Imagine where Notre Dame would be.

[TouchdownHusky]

Where would this Notre Dame team be - not to mention the men's team - if they had to play as independents?
College hoops is all about conferences (and conference tournaments). Imagine, if the Irish had to scrape together a basketball (or baseball or soccer) schedule as an independent.

So Notre Dame most definitely is a parasite (with every one of its programs that is not football) benefitting from being affliated with a conference. Yet they are allowed to exist as an independent in football. Shame on every P5 program that does not boycott them in football until they are forced to join a conference. Shame on the ACC for not learning from the Big East. Shame on the Big East for allowing ND to have such a stupid arrangement.

Time for every school to boycott ND until it agrees to an all sport affiliation with a conference. And I don't want to hear about the $ in playing ND or being on TV against ND. That money for ND would very quickly dry up for ND if the stopped having quality programs to play. And soon enough after that - and after joing a conference like everyone else, the $ would reappear.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Toatally get the money angle and the heap of self-interested hypocrisy about ND, but still have a tough time accepting that a school has a moral obligation to be fully part of a conference like the ACC. If anything, seeing the actions of many of the schools in that hollowed (ethically) institution, I'd almost think it's like a requirement to serve time in purgatory.

 

[ctdad]

Conferences are not stupid. The ACC would not enter into such an arrangement if it wasn't beneficial to them in some way. No one held a gun to their head saying take it or leave it. They get 5 football games a season with ND (there were 4 this past season because of previous contractual commitments and there are 6 either in 2015 or 2016 to make up for that); like it or not, that means eyeballs and more television revenue. And right now, that is what drives collegiate sports.

 

[meyers7]

Conferences are not stupid.

I can think of one that wasn't too bright.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Conferences are not stupid. The ACC would not enter into such an arrangement if it wasn't beneficial to them in some way. No one held a gun to their head saying take it or leave it. They get 5 football games a season with ND (there were 4 this past season because of previous contractual commitments and there are 6 either in 2015 or 2016 to make up for that); like it or not, that means eyeballs and more television revenue. And right now, that is what drives collegiate sports.

Yeah they are, because they could force ND's hand . . . all in or all out. Good luck with that independent thing in basketball.

 

[ctdad]

Yeah they are, because they could force ND's hand . . . all in or all out. Good luck with that independent thing in basketball.

They (the ACC) have concluded that the business arrangement as it is works for them. Just because it didn't meet with your approval doesn't make it wrong for the conference; both parties concluded it works for them.