Expansion

smokey_wasp said:
We all know the ACC is lame, but it's probably best for us (and everyone except Clemson and FSU) if it survives intact a few more years. Not convinced we would land anywhere we would want to be if it collapsed today. So, I am all for expanding it and trying to compete with the Big 12 for #3. Invest in the program, start winning and putting ourselves in a good position.
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I still feel like the next move for conferences will be voting members out. Vandy is just stealing money at this point that Alabama and the top SEC teams earned.
 
BigDanT said:
May it be good or bad news, your haste for the ACC to implode is negative for Tech in general.
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I'm not looking for the ACC to implode and I don't think it actually will. But I don't like the direction it's going in. I think Stanford and Cal are terrible candidates for the conference and I don't think ND should have a say in it unless they join the conference in all sports. They should keep their mouths shut. I sympathize with FSU's argument that the TV deals have created an unfair advantage for teams in the SEC and BIG10. I think the ACC leadership sucks and I think it has been poorly run for a long time.

I want what's best for Tech. Selling the name of your historic field to a car company isn't a sign of strength. Tech athletics could use more money. A lot more and the ACC leadership isn't coming up with any real solutions. What we've heard in the last several days from ACC "leadership" is pitiful garbage.

I've never been an advocate of staying in abusive relationships or bad marriages. If FSU goes nuclear, I wouldn't blame them. I'm not rooting for it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happens.
 
smokey_wasp said:
We all know the ACC is lame, but it's probably best for us (and everyone except Clemson and FSU) if it survives intact a few more years. Not convinced we would land anywhere we would want to be if it collapsed today. So, I am all for expanding it and trying to compete with the Big 12 for #3. Invest in the program, start winning and putting ourselves in a good position.
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I agree. And who knows? When time to renew the main two conferences, how much money is still there. Still an easier road to the CFB PO than the BIG or SEC.
 
Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, South Florida, Memphis, Tulane, East Carolina, Liberty, Coastal Carolina, Old Dominion, Louisiana, Georgia State, Louisiana Tech, Western Kentucky. All regional programs, some with excellent academics, many on the rise and suitable for consideration.

The ACC already missed on Central Florida, Cincinnati, and West Virginia which would have been great regional additions and easy adds.

TV market thinking with highly restrictive academic qualifications led to adding programs like BC and Syracuse which are football poison. The idea of adding Cal and Stanford is football suicide.
 
Buzzilla said:
Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, South Florida, Memphis, Tulane, East Carolina, Liberty, Coastal Carolina, Old Dominion, Louisiana, Georgia State, Louisiana Tech, Western Kentucky. All regional programs, some with excellent academics, many on the rise and suitable for consideration.

The ACC already missed on Central Florida, Cincinnati, and West Virginia which would have been great regional additions and easy adds.

TV market thinking with highly restrictive academic qualifications led to adding programs like BC and Syracuse which are football poison. The idea of adding Cal and Stanford is football suicide.
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Your entire post = death to GT football
 
cyptomcat said:
It sounds like a pretty bad contract when the ACC can add new members and still keep FSU bound to the GOR contract. I would think a new contract would need to be negotiated to add new teams, or at least every school has a veto.
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this. if acc now adding west coast teams, its not the acc anymore. if you could get FSU and clem to agree to stay on, dissolve the acc, boot the GOR, and start adding any team that will boost price of a new media contract. pick best teams left over from pac and big12, the west virginia, ucf, and utahs of the world. cut cuse and other bottom feeders. create a third super conference. would still be behind acc and big, but would at least be in a better spot than us and all of those schools are in now. since money apparently the only thing that matters anymore, this the way to do it without getting into sec or big.
 
JJacket said:
Your entire post = death to GT football
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Fine. You're the commissioner of the ACC. Give us your vision to keep this tub of sh*t floating and a realistic, viable path forward to relevance.
 
Buzzilla said:
Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, South Florida, Memphis, Tulane, East Carolina, Liberty, Coastal Carolina, Old Dominion, Louisiana, Georgia State, Louisiana Tech, Western Kentucky. All regional programs, some with excellent academics, many on the rise and suitable for consideration.

The ACC already missed on Central Florida, Cincinnati, and West Virginia which would have been great regional additions and easy adds.

TV market thinking with highly restrictive academic qualifications led to adding programs like BC and Syracuse which are football poison. The idea of adding Cal and Stanford is football suicide.
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I thought we should have taken CFU, and Cincinnati would have brought us into the Ohio Market (more TV money). As to the Sun Belt options, only Tulane interests me. They bring a new state for TV Dollars, are a good school, and a good destination for travelling fans. They would have to commit to a much bigger program however.

Assuming the world hasn't moved much more forward by 2036, i.e. begun dumping weak links inside the Big Two, the ACC is going to fall apart. We should make decisions that can help us survive as a conference no matter what. I think we are being pushed into an academic driven conference with mostly regional teams, and reduced to one or two per state for max TV dollars. BC, Pitt, Syracuse, GT, Duke, Miami, possibly UVA or VPI or NCS, and Tulane, Stanford, California, ND (ex football) works for all the other sports.

As it stands, if Tech doesn't fill it's 55,000 seat stadium in the next ten years and create fans in the state, we are headed to a 25,000 seat stadium in 2036. Look at history, see Yale and Harvard's stadiums and their football programs.

And I would be bummed, but not hate it. I'd like the money programs to disappear from the NCAA or whatever it will be called in the future. They are pro teams now, I'd like to see us get out of that business.

It's too bad, we are here now, as I believe in our current president like no other. But Tech leadership put us here...on purpose?
 
Let me add, that all the ACC has to do is wake up football programs FSU, Miami, GT, VPI and hope that UL and Pitt start winning OOC games too. There was a time that on paper, the ACC had put together the best football conference but Miami quit trying, VPI and FSU fell apart post long time coaches and leadership ruined GT.
 
There is one major assumption that folks are making: The emerging business model of 20+-team conferences is going to hold up.
However, Disney is already losing money and ESPN's contribution to profit is shrinking. The stated reason for expansion is inventory, meaning "interesting games that ESPN can make more money off of." However, here's the rub... the B1G has at least 7 teams (Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, N'western, and Minnesota - and maybe even Iowa and Nebraska by now) who are relatively uninteresting on a national, or even regional, scale. Further, when is the last time you watched USC, UCLA, or Washington play? Can't wait for that Washington-Rutgers game, right? Or that, tilt for the Old Oaken Bucket? No, that's not Thoren v. Smaug, it's Indiana v. Purdue. Yawn. There's a saturation point for all this.

The mercenaries will say, "Yes, but it's all about local viewership, and more discrete localities involved the better. Yeah, maybe. How many fans pack BDS to see the Jackets play Syracuse? Who besides a few Tech and Orange zealots watch that one on TV? Most I know DVR'ed it and if it turned out interesting will go back and watch later. I'm skeptical that the business model will hold up past the initial novelty of having USC-PSU as conference game. Maybe so, but I somehow doubt it.

So fast forward about 8-10 years. We've now denuded all conferences but the two anointed ones, which between them will have 8 of the 12 postseason slots. Forty-plus teams of which only about 10-12 have any real chance of getting one of those slots. And with the waning newness the TV numbers have declined. Time to reup the contract, but wait, ESPN cannot pay those huge TV $$$ for so many marginal to bad games. What will happen? Now that conference allegiances and geographical symmetry are crushed, one could see (easily or not) another breaking off of the 16 top teams into an Elite League, leaving the rest to fend for themselves. What then for Indiana-Purdue? Or USCe-Missouri? Or UCLA-Illinois? Or Vandy-Arky? Etc., etc.

Maybe I'm a nut, but it doesn't seem far-fetched to me. At some point, all those other games will be jettisoned, and we'll end up with 16-18 teams: Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, LSU, Texas, TAMU, and Oklahoma on one end and tOSU, UoM, MSU/UCLA, Oregon, USC, Washington, PSU, and Wiscy on the other. Maybe you even add F$U and Clemson to those lists. It will be a true Bush-League Pro League. They'll line up and play for the College Football Champions of the Universe trophy. Just what we need....

But that's how it already is! So, why are we destroying all college football history and traditions to do this? We could just agree with ESPN-god to play x-number of interesting inter-confernece games each year - and watch the millions roll in! How about we ride it out and watch what happens. In the meantime, let's play football with the rest of the deplorables, you know, the UNC, NCSU, Miami, VPI, UVA, and Louisville crowd. Maybe schedule a game or two a year with Oklahoma State, TCU, Stanford, Cal, BYU, K State, etc.

Works for me.
 
Buzzilla said:
Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, South Florida, Memphis, Tulane, East Carolina, Liberty, Coastal Carolina, Old Dominion, Louisiana, Georgia State, Louisiana Tech, Western Kentucky. All regional programs, some with excellent academics, many on the rise and suitable for consideration.

The ACC already missed on Central Florida, Cincinnati, and West Virginia which would have been great regional additions and easy adds.

TV market thinking with highly restrictive academic qualifications led to adding programs like BC and Syracuse which are football poison. The idea of adding Cal and Stanford is football suicide.
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Wait, you're against Stanford and Cal but think GA Southern and GA State are worthy of consideration. Wut?

At this point, I think it's either add 2 of the only 4 legitimate P5 teams available, or sit around and wait until the exit fee is cheap enough for the conference to get raided.
 
Buzzilla said:
Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, South Florida, Memphis, Tulane, East Carolina, Liberty, Coastal Carolina, Old Dominion, Louisiana, Georgia State, Louisiana Tech, Western Kentucky. All regional programs, some with excellent academics, many on the rise and suitable for consideration.
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Am I missing the joke here?

I agree with a lot of your other takes on expansion, but adding any of those teams is the ACC signaling it is ready to be a group of 5 (of whatever it is called) conference.
 
midatlantech said:
Let me add, that all the ACC has to do is wake up football programs FSU, Miami, GT, VPI and hope that UL and Pitt start winning OOC games too. There was a time that on paper, the ACC had put together the best football conference but Miami quit trying, VPI and FSU fell apart post long time coaches and leadership ruined GT.
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Yes. There has always been an ebb and flow to everything in college football. It's amazing how all these moves are being made as if the power structure is completely static forever.
 
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