Conference Realignment

[WreckinGT]

What is different about what I said and what the law says? A) by the board B) 2/3 majority of the members and C) In writing by anyone who is required to approve. That is what I said, and that is what the law says.

You have no idea what I "want" to be true. Unlike someone in this conversation, I am finding facts and posting them. I am not simply saying what I wish those facts were.

"By the members entitled to vote thereon, if any, by two-thirds of the votes cast or a majority of the votes entitled to be cast on the plan of dissolution, whichever is less."

A majority in this case would be lower than two thirds of the votes cast assuming all 15 members cast a vote.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

NC law requiring non-profits to meet obligations might make dissolution difficult even if a majority wanted it. I am sure ESPN would not simply stand aside.

 

[RamblinRed]

ACC isn't going to be dissolved. A 2/3 majority is 10 schools (assuming there aren't named interested parties and lose their vote).
So in order for a dissolution vote to happen you would need 10 schools that have a better option than the current option, so they would have a reason to vote yes. Does anyone here think 10 schools in the ACC are going to have better options at any time then they do right now in the ACC. I'd say no way.

 

[RonJohn]

NC law requiring non-profits to meet obligations might make dissolution difficult even if a majority wanted it. I am sure ESPN would not simply stand aside.

That is a very good point. The ACC has a contract to provide content to ESPN until the mid 2030s. According to that law, the ACC would probably either have to provide content until the mid 2030s before it could dissolve, or negotiate a settlement with ESPN in order to dissolve.

 

[billga99]

ACC isn't going to be dissolved. A 2/3 majority is 10 schools (assuming there aren't named interested parties and lose their vote).
So in order for a dissolution vote to happen you would need 10 schools that have a better option than the current option, so they would have a reason to vote yes. Does anyone here think 10 schools in the ACC are going to have better options at any time then they do right now in the ACC. I'd say no way.

l agree with this. We talk about the schools that would like to go to the SEC or Big 10. Reality is even if you stretch the opinion on this, take Miami, FSU, Clemson, UNC, Duke, VA as decent chances. NC St. and VT as maybes. That is 8. I don't see BC, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest, Louisville and unfortunately GT seeing greener pastures. So getting to 10 seems like a very long shot even if that had any validity to breaking up the conference.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

l agree with this. We talk about the schools that would like to go to the SEC or Big 10. Reality is even if you stretch the opinion on this, take Miami, FSU, Clemson, UNC, Duke, VA as decent chances. NC St. and VT as maybes. That is 8. I don't see BC, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest, Louisville and unfortunately GT seeing greener pastures. So getting to 10 seems like a very long shot even if that had any validity to breaking up the conference.

There would have to be a landing spot for said teams before they'd vote anyways. I'm not sure there is a landing spot for more than 3-4 ACC teams in P5 conferences.

 

[WreckinGT]

ACC isn't going to be dissolved. A 2/3 majority is 10 schools (assuming there aren't named interested parties and lose their vote).
So in order for a dissolution vote to happen you would need 10 schools that have a better option than the current option, so they would have a reason to vote yes. Does anyone here think 10 schools in the ACC are going to have better options at any time then they do right now in the ACC. I'd say no way.

Unless the ACC willingly amends its own bylaws then 8 is number needed. That 8 might also include ND. That part is a little hazy. Getting 7 full time members and ND would not be impossible. And yes, I do think a collection of teams like Clemson, Miami, FSU, UNC, NC State, GT, and VT + ND could find better options elsewhere that would result in hundreds of millions of more dollars over the next 14 years.

 

[RonJohn]

"By the members entitled to vote thereon, if any, by two-thirds of the votes cast or a majority of the votes entitled to be cast on the plan of dissolution, whichever is less."

A majority in this case would be lower than two thirds of the votes cast assuming all 15 members cast a vote.

Still has to be passed by the board, which by the bylaws would require a 3/4 majority to change the bylaws, which would be required to eliminate all of the bylaws.

I am not a lawyer, so I could be missing some commas or semi-colons and not getting one thing before the other. However, the way you are reading the law is similar to how sovereign citizens read laws. They get one sentence and latch onto it, while ignoring what comes before that sentence and after that sentence and ignoring case law pertaining to that law. No matter what random posters on internet forums want, there is no easy way out of the ACC nor the ACC GOR.

 

[Techster]

GT has no one to blame but ourselves. We were part of or had an invite to the two biggest players in college sports, the SEC and B1G. We left the SEC due to hubris, and turned down the B1G due to lack of foresight.

The SEC decision cost us for decades, and almost crippled our sports department for good...not to mention ceded Atlanta to UGA and other SEC teams. That's not even taking into consideration what's going on with SEC revenues today. GT fans forget that our school had a lot of clout in the SEC at the time and was one of the more respected members.

I keep hearing that turning down the B1G is only bad today because we can't predict the future and hindsight is what makes it worse. I would vehemently disagree with that. In 2012, B1G was paying member schools $25 million versus the ACC's $17 million. That's a 47% difference. 2012 was also the first year the B1G Network revenue payouts started (and arguably, when the gap started widening between B1G and everyone else), and revenue projections were forecasted to increase over the years. The ACC Network wasn't even a thought at the time, and if anyone followed media revenue trends, revenue for sports programming was exploding during that time. The gap was only going to grow wider and wider. Lack of foresight on GT's part ignored all of that to stay in the ACC. That's only what the public is privy to, I'm sure Radakovich and GT were privy to far more than what the public knew about, and there's a reason why Radakovich pushed hard for GT to join the B1G and left for Clemson because turning down the B1G was a sign to Radakovich that GT didn't want to compete on a higher tier. Anyone think Maryland saw the revenue forecast model and jumped as fast as possible to the B1G even knowing it would cost them $31 million in the short term? Schools don't pay $31 million without knowing how much the long term gains are.

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Let's also remember how the ACC treats GT. Did anyone think the ACC wasn't acting in the best interest of the Tobacco Road schools instead of the conference as a whole? Losing GT, and the biggest market in the South, could have been a disaster for the ACC long term.

So here we are. We've lost hundreds of millions over the last decade, have a MASSIVE debt load, and we just paid $10+ million we don't really have to the worst coach since I've been a GT fan. Oh, we're also locked into a media contract that looks worse and worse as the years go by. As I said above, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

 

[Techster]

Unless the ACC willingly amends its own bylaws then 8 is number needed. That 8 might also include ND. That part is a little hazy. Getting 7 full time members and ND would not be impossible. And yes, I do think a collection of teams like Clemson, Miami, FSU, UNC, NC State, GT, and VT + ND could find better options elsewhere that would result in hundreds of millions of more dollars over the next 14 years.

Even if the ACC only requires 8 schools to dissolve, which 8 schools has a real expectation to land in the SEC or B1G? That's the only way this scenario even has a chance to get 8 votes...8 schools need a better landing spot. Otherwise, all members of the ACC are chained together pulling each other to the bottom of the ocean.

 

[WreckinGT]

Even if the ACC only requires 8 schools to dissolve, which 8 schools has a real expectation to land in the SEC or B1G? That's the only way this scenario even has a chance to get 8 votes...8 schools need a better landing spot. Otherwise, all members of the ACC are chained together pulling each other to the bottom of the ocean.

The problem is, now the Big 12 has passed us in revenue as well and they get to renegotiate in 6 years to push that difference even further. The Pac 12 commissioner is telling members to expect 35-40 million baseline in their new contracts. We will see if that pans out but that would put them ahead of us as well. They will also likely sign a shorter contract allowing them to renegotiate higher long before our contract is over. The SEC and B1G will renegotiate again before we do as well. The length of our contract will put us substantially behind every other conference in revenue in the next decade. Not just the SEC or B1G.

 

[stinger 1957]

What I see everyone forgetting is the TV folks are driving this whole thing, they are deciding what is going to happen. Think that through if you can and in my mind it puts a whole different slant on what could happen to the ACC. If the ACC does not do something, then over 14 yrs they become irrelevant IMO. The TV folks are not going to let those housetops of revenue go down the tube, no way.

 

[Jacket Bracket]

So what about the opposite of this discussion? Expansion!! If the ACC added the best remaining PAC12 schools, would that void our GOR?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

So what about the opposite of this discussion? Expansion!! If the ACC added the best remaining PAC12 schools, would that void our GOR?

No, but it would trigger a renegotiation with ESPN.

 

[RonJohn]

So what about the opposite of this discussion? Expansion!! If the ACC added the best remaining PAC12 schools, would that void our GOR?

Quite the opposite. It would add more schools who would have to agree to cancel the GOR.

 

[forensicbuzz]

In the bylaws 1.5.1.3 withdrawing and/or expelled members are automatically removed from boards and lose their ability to vote. I didn't see anything that indicates that schools that want to leave, but haven't withdrawn are labeled as disinterested parties and lose their vote.

The other schools can vote to determine another school as an "interested party," which strips their vote. Needs to be a supermajority. Seems fraught with lawsuits if they do that, though.

 

[TooTall]

If the schools wanted, they can get together and cancel the GOR. The schools can survive without the conference, the conference CANT survive without the schools. Contracts are made to be broken. ESPN has no bearing on the GOR as they are just the middle man. Its the school's vs the conference. Same as the school's vs the NCAA. Which side has given in there??

 

[forensicbuzz]

ACC isn't going to be dissolved. A 2/3 majority is 10 schools (assuming there aren't named interested parties and lose their vote).
So in order for a dissolution vote to happen you would need 10 schools that have a better option than the current option, so they would have a reason to vote yes. Does anyone here think 10 schools in the ACC are going to have better options at any time then they do right now in the ACC. I'd say no way.

Right. As soon as they're approached or have any conversations with other conferences, they're considered interested parties and have lost their vote. It would have to be a non-solicited, preemptive vote. Don't see that EVER happening....but it could.

 

[bobongo]

If the schools wanted, they can get together and cancel the GOR. The schools can survive without the conference, the conference CANT survive without the schools.

But most of them don't want. We don't want, either, unless we want to no longer be in a P-5 conference.

 

[forensicbuzz]

There would have to be a landing spot for said teams before they'd vote anyways. I'm not sure there is a landing spot for more than 3-4 ACC teams in P5 conferences.

Landing spots make them ineligible to vote.