Let's assume the ACC gets torn to shreds

[nelsonmuntz]

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

ACC has: Duke, Wake, Maryland, BCU, Syracuse, Pitt, Miami.

BYU and Air Force are still open to joining a league, especially for football.

Let's also assume that Duke doesn't form a D1 Patriot League, which is possibly their best play.

What does the Big East and UConn do?

The Big East would be at:

UConn, Rutgers, Cincinnati, USF
Hoops: Marquette, Depaul, Providence, Seton Hall, St. Johns, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Villanova

Adding: Memphis, SMU, Houston, UCF, Temple, Boise (F), SDSU (F), Navy (F)

The Big East really jumped the gun adding SDSU, UCF, Temple and Memphis. If the league hadn't added those four, it would have a lot more options right now. They weren't going anywhere. I can almost see the Temple situation because of scheduling, almost, but the other 3 would have had their application ready to send on June 30, 2012.

Do the core Big East schools UConn join the ACC at what would likely be $13MM a year and play in a league that has ONE team, Cincinnati, that has finished the regular season in the Top 10 in the last 8 years? Do we uninvite schools? That seems like a lawsuit and terrible publicity. Does the Big East even take Miami and BCU back? Miami isn't even trying, and may be hammered by the NCAA, again. BCU sucks, and UMass is D1 now.

My earlier proposal of splitting the western schools off but keeping an affiliation still seems like the best solution.

 

[Jericho]

The schools that can move to the ACC

 

[Fishy]

A conference with just UConn, Rutgers, Syracuse, Miami, Boston College, Duke, Wake, Maryland and Pittsburgh is still preferable to the wholesale wreck of a conference that the Big East currently is.

 

[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

ACC has: Duke, Wake, Maryland, BCU, Syracuse, Pitt, Miami.

BYU and Air Force are still open to joining a league, especially for football.

Let's also assume that Duke doesn't form a D1 Patriot League, which is possibly their best play.

What does the Big East and UConn do?

The Big East would be at:

UConn, Rutgers, Cincinnati, USF
Hoops: Marquette, Depaul, Providence, Seton Hall, St. Johns, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Villanova

Adding: Memphis, SMU, Houston, UCF, Temple, Boise (F), SDSU (F), Navy (F)

The Big East really jumped the gun adding SDSU, UCF, Temple and Memphis. If the league hadn't added those four, it would have a lot more options right now. They weren't going anywhere. I can almost see the Temple situation because of scheduling, almost, but the other 3 would have had their application ready to send on June 30, 2012. ++ split them off as you mentioned below.

Do the core Big East schools UConn join the ACC at what would likely be $13MM a year and play in a league that has ONE team, Cincinnati, that has finished the regular season in the Top 10 in the last 8 years? Hades NO Do we uninvite schools? That seems like a lawsuit and terrible publicity. Does the Big East even take Miami and BCU back? Miami, no. BCU, yes. It's not BCU, it's the people in charge Miami isn't even trying, and may be hammered by the NCAA, again. BCU sucks, and UMass is D1 now.

My earlier proposal of splitting the western schools off but keeping an affiliation still seems like the best solution.

+1

Other than a B1G invite, I will always advocate for a Northeast college football conference that resides in the northeast.

 

[Dann]

in what case your showing nelson i then asume the reason miami didn't go to the b12 is becuase the b12 didn't want them and there upcoming ncaa storm which tells me they are a dead man. so a league of duke/wake/cuse/bc and md with its rebuilding project is what the acc is then. they could add uconn/ruty/temple/usf/ucf/lville/cincy for 12.

i'll take my chances with
uconn/ruty/temple/cincy
usf/ucf/ecu/navy
smu/uh/memphis/lville or smiss
sdsu/bsu//byu

this is over half of what the acc would be, we would get a better tv contract and its basically trading a dead miami for byu. navy/ for bc/cuse and uh/bsu for duke/wake. i'll take the nbe over that crap pile of acc leftovers. we can thrive in this league and earn our way as a conf to a playoff bid. in the acc, everyone goes down with the sinking ship and we once again become just a bball school. thats not what we had in mind 10 years ago.

i don't get the fball value of playing duke and wake. there is none. in bball they are good games but so are 20 other teams we can schedule ooc. cuse and bc would be fun teams to bash with in fball, but playing teams like that don't help us become a fball school. they help us become a sad public school like what maryland has become.

schedule cuse for fball and bball ooc if u guys want. but don't join a league becuase of them. u guys need sto drop the small private school feeling and get with the big public train of thought. what uconn has done from the science lab to the football field the past 15 years is out of this world. don't kill that becuase of a couple private schools that play good basketball.

 

[HuskyHawk]

A conference with just UConn, Rutgers, Syracuse, Miami, Boston College, Duke, Wake, Maryland and Pittsburgh is still preferable to the wholesale wreck of a conference that the Big East currently is.

Agreed....for what seems like the 15th time. It's pretty damned close to the original Big East FB conference, which had success. Cincy would also be happy to join. Not sure I'd even want CFU or SFU, and definitely would rather not have any other team in the NBE.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The problem with the Fishy Conference is that there is no way to take the contract out to market. The ACC deal runs for 9 more years at $13MM, which may be a fair number for that league, but I kinda doubt it. We also do not know if there are penalties in the contract for losing teams. To make the Fishy Conference a better deal than the Big East, you need to find a way out of the ACC TV deal with ESPN.

That's why I think combining the two leagues under one TV umbrella but with essentially two separate leagues is probably the best path.

 

[Excalibur]

Nelson's assumptions about TV contracts assume facts that aren't in existence, so I'll just judge by who I want to play with and assume that the TV issue will work itself out (which history supports). That being the case, I'll take joining the ACC stragglers -- it's basically what we thought we were getting in 2003.

 

[mattp]

i think SD, SMU, Boise, Memphis and Temple will all be invited and join the ACC, so we'll have more teams that left without ever playing a game than football members. they'll have to pay us exit fees and we can split the money with our only other remaining member, Rutgers resulting in big paydays of $40m+ and we'll be declared the big winners. yaaaay.

 

[junglehusky]

What happens to a TV contract if the league votes to disband? Either the ACC or Big East could do that. Less likely for the Big east since everyone seems to be thinking it's the ACC that will get raided hard, perhaps. But (and I'm not saying I think this will happen, just extending the hypothetical) let's say Boise miraculously gets a Pac12 offer or decides to stay in the MWC. SDSU and Navy, are known to be contingent on Boise being in the BE so they're gone. And let's say once Louisville is gone, the bball schools split - would the remaining BE schools vote to disband if the remaining ACC schools vote to do the same?

So... is there language in the ESPN/ACC deal that nullifies the contract if the conference doesn't exist anymore? I have to imagine there is.

 

[Jimdish255]

I would look to get Duke and MD to leave the rubble and join the NBE. The defectors are non-starters for me. Pitt? BC? Miami? Getting BYU and solves the western end and Duke for hoops Md and the market there seems OK. Cuse I have some empathy for and wouldn't shut the door totally.

 

[CTMike]

Our relationships with our "new" members hasn't really yet started. I'm pretty sure we could "disinvite" as you mentioned if it came to that, with minimal fuss. Lawsuits yes, but not huge sums of money.

Then again, if the Big East football schools secede, start a new conference, and invite the remaining ACC, that should get out of TV contracts. UConn, Rutgers, Cincinnati, USF, Duke, Wake, Maryland, BCU, Syracuse, Pitt, Miami, +1 isn't awful. It's not the big boys but it's not awful.

 

[freescooter]

Agreed....for what seems like the 15th time. It's pretty damned close to the original Big East FB conference, which had success. Cincy would also be happy to join. Not sure I'd even want CFU or SFU, and definitely would rather not have any other team in the NBE.

I'd want Cincinnatti and one of the Florida schools, most likely Miami, because we really do need a Florida member for recruiting, maybe both Miami and USF, and form an all-sports league. It wouldn't be awful, It would have some upside potential I believe, and it would make geographic sense, would have some rivalries, some solid markets. North would be BC, UCONN, Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers and Cincinatti. South would be Maryland, Duke, Wake, Miami, USF...I hate myself for saying this, but the 12th slot would probably go to Temple...I think you need to take your shot at the 4th largest tv market and I think they absolutley give you something on the basketball side of the equation. Don't love them but they are the best of a bad set of choices. I'd much prefer that Louisville does not get a B-12 bid and go with them rather than Temple...

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Nelson's assumptions about TV contracts assume facts that aren't in existence, so I'll just judge by who I want to play with and assume that the TV issue will work itself out (which history supports). That being the case, I'll take joining the ACC stragglers -- it's basically what we thought we were getting in 2003.

I suspect the current members of the ACC would strongly disagree with your characterization that the TV issue will work itself out. The ACC, and the Big East for that matter, are in the situations they are in BECAUSE the TV contracts did not just "work themselves out".

 

[nelsonmuntz]

What happens to a TV contract if the league votes to disband? Either the ACC or Big East could do that. Less likely for the Big east since everyone seems to be thinking it's the ACC that will get raided hard, perhaps. But (and I'm not saying I think this will happen, just extending the hypothetical) let's say Boise miraculously gets a Pac12 offer or decides to stay in the MWC. SDSU and Navy, are known to be contingent on Boise being in the BE so they're gone. And let's say once Louisville is gone, the bball schools split - would the remaining BE schools vote to disband if the remaining ACC schools vote to do the same?

So... is there language in the ESPN/ACC deal that nullifies the contract if the conference doesn't exist anymore? I have to imagine there is.

If the rest of the schools took off on their own, I suspect that the ACC schools would just join the Big East. I don't see that happening. The only new schools that would leave on their own accord are the ones we most want to stay (i.e. Boise, to a lesser extent, SMU and Houston). I would imagine that the TV contract is a little tougher to break than simply saying "we don't exist anymore" and forming a new league. Most enterprise level contracts are.

 

[Fishy]

The problem with the Fishy Conference is that there is no way to take the contract out to market. The ACC deal runs for 9 more years at $13MM, which may be a fair number for that league, but I kinda doubt it. We also do not know if there are penalties in the contract for losing teams. To make the Fishy Conference a better deal than the Big East, you need to find a way out of the ACC TV deal with ESPN.

The ACC contract has look-ins every five years. I'm not even sure that conference could even be called the ACC, though...your scenario almost decimates it.

I'd also point out that the Big East doesn't have a media contract and all the speculation here presupposes that schools that networks had essentially attributed little value to are suddenly hot commodities.

Nobody killed themselves to throw money at Houston, SMU, UCF in the past - hard to imagine that they're ready to do so now.

 

[The Funster]

ESPN contributed to this clusterfuck because they "advised" the ACC on expansion. I'm no lawyer but they were part of the problem.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

I love how everyone says, we'd be 'locked in at $13M a year' as if there's a $20M a year contract that's to be had.

Especially the part where that $20M a year contract comes with joining with East Carolina and not Syracuse.

 

[Dann]

I love how everyone says, we'd be 'locked in at $13M a year' as if there's a $20M a year contract that's to be had.

Especially the part where that $20M a year contract comes with joining with East Carolina and not Syracuse.

where did u get those #'s?

 

[ConnHuskBask]

where did u get those #'s?

Do the core Big East schools UConn join the ACC at what would likely be $13MM a year.

I'm pretty sure Nelson is understating the actual ACC deal and I was just throwing out $20M a year.

There's a reason all those schools have been relegated in C-USA, MAC, Mtn. West, etc. all these years.

People just don't care about them.

If we've learned 1 thing about Conference Realignment it goes football History/Tradition, and then recent BCS Bowl wins that matter.

Markets, potential, potential markets don't mean . If you don't register nationally with the casual college football fan it just doesn't matter.

 

[SubbaBub]

A conference with just UConn, Rutgers, Syracuse, Miami, Boston College, Duke, Wake, Maryland and Pittsburgh is still preferable to the wholesale wreck of a conference that the Big East currently is.

If we are to accept the OP's premise, then this is the answer plus USF, Navy, ND.

 

[jbdphi]

I'd also point out that the Big East doesn't have a media contract and all the speculation here presupposes that schools that networks had essentially attributed little value to are suddenly hot commodities.

Nobody killed themselves to throw money at Houston, SMU, UCF in the past - hard to imagine that they're ready to do so now.

Just to nitpick here, but nobody killed themselves to throw money at Houston, SMU and UCF when they were playing UAB, UTEP, Marshall and others. I'm assuming the big reason they joined this franken-conference in the first place is that they believed they would get more when playing UConn, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Louisville, etc. Same with Boise State.

In a similar vein, nobody was throwing money at TCU in the Mountain West but it sure seems like a lot of people are throwing money at them now as a part of the B12. Obviously it isn't quite the same differential with us as it is with them but the same premise applies.

 

[CL82]

Our relationships with our "new" members hasn't really yet started. I'm pretty sure we could "disinvite" as you mentioned if it came to that, with minimal fuss. Lawsuits yes, but not huge sums of money.

Then again, if the Big East football schools secede, start a new conference, and invite the remaining ACC, that should get out of TV contracts. UConn, Rutgers, Cincinnati, USF, Duke, Wake, Maryland, BCU, Syracuse, Pitt, Miami, +1 isn't awful. It's not the big boys but it's not awful.

And it has the added benefit of sticking the BB onlies with this odd conglomeration of schools.

Kinda a crappy thing to do the incoming schools though. (Not that I wouldn't jump at the chance to be in a stable, sensible conference.)

 

[CL82]

I'm pretty sure Nelson is understating the actual ACC deal and I was just throwing out $20M a year.

There's a reason all those schools have been relegated in C-USA, MAC, Mtn. West, etc. all these years.

People just don't care about them.

If we've learned 1 thing about Conference Realignment it goes football History/Tradition, and then recent BCS Bowl wins that matter.

Markets, potential, potential markets don't mean . If you don't register nationally with the casual college football fan it just doesn't matter.

I don't disagree with your statement but I'll add a second part to it. If I learned 2 things the second would be that live sports are the future of television advertising and people are willing to throw incredible amounts of money at them.

 

[businesslawyer]

Oops. I saw the title to the thread and thought someone was looking ahead to another BCS bowl game or NCAA hoops tournament.