Conference Realignment

[Randy Carson]

From the Rumble Seat posted this article a few days ago:

The ACC must be the aggressor to avoid irrelevancy

Lets say you were a 4 letter tv network and you wanted coast to coast college football tv slots filled without having to constantly keep rebidding for content at higher and higher costs. Wouldn't...

www.fromtherumbleseat.com

First time I've had hope in a while.

 

[RyanS12]

From the Rumble Seat posted this article a few days ago:

The ACC must be the aggressor to avoid irrelevancy

Lets say you were a 4 letter tv network and you wanted coast to coast college football tv slots filled without having to constantly keep rebidding for content at higher and higher costs. Wouldn't...

www.fromtherumbleseat.com

First time I've had hope in a while.

Kinda like it. Play kinda like hoops. Have a conference tournament, crown a winner and have that team be an AQ for a potentially expanded CFP or even if it stays at 4 teams. Let the others do the same.

 

[augustabuzz]

ND supposedly talking $85M for next NBC contract. (no inside info just what has been floated on internet shows). That is pretty steep if it's true. Probably starting point but I would suspect negotiated down. The numbers being thrown around for these TV contracts is obscene. NBC was purging their announcers not long ago to save money. Will they be a major bidder for ND tv rights? Guess it depends on advertisers.
Anyone know how much they get from their ACC share currently.

20% of a full share.

 

[SJBryan]

I like it but I’ve been talking more along the lines of this -
Drop - Syracuse, Boston College, Pitt and Louisville to a possible Big East revival.

Add- Oregon,Stanford, Washington and the Arizona’s with possibly Baylor and Ok State. Then make your push for ND. Use ND,Clemson, Oregon and Miami as the strong point of your conference with a second tier of FSU,NC,Stanford and OK State as next in line or whoever steps up. Don’t get too many teams that it takes weeks to get a winner and let’s face it- don’t overload the conference with bottom feeders.

 

[Richard7125]

ACC, now is the time to think big...

The Big12 and Pac12 are clearly the #4 and #5 conferences now (with their top properties leaving). They don’t see an arrangement that will increase revenue for them yet you want the ACC to combine with the leftovers at these conferences?

 

[UpperNorth]

I like it but I’ve been talking more along the lines of this -
Drop - Syracuse, Boston College, Pitt and Louisville to a possible Big East revival.

Add- Oregon,Stanford, Washington and the Arizona’s with possibly Baylor and Ok State. Then make your push for ND. Use ND,Clemson, Oregon and Miami as the strong point of your conference with a second tier of FSU,NC,Stanford and OK State as next in line or whoever steps up. Don’t get too many teams that it takes weeks to get a winner and let’s face it- don’t overload the conference with bottom feeders.

How viable is dropping teams? I would love that but seems like it would either not be possible or have some serious stipulations. I understand it has happened before.

Would be interested if It could be negotiated for Duke to drop football while participating in all other sports yet still receiving a specified portion of football payout. That idea would make Kansas more appealing as well.

 

[bobongo]

The ACC must be the aggressor to avoid irrelevancy

Lets say you were a 4 letter tv network and you wanted coast to coast college football tv slots filled without having to constantly keep rebidding for content at higher and higher costs. Wouldn't...

www.fromtherumbleseat.com

A watered down twenty-eight school league. Ugh.

 

[Techster]

The Big12 and Pac12 are clearly the #4 and #5 conferences now (with their top properties leaving). They don’t see an arrangement that will increase revenue for them yet you want the ACC to combine with the leftovers at these conferences?

This is what I wrote earlier in the thread:

My $0.02 on the ACC strategy:

Go B1G route. Pre-empt the Big 12 and go after Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Cal, Arizona, Colorado, Utah to lock up the West Coast and open the ACC to bigger markets and schools with good athletic and academic programs.

Oregon/Portland: #25 TV market, AAU member, Nike money and marketing
Washington/Seattle: #14 TV market, AAU member
Stanford-Cal/San Fran-Oakland: #6 TV market, AAU members
Arizona/Phoenix: #12 TV market, AAU member
Colorado/Denver: #17 Market, AAU Member
Utah/Salt Lake: #34 Market, AAU member

All of those programs have historically good, or recently very good programs. They all have a good to great brand in football and basketball.

Academically, they are in line with traditional ACC academic values.

IMO, this is move to keep the ACC viable for both network $$$ purposes, but also down the line. It gives the ACC network increased inventory, and the ability to highlight our conference on the national level, and the post 8pm time slot during football and basketball seasons. It doesn't make the West Coast side dependent on the East Coast side for scheduling purposes, but gives the league the flexibility for compelling week to week matchups.

It also gives us leverage to negotiate with ND a full 8-9 game ACC schedule, which although it wouldn't give ACC the same revenue power of the B1G and SEC, but would help close the gap...which in the long run is probably the best scenario for ACC viability.

ACC would not be absorbing the PAC 12 or the Big 12, the ACC would cherry pick some of the best "brands" in college sports located in high value media markets. Strategically, it would also isolate the B1G's West Coast play of adding USC/UCLA, while offering the ACC a whole new market to truly expand the conference brand. Those teams I listed have some of the largest followings on the West Coast.

Pac-12 TV ratings data: Oregon, USC and Washington generate the top-rated games

TV ratings from the past five (normal) seasons underscore a key point impacting every aspect of Pac-12 football: The conference needs USC, Oregon and Washington to be relevant on the national scene, consistently and concurrently.

www.seattletimes.com

Look at the ratings from the last few seasons. Washington, Oregon, and Utah are ascendant brands on the West Coast. Oregon is a national brand with Nike marketing muscle behind them (which is crazy to think B1G turned that down). Stanford is a Notre Dame play...it's one of ND's most cherished rivals. It's a card the ACC can play not to convince them to become a full member of the ACC (which they will not do), but leverage more football games which means a bigger per year media contract. Colorado and Arizona are in some of the fastest growing markets in the country.

It would also provide the ACC with nationally compelling matchups in football and basketball. Clemson vs Oregon. Washington vs FSU. GT vs Stanford. Utah vs Miami. The equation of teams totally changes, and gives the ACC new blood with teams that are nationally relevant, but also have the ability to become national powers.

This move is about the next 10-50 years...it's not about the next few years. In the next 10 years, there's a projected $50+ million dollar/year gap between B1G/SEC schools and everyone else. Hopefully, this merger would help the ACC renegotiate new media contracts. Not just with ESPN, but other streaming providers looking to grow their media inventory (think Apple/Amazon Video/etc.). I don't think the ACC gets the $100+ million per school projected payout the SEC/B1G schools get, but hopefully we can close the gap to $10-20 million per year as opposed to $50 million currently projected.

 

[CEB]

How viable is dropping teams? I would love that but seems like it would either not be possible or have some serious stipulations. I understand it has happened before.

Who / when? Honest question. I would like to know the schools and circumstances.

 

[iceeater1969]

TECH- like your ideas

If we "unite the best of the rest" , it could be a great product.

The description of what the bg 1 and sec - needs definition.

If we make progress getting the best of the rest but then bg1 and sec may make a deal to peel off our top 6-8 so they have 40 plus teams. That leaves us with a conference of left overs competing for tv dollars against 40 plus top quality teams. $$ will be very small.

How do we avoid a braveheart.moment =the blue blood took the gold?

Perhaps the BOR conferences could give something like longer term scholarships if transfer is in BOR conference. Perhaps we could limit scholarships to prevent BOR from being like the current Mega P5 ( ala, osu, uga, )

I like the idea of merging all the left overs as long as we can get TV streaming money.

Good thinking TECH.

 

[slugboy]

How viable is dropping teams? I would love that but seems like it would either not be possible or have some serious stipulations. I understand it has happened before.

Would be interested if It could be negotiated for Duke to drop football while participating in all other sports yet still receiving a specified portion of football payout. That idea would make Kansas more appealing as well.

I love my alma-mater, and I'm all for homerism, but this is the last thing we should be pulling for as a fanbase. I saw "drop Pitt and Louisville". Pitt won the ACC last year. Louisville is one of the bigger revenue teams in the ACC, and Lamar Jackson won the Heisman back in 2016. They were exciting football until shortly before Satterfield took over. You can't dump Duke because of basketball--it's terrible for football, but it's a big revenue athletic department.
If the ACC is dropping 2 schools, GT would be on the list. If NCAAF had relegation, we'd have been relegated.

1. I don't think it's viable.
2. We better hope it's not viable until after we get our act straightened out.

We're a fixable program, but we got a heckuva honey-do list of items to fix up right now.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I love my alma-mater, and I'm all for homerism, but this is the last thing we should be pulling for as a fanbase. I saw "drop Pitt and Louisville". Pitt won the ACC last year. Louisville is one of the bigger revenue teams in the ACC, and Lamar Jackson won the Heisman back in 2016. They were exciting football until shortly before Satterfield took over. You can't dump Duke because of basketball--it's terrible for football, but it's a big revenue athletic department.
If the ACC is dropping 2 schools, GT would be on the list. If NCAAF had relegation, we'd have been relegated.

1. I don't think it's viable.
2. We better hope it's not viable until after we get our act straightened out.

We're a fixable program, but we got a heckuva honey-do list of items to fix up right now.

Yep, you’re right. Short hand version of what you wrote: We have too proud of a tradition to turn into a petty, peevish fan base.

 

[UgaBlows]

The Big12 and Pac12 are clearly the #4 and #5 conferences now (with their top properties leaving). They don’t see an arrangement that will increase revenue for them yet you want the ACC to combine with the leftovers at these conferences?

Too many bottom feeders if those two conferences combined, but Stanford, Oregon, Washington, and maybe AZ would all be great additions to the ACC. I don’t think ND will ever join us or anyone else as long as they are able to negotiate their own tv contract for $$$ so we just forget that imo

 

[iceeater1969]

I love my alma-mater, and I'm all for homerism, but this is the last thing we should be pulling for as a fanbase. I saw "drop Pitt and Louisville". Pitt won the ACC last year. Louisville is one of the bigger revenue teams in the ACC, and Lamar Jackson won the Heisman back in 2016. They were exciting football until shortly before Satterfield took over. You can't dump Duke because of basketball--it's terrible for football, but it's a big revenue athletic department.
If the ACC is dropping 2 schools, GT would be on the list. If NCAAF had relegation, we'd have been relegated.

1. I don't think it's viable.
2. We better hope it's not viable until after we get our act straightened out.

We're a fixable program, but we got a heckuva honey-do list of items to fix up right now.

On field this year:
Hoping and somewhat optimistic
1. the new staff of older coaches can coach up the players.
2 . the players recruited for the new system can show.
3. No more devestating injuries ( Brandon Adam's, recruit from Fla, the ol, 6 ft 5 inch wide receiver blackburn busted knee ). imo our lack of speed to get open at wr has been the main issue.
4. Win 2 of last 5 games and play uga tough to finish season strong.
We must show life on field.



In the back room
HOPING and only slightly optimistic
1. The prez gets it and will fight for gt football
2 . We get a break from tv gods based on being in atl.
3. Bg1 wants a team in atl for recruiting reasons.
4. GT ALUMS start donating $ to have war chest to hire top coaches.

Football at gt needs help

 

[JacketFan137]

I love my alma-mater, and I'm all for homerism, but this is the last thing we should be pulling for as a fanbase. I saw "drop Pitt and Louisville". Pitt won the ACC last year. Louisville is one of the bigger revenue teams in the ACC, and Lamar Jackson won the Heisman back in 2016. They were exciting football until shortly before Satterfield took over. You can't dump Duke because of basketball--it's terrible for football, but it's a big revenue athletic department.
If the ACC is dropping 2 schools, GT would be on the list. If NCAAF had relegation, we'd have been relegated.

1. I don't think it's viable.
2. We better hope it's not viable until after we get our act straightened out.

We're a fixable program, but we got a heckuva honey-do list of items to fix up right now.

boston college and wakeforest would be much more likely to get the bump than tech. georgia tech really wouldn’t be a thought of dropping us right now. in the micro maybe we would be a candidate but if you look at the past decade we’d stay for sure

 

[Techster]

boston college and wakeforest would be much more likely to get the bump than tech. georgia tech really wouldn’t be a thought of dropping us right now. in the micro maybe we would be a candidate but if you look at the past decade we’d stay for sure

The BIG factor with GT is our history and the Atlanta market. The last few seasons would seem to play against us, but conferences administrators and media networks think bigger than a few seasons. GT is also a bigger "name" than most GT fans think. We have too many "glass half empty" fans that don't value the potential of GT. When you go to Twitter and look up GT, you'll be surprised to find how many fans out there respect and root for GT outside of their own team.

GT has a BIG chip to play, it's just a matter of whether our own adminstration chooses to play it in the big game.

 

[gdamian]

From the Rumble Seat posted this article a few days ago:

The ACC must be the aggressor to avoid irrelevancy

Lets say you were a 4 letter tv network and you wanted coast to coast college football tv slots filled without having to constantly keep rebidding for content at higher and higher costs. Wouldn't...

www.fromtherumbleseat.com

First time I've had hope in a while.

I like the idea except we can all quibble about which additional 14 teams are added. This SI article uses several criteria to determine overall desirability and yeah it is somewhat arbitrary but it would be a huge mistake to leave out Arizona St. for example. https://www.si.com/college/2022/07/14/power-5-desirability-rankings-sec-big-ten-acc

You would want to take the top 8 PAC schools leaving W. St. and O. St. behind. Then the next six best schools would be: Ok St, Iowa St, TCU, BYU, Baylor, Texas Tech (actually WV is slightly higher than TT but it works out better below).

You could then have:

NorthEast : Cuse, Pitt, BC, UVA, VT, Wake, Louisville

South: Miami, FSU, GT, Clem, Duke, UNC, NCSt

SouthWest: Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, Ok State, Iowa St, Arizona State, AZ

West: Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Cal, Stanford, BYU, Utah

 

[Techster]

I like the idea except we can all quibble about which additional 14 teams are added. This SI article uses several criteria to determine overall desirability and yeah it is somewhat arbitrary but it would be a huge mistake to leave out Arizona St. for example. https://www.si.com/college/2022/07/14/power-5-desirability-rankings-sec-big-ten-acc

You would want to take the top 8 PAC schools leaving W. St. and O. St. behind. Then the next six best schools would be: Ok St, Iowa St, TCU, BYU, Baylor, Texas Tech (actually WV is slightly higher than TT but it works out better below).

You could then have:

East (Coastal): Cuse, Pitt, BC, UVA, VT, Wake, Louisville

South (Atlantic): Miami, FSU, GT, Clem, Duke, UNC, NCSt

SouthWest: Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, Ok State, Iowa St, Arizona State, AZ

West: Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Cal, Stanford, BYU, Utah

BYU is an interesting school. HUGE following due to the Mormon faith, and they have national brand recognition. Adding Utah + BYU gives the ACC an interesting sectional rivalry and a HUGE audience.

A BYU + Notre Dame game would also be huge because of what each school represents to their fanbase.

Texas teams are an interesting play because of the markets. I wonder if the ACC would at least try to contact TX A&M because of the their displeasure with the SEC and UTexas. We can bring in a TX Tech or TCU to help TX A&M with natural in-state rivalry. TX A&M would absolutely bring up the value of the ACC contract, while also giving A&M an easier path to the playoffs and national championship.

Honestly, a conference with TX A&M, Clemson, FSU, Oregon, ND would compete with the B1G. I don't think we'd be as top heavy as the SEC with 'Bama/UGA/LSU/UF/etc, but we have enough good teams and brands that we'd be a close to the level of the B1G with a broader national appeal.

Everything is cyclical. Who's to say the ACC teams don't click for a while and we're looked at as "Power" conference along the lines of the B1G and SEC one day.

 

[gdamian]

BYU is an interesting school. HUGE following due to the Mormon faith, and they have national brand recognition. Adding Utah + BYU gives the ACC an interesting sectional rivalry and a HUGE audience.

A BYU + Notre Dame game would also be huge because of what each school represents to their fanbase.

Texas teams are an interesting play because of the markets. I wonder if the ACC would at least try to contact TX A&M because of the their displeasure with the SEC and UTexas. We can bring in a TX Tech or TCU to help TX A&M with natural in-state rivalry. TX A&M would absolutely bring up the value of the ACC contract, while also giving A&M an easier path to the playoffs and national championship.

Honestly, a conference with TX A&M, Clemson, FSU, Oregon, ND would compete with the B1G. I don't think we'd be as top heavy as the SEC with 'Bama/UGA/LSU/UF/etc, but we have enough good teams and brands that we'd be a close to the level of the B1G with a broader national appeal.

Everything is cyclical. Who's to say the ACC teams don't click for a while and we're looked at as "Power" conference along the lines of the B1G and SEC one day.

Sure if ACC can poach TAM that would be terrific. I don't see this as particularly likely. Wouldn't they be taking a big pay hit?

 

[Vespidae]

The BIG factor with GT is our history and the Atlanta market.

One of my friends here is the Fox Sports programming lead who has an office at the Auburn Athletic complex. I asked him what he thought and he just shook his head. GT is one of many schools who are used for programming content. It really doesn't matter if we win, lose or have anyone in the stands. They are furnishing a product that their subscribers can sell local advertising against. That's it.

I think we have largely walked away from our history. Talk to almost anyone outside of the South and GT is treated about the same as Holy Cross. When I was younger (much younger), West Georgia was still fertile recruiting land for Tech. The Auburn Wreck Tech parade was huge, as was the rivalry with Alabama. We have largely turned away from all of that. We have been "going national" and one outcome is that we have almost no base to call our own. We aren't number one in Georgia, number one in Atlanta, number one in the South ...

I'm hopeful for the new staff. But I'm still looking for evidence that we have a plan to compete in this environment. It must be very challenging for AD's everywhere.