OT - Notre Dame's Orange Bowl berths limited to 2 times in 12 years in new deal

[huskymedic]

Missed this in the flury yesterday...

Notre Dame's Orange Bowl berths limited in new deal

By Brian Hamilton Tribune reporter
10:31 a.m. CST, November 15, 2012


Notre Dame's tie to the Orange Bowl is set. How often it can pay a visit is, too.

On Thursday, the ACC and the Orange Bowl Committee officially announced a 12-year agreement that begins in 2014 and will pit the league champion against Notre Dame or a team from the Big Ten or SEC on a game that will be played on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

As expected, the ACC opponent will be the highest-ranked team from that group in the final standings of the still-to-be-determined new championship series formula -- but not necessarily always. The agreement includes "minimum appearance standards" for all parties involved. There will be three guaranteed appearances for the Big Ten and SEC over the 12 years of the deal, but a maximum of just two for Notre Dame with no minimum.

"The Orange Bowl qualifies as one of the most prestigious events in college football's postseason and Notre Dame has played a part in that history, three times playing No. 1-ranked teams in our five previous appearances," Irish athletics director Jack Swarbrick said in a statement. "We are honored to partner with two of the premier conferences, the SEC and the Big Ten, to make certain the ACC will have a top-flight opponent on a regular basis."

Should it fall short of the four-team championship playoff and also not play in the Orange Bowl when the new college football postseason begins following the 2014 season, Notre Dame will slide into the ACC's bowl lineup as part of the agreement the school and the conference announced in September.

 

[UConnDan97]

Wow! This seems like a head-scratcher to me. I thought that the benefit to ND would be much greater, but looking at this, you really have to wonder what they were thinking when they decided to join the ACC. I'm not trying to say that staying in the Big East would have been better, because our bowl lineup and non-guaranteed BCS bowl is a worse situation, but why on earth would they not join up with the Big10??? One has to assume that the Big10 would have taken them in with open arms, since the revenue add to the BigTen Network would have been substantial, especially on the east coast. I just don't get it...

 

[uconNYC]

With ND playing 5 games against the ACC each year there is a good chance the OrangeBowl will be a rematch of a regular season game. Won't help ticket sales or TV ratings.

 

[Adios]

ND is going to join a conference as a full member eventually. This set up is clearly not favorable to them as an independent.

 

[Dann]

this is not what ppl think it is. nd just raped everyone with this. nd post 2015 is going to join a conf. so what they did for the 3 years until that is boink the acc. why? becuase it allows them the best possible other sports and bowl stuff until that point. the only twice in 12 years doesn't matter. nd is banking on being a top 10 team each of the next 3 years. so they figue one of those 3 they will be in the ship/playoofs for bcs while the other years they can fall back to playing fsu/vt/clem in the orange bowl. they will use those 2 bis right away as needed and then join a conf and who cares after that. so the acc will play a b10 or sec team in the orange bowl 2015 on basically.

what nd has done is this. they have now hinted that they would love for the acc to stay together and add 1 more(uconn or ruty most likely) in 2015 and go that way as a 16 full member conf and 1 of the big 4/5. but what they have also done is told the b10/b12 have at it now. if 1 of u take enough teams from the acc and the movements are big ones then we will join our best interest in 2015. the 50mil buyout is garbage first off. nd will only pay a low % of it being a non fball member. 2nd that doesn't even matter as $$ like that is a joke to them.

now that the b12 and b10 see this they will be working hard to form there confs. its a race to 16 or 18 on the east coast and the pac can do work later as they have no real easy adds but no competition. the sec is in the early lead with 14 teams and clearly can't wait to build its own network. they will either touch up texas more or take nc/va schools. the b12 will be the messy all over conf in the end. the b10 can really do itself a huge solid with the stuff i was talking about in the other thread.

i expect the sec, b10 and b12 to all add a significant amount of teams before 2015 and position themselves for nd to pick a spot and then the playoff to be pretty solid. then we will start the 4 team expansion to 8 playoff wise i think. espn is throwing out huge #s playoff $ wise so they clearly have in mind that paying up now will get them a solid when the playoff expands down the road.

 

[uconNYC]

ND officials want to be in the ACC. ND football fans don't. Joining the ACC as a partial football member is just a ploy to get the football fanbase used to the idea of belonging to a conference.

FC Barcelona officials played this exact trick with their fans. Barcelona used to never have uniform sponsors like most soccer clubs do. Barcelona then decided to put the UNICEF logo on their shirts claiming it was an act of charity. Barcelona fans then got used to seeing branding on their jerseys. Low and behold a few years later they got rid of UNICEF and signed with a proper sponsor.

My guess is ND will be a full member of the ACC by 2020.

 

[RedSoloCup]

ND officials want to be in the ACC. ND football fans don't. Joining the ACC as a partial football member is just a ploy to get the football fanbase used to the idea of belonging to a conference.

FC Barcelona officials played this exact trick with their fans. Barcelona used to never have uniform sponsors like most soccer clubs do. Barcelona then decided to put the UNICEF logo on their shirts claiming it was an act of charity. Barcelona fans then got used to seeing branding on their jerseys. Low and behold a few years later they got rid of UNICEF and signed with a proper sponsor.

My guess is ND will be a full member of the ACC by 2020.

Just asking, why ACC versus B1G?

I would have guessed that if they committed to a conference in the next few years, the B1G would give a better SOS and a better academic image (not that it is a huge consideration).

I do like your point about acclimating the fan base, that does make sense. I would also bet if acclimating and moving is a goal, it does come back to the Orange Bowl tie in as the reason they moved from the BE.

 

[uconNYC]

Just asking, why ACC versus B1G?

Because B1G would not have given them the opportunity to acclimatize. Furthermore ND has rivalries with Pitt, SU and BC and probably identifies itself with schools like UVA, Duke and UNC - so the ACC was an acceptable alternative.