I didn't check.

What is the size of that area now, 47 counties?

 

[gtbb]

In the same vein, though specifically toward Tech. I would say Tech Students/Alumni have trended away from football fans. Losing seasons has had an affect on that. Tech has been attracting the best/smarter academic student over the years. Evidence by the higher average SAT score. The average Tech student is more of a 'nerd.' Nerds tend to not be football fans. Sure, you can say the NFL has a wide fan base, but college needs it's fans to spend on the specific sports. Bottom line, this is a wholistic problem, If Tech wants more money, it needs Football fans. And (outside of winning) they need football student fans, who start to love the team. They need to recruit current students to games and recruit future students to be fans.

Sucks being on the other side of the fence, but that is where we are at. Especially if we are comparing ourselves to SEC and B1G.

I work with a few Tech grads. Of the group, I'm the only one that follows the football program. The rest of them couldn't care less. It's kinda sad in that regard.

 

[forensicbuzz]

The middle of the SEC is stronger than I think you'd like to admit. Stack it up, even if you don't agree with my list from Fanduel odds to win their conference, you're not taking any team in the ACC to win the SEC. I could argue even make the SEC championship. Out of the BIG10 next year, I agree with Vegas, but only Ohio State and maybe, key word, maybe Oregon. No BIG12 team would stand a chance, and I could go pretty far down the SEC list and transplant into the BIG12, and have probably the odds favorite to win that conference.

I'll stacked them up top to bottom, but this comment was regarding fan engagement for butts in seats and eyes on TV. With the exception of Vandy, the SEC teams finishing at the bottom have a more active fan base than the majority of teams in any other conference. Pick any lower end SEC team on this list, and even if you don't think they'd win on the field, look at fan support, resources, recruiting, those middle and even lower end SEC teams are much better equipped than the other conference counterparts. We live in the south, college football is king. Unlike the great state of Georgia, the majority of those SEC schools are located in states that have no professional sports teams. So there's a little more die hard fan that's naturally built in when you're the only game in town. What does that equate to? Other than Vandy, you could argue there are no take the check take the loss teams. There are quite a few in the other three conferences.

I also want to hit the OOC schedule argument that I really hate. I'm going to preference, the SEC isn't perfect, and I'm excited to see FSU take down LSU, but I also know in my head that's our best team beating up their 4th or 5th best team. Love to see Miami beat A&M and one of their higher ranked teams falls to a lower ranked team in another conference, but more often than not, that's not what ends up happening. I hope Miami wipes the floor with Florida this year, but for adding context, a "bad" Florida team is under a six point spread against Miami to start the season. If I took this same list and did third best odds SEC team vs the 13th best odds ACC team, that spread would be heavy double digits. That's really my biggest argument when people start talking OOC games, is are you really comparing apples to apples where these teams are? I agree years ago when it was just Bama really in the national championship game on where your heads at with the SEC being over rated, but in 2024 it just is what is it.

The ACC let it get that way, and my earlier comment about laughing at the idea of the ACC poaching a team from the BIG10 or SEC was to show my frustration with the ACC today. What's going to happen in the next round of realignment are teams will leave the ACC, and the ACC will backfill those with whatever is the best group of 5 teams left. The BIG12 will surpass the ACC as the third best, and if they actually have a power house program emerge they'll market the heck out of themselves to get a higher media rights deal when it comes up before any of the other conferences. There will be too many teams left that can't find homes in the ACC for it to suffer the same fate as the PAC12, but it'll end up sitting between the BIG12 and the American.

I think if Tech gets rolling like it looks like we're starting to, I could see winning the ACC, even with all of the current teams still here if that somehow happens in a few years. I don't see that in the SEC, but I could see if the stars align in the BIG10. Yes, the BIG10 did great on the media rights deal, good on them, but if the teams in the ACC that are supposed to be good, actually were good, I could argue the ACC is better than the BIG10. The gap between Iowa and Georgia Tech is a lot smaller than the gap between Tennessee and Georgia Tech.

My only other hot take, is if Tech somehow finds a new dance partner in the next round of realignment, I wouldn't be surprised if the ACC snags Georgia State. If, key word, if Dell McGee makes that a winning program that is a no brainer for the ACC.

SEC	BIG10	ACC	BIG12
Mutts	Ohio State	Florida State	Kansas State
Texas	Oregon	Clemson	Utah
Ole Piss	Penn State	Miami	Kansas
Bama	Michigan	Louisville	Arizona
LSU	USC	NC State	Texas Tech
Tenn	Iowa	Virginia Tech	Iowa State
Missouri	Washington	SMU	Oklahoma State
TAMU	Nebraska	North Carolina	UCF
Oklahoma	Wisconsin	Syracuse	TCU
Auburn	Maryland	California	West Virginia
Kentucky	UCLA	Georgia Tech	Colorado
South Carolina	Illinois	Pitt	Baylor
Florida	Northwestern	Duke	Cincinnati
Arkansas	Mich State	Boston College	Arizona State
Miss St.	Minnesota	Virginia	Houston
Vandy	Purdue then Indiana	Wake Forest then Stanford	BYU

I don't agree with your Fanduals odds because the teams' rosters look nothing like they did last year, so these odds are purely made up, based on no real information (my opinion). I'm not putting Texas and OK or USCw and UCLA (or any other team that changed conferences) in any pecking order until they play the teams in that conference. While the middle teams you have listed for the SEC rise up occasionally, they're mostly a hot mess and don't fare too well against upper eschelon OOC opponents. Most won't even schedule upper eschelon OOC opponents. I think they're not as strong and you're giving them credit for being. They're mostly living on reputation.

This is an old argument. I'm not debating which conferences are stronger, I'm saying that each conference has basically the same 3 stratae: dog crap, so-so, and pretty darn good. There are ranges within each strata, but you can pretty much slot a third from each conference in each level. UTx and OK are usually in the pretty good range, so that'll shift things. Same with USCw and Oregon. Nor sure about Washington and UCLA.

Let's compare these lists after the season and see how much of a shuffle there is. There's a bias in the polls towards the SEC and B1G (maybe warranted, maybe not), so interconference comparisons have to be looked at...carefully.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I disagree. He introduced Taurus as his example of what improvement looks like. So I looked at how much Taurus improved. It improved a lot. Applicable to the ACC? No.

The ACC is third. “Improving” means increasing at someone else’s expense. The driver of virtually everything in CFB today is media dollars which associated with viewership … aka ratings. I would argue ratings is market share for that reason. I think it’s a valid point. If not, use another example.

To sum up, the ACC isn’t going to overtake either the SEC or B1G. And back to my ORIGINAL point … Greg Sankey, were he ACC commissioner… isn’t going to lead the ACC to glory. The underlying economics of the ACC fanbase are too weak … too many schools with smaller fan bases, fewer resources, less media interest.

I tend to watch one or two streaming services because the others are inferior. But I would gladly watch more services if the others showed improvement. When it comes to entertainment it is not a zero sum game in my opinion. So market share does not necessarily mean one product gaining is another losing.

Yes, yes, I know that is a fairly standard definition of market share but I don’t think adding the ACC to my viewing habits means that I dropped the B1G. Perhaps I dropped watching the History Channel or Animal Planet or The Learning Channel or spent less time in my workshop?

The right marketing approach almost always delivers some improvement in a company’s bottom line. If it doesn’t then the company is dead.

 

[g0lftime]

In the same vein, though specifically toward Tech. I would say Tech Students/Alumni have trended away from football fans. Losing seasons has had an affect on that. Tech has been attracting the best/smarter academic student over the years. Evidence by the higher average SAT score. The average Tech student is more of a 'nerd.' Nerds tend to not be football fans. Sure, you can say the NFL has a wide fan base, but college needs it's fans to spend on the specific sports. Bottom line, this is a wholistic problem, If Tech wants more money, it needs Football fans. And (outside of winning) they need football student fans, who start to love the team. They need to recruit current students to games and recruit future students to be fans.

Sucks being on the other side of the fence, but that is where we are at. Especially if we are comparing ourselves to SEC and B1G.

Most current Tech students did not play any form of football in their youth. More likely soccer if any sport. Attending football games at Tech was one of the college experiences that I really enjoyed. When I come back for games now, it restores those memories. These kids that don't come to the games as students will not have any of those memories to relive. I just don't think remembering Saturday afternoons at the library has the same effect.

 

[1979jacket]

You could put Greg Sankey in charge of the ACC and it wouldn’t change much. The simple fact is that the ACC, by comparison, doesn’t have the fanbase or institutional support that other conferences do. Until schools decide that athletics are important, there won’t be a lot of progress.

Sankey sucks!!!!

 

[LT 1967]

Can the ACC poach a team from the "Power 4"? Once you're done laughing, which group of 5 teams will they backfill the conference with when the inevitable next round of realignment happens?

I know that the idea that the ACC could steal a program from the Power 4 today is pretty unrealist. However, there was a time only two short decades ago when that idea was considered a strong possibility by one of Tech's own, Frank Broyles. I have attached an article from my old paper files from back in 2003.

In the article, Frank Broyles (AD at Arkansas} is worrying that the ACC might raid the SEC for Florida, South Carolina and Kentucky.
The article was written after Miami and VT had committed to the ACC in 2003. BC would come the next year.

A lot has changed in the 20 years since this article was written. Since then, most of the programs that the SEC and B1G have added were just larger and had larger fan bases and more support than the ones the ACC added. Also, most were considered Football first schools. Most of those 20 years the ACC was reacting to the SEC and B1G additions. The SEC had a Championship Game over a decade before the ACC started its move to 12 teams. I believe the SEC championship game was the spark that began their rise to their current level.

 

[stinger 1957]

Jim is and always will be a behind-the-scenes negotiator. He is not going to be a hell-raising media hog. It's not how he operates. Now, whether the ACC needs one or the other is a wholly different question. But, you're not going to get a bombastic, orator preaching ACC to the media and the world.

The powers that be moving and planning realignment have known for a number of years where they were taking CFB IMO, this is not something of the last few years, the Big 10 has wanted in the SE we know going all the way back to the '10-'12 period and possibly before GT became an AAU member. Phillips came to the ACC from the Big 10. It has crossed my mind that maybe he is a facilitator hire.

Carolina has always run the ACC since I started paying attention and NCST is a partner with that along with Duke, but Duke being private seems to me to be a little different. I assure you Carolina is looking after Carolina. Does Carolina end up with full share where they go? Does Carolina FB deserve a full share in either of the Big 2? Will be interesting to watch. The real money is in FB, not BB but BB looks as if it could get used in the Carolina case.

It appears Kansas is being brought into the picture. Carolina has been promoted over the past year or two as being the prize and promoted pretty hard as the one both conferences want. Now they're telling everyone that the SEC wants to be a BB conference also, AR hiring Calipari, Kansas to SEC? The leverages are starting to come together. Carolina will come out well I feel sure. Is Jim Phillps just what the doctor ordered for the tobacco road mafia? I dunno, just asking the question.

 

[slugboy]

Big 12 AD says similar things to regular guys

Iowa State's Jamie Pollard says college sports' power players are 'going to eat their own'

Iowa State athletics director Jamie Pollard had strong words about the state of college sports, specifically as Big Ten and SEC benefit financially.

www.desmoinesregister.com

 

[LT 1967]

For those who are interested, I have a little more information on the ACC Annual Spring Meeting. Kelsey Riggs, David Hale, and Wes Durham had a short discussion about the Meeting on ACC PM. They said that the meeting will be next week at Amelia Island without giving dates. I am ASSUMING it will be 15th through 17th, the same as last year. However, I will continue to check.
This has been like trying to find a state secret. It is not shown on the ACC web site as far as I can tell and it is not on the normal internet sites.

The group discussed possible dissention during the meeting. Wes said there will be "Philosophical and Legal" differences between the members. Sounds like FSU and Clemson will be in attendance.

A meeting subject shown on the screen noted that "ADs and Coaches would discuss the future of the Conference".

Stanford, CAL, and SMU will attend and be welcomed to the conference.

There will be more discussion on how to divide the extra money received from Bowls, NCAA, and Conference expansion.

Just an up-date on the ACC Spring meeting. I was wrong on my belief that it would be on the same dates as last year. During the Softball tournament, Taylor Tannebaum announced that the Spring meeting will start Monday (Tomorrow). I believe it will continue through Wednesday(13th--15th). Not sure how much coverage ACCN will give the meeting since there are several ACC tournaments going on. If my memory is good, they had extensive coverage last year. I am sure they will cover it on ACC PM which starts at 4:00 PM each day.

 

[roadkill]

Just an up-date on the ACC Spring meeting. I was wrong on my belief that it would be on the same dates as last year. During the Softball tournament, Taylor Tannebaum announced that the Spring meeting will start Monday (Tomorrow). I believe it will continue through Wednesday(13th--15th). Not sure how much coverage ACCN will give the meeting since there are several ACC tournaments going on. If my memory is good, they had extensive coverage last year. I am sure they will cover it on ACC PM which starts at 4:00 PM each day.

Thanks for sharing this. I don't usually pay much attention to these sessions, but this one may be one of the more interesting in recent years.

 

[stinger78]

Big 12 AD says similar things to regular guys

Iowa State's Jamie Pollard says college sports' power players are 'going to eat their own'

Iowa State athletics director Jamie Pollard had strong words about the state of college sports, specifically as Big Ten and SEC benefit financially.

www.desmoinesregister.com

I find it odd that more people don’t see this.

 

[MacDaddy2]

Just an up-date on the ACC Spring meeting. I was wrong on my belief that it would be on the same dates as last year. During the Softball tournament, Taylor Tannebaum announced that the Spring meeting will start Monday (Tomorrow). I believe it will continue through Wednesday(13th--15th). Not sure how much coverage ACCN will give the meeting since there are several ACC tournaments going on. If my memory is good, they had extensive coverage last year. I am sure they will cover it on ACC PM which starts at 4:00 PM each day.

Would love to see one of the AD's punch our GT grad in the nose at the meetings

 

[stinger 1957]

Very optimistic view. The GT fan base is older than most college fanbases. The GT student body does not lend itself a a natural source for college football fans as many large state Universities do. GT's football stadium is old and lacks the modern amenities fans in a city with Pro Teams have come to expect. It will take a lot of good fortune for GT to start drawing 45K on a regular basis for football.

Basketball could do better more quickly. Still there is a long way to go there as well.

Think I covered most of your why it will not happen and either I did not spell it out enough ( my post are already too long) or you did not comprehend it or you did not read it all, not sure what happened, but whatever I don't care to go on and on and on if you don't get it that's your problem. Certainly I could be wrong, I've never been the gospel about anything, but I do see it having good possibilities. IMO the metro areas probably don't need the really large stadiums like the more rural areas because in the more rural areas it is the "only game in town" so to speak. Lived in razorback land when Broyles was being successful and it was everything to that population.

 

[LT 1967]

Would love to see one of the AD's punch our GT grad in the nose at the meetings

I doubt Graham Neff is on many of the AD's Christmas Card list!!