Let's assume the ACC gets torn to shreds

[nelsonmuntz]

ConnHuskBask,

I am not going to quote your whole post, but two thoughts:

1) The ACC contract that was SIGNED is for an average of $155/year for 10 years, or $13MM/school/year. ESPN announced that they had upped it to $17MM/school/year with the addition of Syracuse and Pitt, after the ACC agreed to throw a lot of new content into the deal. ESPN is under no obligation to renegotiate anything. There is an ASSUMPTION by some, that ESPN has factored in membership changes into the ACC deal, which is why it came in so light relative to the schools involved.

2) The championships you speak of with Pitt and Syracuse were decades ago. TCU and Utah have some recent success, as does WVU. The Texas A&M national title in football was during the war buildup prior to World War II. I had to look it up because I didn't realize they had ever won anything. You are right, that title is why the SEC took them. Missouri has been historically terrible at football, and they have the most NCAA Tournament appearances without a Final Four. Good work.

 

[Jimdish255]

A little off-topic but just heard Ed Cunningham over at College Football Live calling for "cooler heads" to prevail to stop the ACC defections and saying that ND and Texas will always be more valuable commodities than the others so if your making less money you should "get over it". Don't know what that has to do with anything but boy did he sound desperate. "The idea that the ACC is dead is ridiculous to me."

 

[Uptop]

For the purposes of this thread, don't argue what you think will happen. There are other threads for that. That said, this seems a lot more likely than it did even 2 days ago. Let's just assume the following:

Big 12 adds: FSU, GTech, Clemson, Louisville
Big 10 adds: UNC, UVa
SEC adds: NC State, VTech

Does the Big East even take BCU back? BCU sucks, and UMass is D1 now.

After more thought, if the scenario does play out, I'm now inclined to let BCU rot in hades and pay for their crimes and bring UMass into the conference.

Initially, I was hung up on old Big East stuff BCU had done for the conference < 2003 as well as a new Prez and AD to work with . However, thoses days are long gone and BCU is damaged goods and the only positive in taking them back at this juncture would be that we took them back from the acc, which may not be saying a lot it's blown to smithereens as I hope it is. If this conference is going to succeed it must focus on moving forward than going backwards. And bringing BCU back is going backwards. Let them stew in what they did.

The BIG EAST conference without proper representation from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a conference with a lost identity. UMass, because it's New England and because it's foaming at the mouth to be included on the college athletic map is a better addition than memphis, ucf, smu, houston sdsu and bringing back BCU will ever be. All it needs is the same venue with new leadership that UConn, RU, Cuse and alike have had to elevated their profiles; named the Big East Conference

Bringing the Flagship university of Massachusetts into the conference will undoubtedly elevate high school football in the state and is a better match up for the conference and UConn. High school players will aspire to play in the Big East. Currently, UConn is the only regional Big East option. Now with UMass as an option, it raises the competition bar for talent and forces UConn to step its game up.

In the south where college football has replaced cotton as king, high school championships are played in pro stadiums. Playing games in pro stadiums is big time and a big difference in the minds of kids. For UMass to play its 6-7 home games on the same field as the Patriotss is a big deal.

Perception wise UMass may not have the cache of other programs. But given a Big East invite, the outcomes may be as strong.

Huge upside.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

ConnHuskBask,

I am not going to quote your whole post, but two thoughts:

1) The ACC contract that was SIGNED is for an average of $155/year for 10 years, or $13MM/school/year. ESPN announced that they had upped it to $17MM/school/year with the addition of Syracuse and Pitt, after the ACC agreed to throw a lot of new content into the deal. ESPN is under no obligation to renegotiate anything. There is an ASSUMPTION by some, that ESPN has factored in membership changes into the ACC deal, which is why it came in so light relative to the schools involved.

By some? Internet message board posters? ESPN announced $17M per team. You can't just say it will be brought back down to $13M a year because some people assume it may have clauses in it.

2) The championships you speak of with Pitt and Syracuse were decades ago. TCU and Utah have some recent success, as does WVU. The Texas A&M national title in football was during the war buildup prior to World War II. I had to look it up because I didn't realize they had ever won anything. You are right, that title is why the SEC took them. Missouri has been historically terrible at football, and they have the most NCAA Tournament appearances without a Final Four. Good work.

Again, it's about tradition and whether or not you matter to the casual college football fan. Those schools either have tradition or have won big recently.

Who else was available that the SEC could have taken with as much tradition as Texas A&M? Waiting...
Missouri football is far from historically terrible at football too. From the wiki it looks like they didn't do much from the early 80s to late 90s. Missouri basketball? I forgot this had anything to do with basketball.

It's not about markets - it's about National draw. The teams that have it are in the big conferences and the teams that don't are on the outside looking in.

If only there was an example of a conference in major media markets, with average teams that had no national appeal and a sh1tty tv deal I would be able to prove my point....

 

[RS9999X]

ConnHuskBask,

I am not going to quote your whole post, but two thoughts:

1) The ACC contract that was SIGNED is for an average of $155/year for 10 years, or $13MM/school/year. ESPN announced that they had upped it to $17MM/school/year with the addition of Syracuse and Pitt, after the ACC agreed to throw a lot of new content into the deal. ESPN is under no obligation to renegotiate anything. There is an ASSUMPTION by some, that ESPN's has factored in membership changes into the ACC deal, which is why it came in so light relative to the schools involved. .

It's a mathetmatical sleight of hand. The word backloaded was used over and over (like the PAc-12 it's a 6% yearly escalator contract) . By my calcs that extra $4 million a year broke down half and half like so. $30 million of that $60 million is in the back end years that pay approx $22 mil, $23 mil and $24 mil each year. That's $30 million higher than a simple $13 mil average in those 3 years. The rest, $2 mil a year, is new money based on rights concessions.