There is buzz about Clemson ,free shoes university, Washington and Oregon getting invites to the big1g. The ACC will be officially a dumpster fire without these 2 in football.
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But da U is bak!
If any comment deserves plaid just for the gif, this is it.
http://ismiamibakyet.com/
I'll take the money FSU and Clemson lose by leaving before the GOR is up for VT to invest into football to hopefully get a SEC invite down the road.
lol #goacc
I'll believe it when I see it, but if those two schools figure out how to get out of the league then I really really hope VT follows suit and lands in the SEC
Haha. Lol. Nah bruh
Athlon Sports is "reporting" about this.
https://athlonsports.com/college-football/big-ten-expansion-rumors-clems...
Not seeing it, but if it breaks the GOR, I'm all for it.
Big quotes around reporting. This is the reason that the whole "where there's smoke" thing is out the window now. A write up about a tweet about a rumor a guy from Barstool heard.
Why? If we don't have a landing spot (which is looks like we don't) that is absolutely a worse outcome than the ACC just staying together
All the talk about not having a landing spot... No one is going to say there is an offer on the table. All of that will be kept in the dark. Worst case, I bet the Big 12 would want us.
Plus I'd imagine FSU and Clemson being off the table to the SEC would make us a more attractive candidate if they add to keep the arms race going.
Bing bing bing
huge opportunity cost for the SEC if Clemson/FSU/both go to the B1G and they decide not to try to poach any NC/VA schools
Clemson and FSU don't add any revenue for the SEC. They already have TVs in SC and FL. Their economic add is to increase their footprint state-by-state. That's why they would consider NC (NCSU), VA (VT or UVA), etc. John Skipper did a really good segment on LeBatard few months ago about conference realignment and how the TV deals affect the real motivation.
Exactly. A lot of people saying that this round of realignment is less about tv markets and more about big brands, which is very much is to a large degree. But markets still matter, and VA and NC are two heavily populated and growing states that currently don't reside in Big Ten or SEC territory that would be a boat load of new subscription fee revenue for cable/dish users if they suddenly became in market. It is an enormous amount of money from what I have seen floating around. Streaming is never going to totally overtake cable/dish when the price of individual app subscriptions is getting you closer and closer to the price of cable anyhow. Then factor in VT has been a very strong tv draw even when down the last several years and will only draw better as the program rebounds, strong football fan base and environment that is great for television, large state school with big alumni base. VT will be a very attractive candidate for B1G or SEC expansion, along with one of the NC schools.
You would think the ideal situation would be VT to SEC, and uva to B1G, so both conferences get the Virginia markets. uva already has a rivalry in place with Maryland, and VT can easily develop natural rivalries against teams such as Tennessee (proximity) and Texas A&M (similar corps).
Exactly - carriage rights still exist, and they are basically free money to conferences when you're bringing in subscribers into your fold that aren't currently there. The combined market for VA and NC is as big as New York state, and both states have 2 premier universities that will be up for grabs to the SEC and Big Ten should the ACC implode, and those 4 schools have fanbases that are all absolutely rabid about college sports (whereas you might not get that same kind of treatment going with an Arizona or ASU, who also are in a very large state, population-wise).
The only reason that markets isn't the #1 driver right now is that all the meaningful markets are pretty much gobbled up by the SEC or Big Ten. That changes if/when NC and VA become available. Those markets will be dealt with, first, to get the free money, and then the conferences will decide what to take from what's left.
Just so we're clear:
VA: ODU, Liberty
NC: ECU, Duke
I think what he was saying is that that if Clemson/FSU go to the B1G, then the B1G is less likely to look to VA/NC for expansion.
I was saying that if the B1G takes clemson/Fsu/both, then the SEC is leaving a lot on the table if they choose not to expand into VA/NC
I think Skipper is a little biased. People are still cutting the cord, albeit at a much slower rate than 10 years ago. Expanding into TV markets still makes money, but not necessarily enough money to grow everyone's slice of the pie.
Something has to change - Cable isn't paying as much as it used to (when every sporting league was getting sweetheart deals) and streaming isn't making money at all - the change IMO is that only 'must see TV' sports are going to get lucrative contracts.
Does VT actually grow the pie for the SEC? Maybe - we'll see.
Would expanding into VT/NC grow the pie enough for the Big XII/B1G that the SEC would consider a preemptive move?
In the event that the ACC's demise is pretty sealed moving forward (clemson and fsu leaving would have that effect i think), i dont think too many acc schools would be in a position to decline an invite to B1G/SEC/BigXII -- and for many schools they might jump ship at the first lifeline they're offered.
I'm pretty sure the ACC's fate was sealed last year when it became known that there is a group of ACC schools looking to legally challenge the GOR, and that subset is a who's who of schools that would logically be moving to either the SEC or Big Ten.
But would those conferences consider a preemptive strike? My question is why would they? A weak ACC is good business for them
Because while a weak ACC is good for them, a weak ACC represents an opportunity for the competition to poach from.
Is the SEC content to let VT+NCST go to the Big XII and UNC+UVA go to the B1G? (For instance)
What's going to be interesting to watch is if politics force VT and UVA (and the same with UNC and NC State) to move together or not. I see UVA as a definite fit in the Big Ten, but I don't see them and UNC in the SEC at all. The SEC doesn't even sponsor men's soccer or lacrosse - I don't see those schools giving up those sports or having to settle for associate member status in another league. Those schools have multiple national titles in non-revs that the SEC doesn't have. Seems to me UVA and UNC are Big Ten or bust.
Brie eating, bowtie wearing creampuffs in seersucker pastels is pretty much the definition of SEC douche, so I do think UVa could fit their culture very well.
Doesn't the Big12 have a worse TV deal than the ACC? I don't understand the thought of going to the Big 12, especially with Texas and Oklahoma gone. The ACC, as deficient as they are, are still definitely the 3rd best conference. The best team left in the big 12 is probably OK St???? Really.... Someone would want to leave for that?
Now I could see 8 teams leaving the ACC to break the GOR and combining with the best 4 big 12 teams to create a new conference maybe. Not sure they would be on par with the BIG in TV revenue but there wouldn't be as big of a gap.
Big xii will likely negotiate two tv deals by the time the acc announces its next one. It's close now as it is, and that's before any subsequent expansion by the conference to affect the next deal(s).
This isn't about "right now", it's about what things look like a few years down the road.
Ok, I understand that, but if looking towards the future is the plan, a conference with OK State s the best football team will not be viewed well and their tv contract will reflect that. Would rather start a new conference than join that one. It will be a joke in football in the future. It already was and they had Texas and Oklahoma.
And if Clemson/FSU leave the ACC, what is the best program in the ACC?
And if you're gonna start a new conference, who would even be in it?
No ACC would decline an offer to the P2. The question is will the P2 offer VT.
But what about an invite from the Big XII
"I appreciate your interest in me. I am currently deciding between multiple offers, and need a bit more time to make my decision. Thank you for your understanding."
It's just bonkers to me that (should FSU/Clemson/both jump) any school would slow play trying to get out of the ACC
I'm with you. I think it is going to be an All Dog Alert to find a landing spot. Musical Chairs and the music will be playing fast.
I think this is some of the calculus for Clemson and FSU, be the first to go, ensure there is room for you on the other side and not have to take a worse deal to get off the sinking ACC ship, then when the conference sinks behind you, no legal entity remains to pay the fine to.
There will be those that don't have a landing spot. They'll add to the ACC, so that they can keep getting the rights payments (from ESPN and from the schools that leave). The ACC won't dissolve, unless there are enough leaving at the same time to dissolve the conference.
The beginning of the end. Where there is smoke there is fire.
What I don't understand is why Clemson would choose the B1G over SEC.
because Sakerlina will fight to keep them out.
How much pull could they possibly have with the cosmic shift that is about to happen. There is a 0% they have any say in the matter.
Now the SEC may just say we don't need any more teams we are good for now?
Like A&M fought to keep Texas out?
Clemson would be such a goofy fit in the B1G. That is a southeastern school through and through.
Obviously, fit is totally out the door now with the LA schools heading to the B1G lol.
LA schools fit more into the Big 10 than Clemson does. FSU is actually a decent fit outside of their academics (source I went to Clemson and live in Big 10 country)
Wow another Hokie that went to Clemson on the board.
We've definitely talked about this lol. Our bond keeps getting stronger, Chris, we're gonna have to plan a date for the UVA game.
As soon as I sent that comment I thought "Surely we've already talked about this..." but oh well. I'm always down to meet up with the TKPers. Only game I know for sure I'll be at this coming season so far is Wake Forest.
I'll believe it when it happens as far as ACC schools leaving. My guess is a MASSIVE negotiated exit fee to release them from the GOR is the only way it happens.
UW and Oregon are no doubts imo
Why would the ACC negotiate at all? ACC has the schools by the balls. The GoR hasn't been broken yet which tells me it is 1. Impossible 2. Extremely risky court battle. I think we see the ACC expand or 8 schools book it together before 2 schools find a way out.
It's a good point but things are weird
mostly the ACC might negotiate because money talks and if FSU and Clemson want out to the tune of buying out the remaining years of the contract, the ACC could come out ahead in the here-and-now and go after some schools in the dying PAC to "replace" them while keeping the conference together. my sense is that the ACC would definitely take a MASSIVE negotiated exit from from the two wantaway schools before allowing those schools to find the required votes to dissolve the conference. but it's gotta be massive (prohibitive to most schools) and it's gotta be immediate (e.g. windfall to the conference)
The flipside here is that these two leaving, even in a negotiated settlement, could potentially be used by remaining teams to invalidate the GOR as the terms of the deal have changed.
My personal belief is the ACC either needs to add or it's going to implode. Once one team leaves, the flood gates will likely open wide and the league will be powerless to fight it all. But expanding the conference might also affect the GOR.
In any case, things will likely get interesting long before 2036.
13 years remaining on the GoR at 32 million a year per school. So the buyout is $416,000,000 each. Goes down each year you remain in the ACC.
See I don't get this at all either, unless a couple of the guys in ACC leadership are getting rich off of it.
I've heard FSU and Clemson are trying to negotiate out for around $300 mil, $30 per year. But they generate the conference more revenue than that per year. Also isn't the point of the GOR that even if you go to a new conference the ACC would still get that revenue?
Agree...
The B1G share last year was reported to be $58.8mil/school...ACC $38.7/school.
So doing some maths, if you are paying more than $20mil to a GoR release, you are losing money...and that is only if the B1G is paying you a full-share...which if they are not getting full revenue because of said GoR makes no sense at all for them.
Point being, unless there is a legal challenge to the GoR or FSU wins the PowerBall several weeks in a row, I don't see this happening.
It does make sense. If they're paying $30M/year off of a $300M buyout, then that buyout would be done in 10 years. After that, they're home free and taking a full cut of B1G money.
Think of it as a long-term investment. Some of the talk around realignment has been in terms of "100 year decisions", and this would definitely be that.
I think the GOR is like soccer transfer fees and NFL fines - fake. At the end of the day, teams will pay a fraction for breaking the GOR, etc. It's not real numbers.
You understand that Texas and OU each paid more than one year of B12 payout to leave the conference one year early, right?
the numbers that are reported, I don't believe. Call me crazy. They are never what are reported behind closed doors.
You're crazy. These are public institutions. They'll get FIOA'd. The $100m total will be paid in full.
Like Marylands fees were. yes
Maryland wasn't under a grant of rights. How long are you going to focus on them?
What were they forced to pay? The ACC boy scout patch fee? They were fined, why?
There's a fundamental difference between an exit fee and a grant of rights. An exit fee is part of a contract between each conference and it's member schools. The GoR is between a media company, a conference, and it's member schools.
The ACC has an exit fee (I think it's ~$10m/year remaining) if teams leave, but also has their TV rights. I agree that the exit fee will be negotiated down to 30-50%. The GoR is different - ESPN/Disney is NOT losing FSU to Fox without a fight. And even if FSU goes to the SEC (already 'owned' by Disney), ESPN does not want to have to pay FSU triple what they were paying before.
I mean at the end of the day, if there was any viable path for any team to leave the ACC, Florida State and Clemson would have already been gone 3-5 years ago. The only, and I really do mean ONLY reason this keeps coming up in the media is because they desperately want out and they damn well know their balls are in a vice because they cannot get out without putting themselves into a worse financial state than they are by staying in the ACC, and they are desperate to try and get public opinion on their side to the point where it pressures the ACC into letting them go.
The fact they are still here speaks to just how ironclad the GoR really is. If it could be broken, it would have been done years ago
You are 100% correct that money talks. 100% correct. If I am FSU or VT for that matter, I leave join the SEC and let the courts figure it out.
You really don't understand how grant of rights work do you? VT or anyone else's leaves the ACC right now the TV money from that conference won't go to Tech it will go to the ACC. How is Tech football much less all the other programs going to operate with 30-50 million less than any other school?
Laugh. haha. Come back when FSU leaves the ACC. Perhaps next week.
If FSU leaves the ACC next week I'll name my next dog dcwilson
Heck I'll give dc's first name as my firstborn son's middle name
Now I'm conflicted on what I want to see happen more next week 😂
Idk but I've seen like 3 articles published since then and I'm just hoping my new dogs not as hard headed 😅
Whew
Will the SEC or B1G not give VT any revenue? is that what you think will happen?
Yea they will get 10-15 million top end from SEC grants, bowl distribution, NCAA tourney distribution etc. but all the TV money will go into court locked account that the school can't touch that the ACC will have a prevailing interest in getting.
There's no 'the courts will figure it out' when you have a signed contract that states in no uncertain terms what will happen if you break it. All the courts will do is enforce the terms of that contract.
There was already a group of schools that very publicly looked into this within the past few months. Remember that whole Magnificent 7 thing? Yeah, nothing came of it, and that chatter very quickly died down once the legal teams came back and said there's really no way out without dissolving the conference.
We shall see. FSU has lawyers too, I imagine. So it will be interesting.
Yes, they do. They've also had lawyers for each of the last 5 or so years that this exact same topic comes up around this point in the summer and nothing has ever come of it.
Because they have no current legal path to get what they want
I haven't looked at it in a while, but the contract is embarrassingly bad considering what was at stake when it was written. If I remember correctly, it had some vague and conflicting terms.
There is one way I would directly attack this, which I can't believe nobody has discussed. Maybe the lawyers have and are keeping it close to the vest. But the argument is that the GOR clause is an unenforceable penalty to the departing team rather than a liquidated damages clause designed to protect the non-breaching party. If a court agreed with that assessment, the GOR is not enforceable.
That's what I'd argue if I were representing any school trying to leave.
The GoR is easy to find via google: GoR and GoR 2016 Amendment
It's a grant of rights, not a contract to perform so there is no liquidated damages clause or anything like that. It's more analogous to an employee granting to an employer their IP rights.
But, I guess you could argue the combination of the ACC membership contract/bylaws, etc. with the GoR creates something akin to unduly burdensome liquidated damages clause. Seems like that would be hard, but maybe with support showing a lack freedom of market that goes well beyond the liquidated damages clause within the membership contract, then you have a convincing argument.
Edit: Links are fixed.
That's what I'm getting at re: liquidated damages. Tough argument, but potentially the best shot.
This is from my phone on a break, and for some reason couldn't download the amended .pdf, but my point is that even though they call it a "Grant of Rights" there are performance obligations embedded within it, so the title isn't dispositive.
Just like we could draft a contract that says all consideration paid in "Cash," which is then defined to mean "tears of our Wahoo underlings." Point being, definitions and titles in contract documents are effectively meaningless. You have to look at the actual terms to control.
I couldn't find the agreement with EPSN that is incorporated by reference through Section 1(b) if the Grant of Rights, so I'm curious what those Member Institution performance obligations are referenced in that section. That could alter the analysis to suggest it is a contract for performance.
I couldn't find the ESPN one either. I'm guessing it can't be FOIA'd because it's between two private entities. Seems like it should be able to be reached through one of the public universities, but I don't know .
Andy Staples talked to a few lawyers on this (here's one piece) - the consensus was that this is a feature not a bug, and makes the GoR harder to break.
To be fair, the contract does not include terms if some entity breaks it. And that's because it's a grant of rights and not a contract to perform, meaning each institution gives up their rights to the ACC. The institutions themselves can't break it because there is nothing to break.
Now, an institution can try and grant their media rights to another conference, but no conference is going to accept ACC institutions because they know that these institution have no rights that they can grant. The ACC owns those rights. That's why a majority (i.e., 8 schools) are needed to release those rights (or dissolve the ACC?). Even then, I don't think it's clear cut that a majority can grant back those rights, but that would require a deeper dive into the ACC bylaws.
This had me curious, so I just pulled it.
Quibbling a bit, but the GOR is still a contract. Also, the schools do have performance obligations under the GOR, but I can't tell what they are because they're incorporated by reference to the Amended Agreement with ESPN.
Lastly, a fun fact, but the original GOR had a term through 2027. Sure am glad we jumped to extend that thing by a decade! /s
I just responded to your comment above, but yea agreed.
The extension was necessary to get ESPN to do the ACC Network. Or at least, that's what the ACC said.
It's worth noting that FSU was very very down 5 years ago, and Clemson was in the midst of winning multiple national championships, so I don't think either would have left the ACC 3-5 years ago (maybe their fans would have, but their university leadership would not).
There are two things that have happened in the last 2 years that have changed everything:
These things have all happened in the last 2ish years.
BUT to your point, if there was any viable path for any team to leave the ACC, teams would have left. The fact that no one has shows either (a) there's no viable path to leave or (b) no one actually wants those teams.
How are soccer transfer fees fake???
I think he just means that it's just a drop in the bucket to its comparative actual value. Example: NFL fining a player $5,000 for giving a fan the bird. It looks like a punishment but is it really to someone making millions a year?
But is paying $100mm+ really a drop in the bucket? Maybe not to the Saudi's but still stings for some EPL teams
only eight clubs worldwide ever have hit the 100m euro mark for a single player's transfer fee
Right- whenever I hear we could solve world hunger and homelessness in the world, I think of the 9 figure deals for players traded in international soccer- regularly. Real money shortage in the world.
it's not "regularly" -- it's only happened 15 times. ya boy Elon could've solved world hunger but he decided to buy twitter and run it into the ground for the same amount of the last ten years of soccer transfer combined.
Imagine the rangers paying Seattle- 150 million dollars- to move A rod. NOT a rod's salary, mind you... no the "transfer" fee. Then the rangers telling their fans they can't compete economically in their 15 year old stadium. lolololol. These "fees" make zero economic sense, unless of course the teams are lying.
and the salaries of the biggest worldwide soccer players are significantly less than A-Rod's $25m annually. The highest paid player in England makes less in wages in 2023 than A-Rod did in 2003. No player in england is making justin verlander's $43m/year, nobody is making Justin herbert's $52.5m/year, or jaylen brown's $60.8m
I really wish I had shorted Twitter when I heard Musk was buying it for a silly price.
Wouldn't you want to buy shares of twitter (instead of shorting it) right before Elon bought it for a silly high price?
It is up 40-50% since then so that would have been painful for you lol
I wouldn't put it solely on Elon either ; there's multiple billionaires that could solve it, but won't
just remarking that invoking soccer transfer fees is mind boggling -- soccer transfers were $6.5b in 2022 in total. that is not a lot relative to corporate acquisitions by billionaires. Musk was just low hanging fruit because he's talked about it so publicly
I mean, i get it. I'm not siding with or against Musk , i'm just saying it's unfair to single him out when there's a lion share to go around
And even more unfair to point to soccer transfer fees :p
I really don't know anything about soccer transfer fees, I just used NFL fines as an example as a way of expunging on the op's thought line
Real life example: The NFL fines Randy Moss or TO 250K for blowing off a press conference. The players union calls goodells office and tells him- "um you know we aren't paying that". yes, I know you aren't. - That's how it goes in the NFL once the fines are announce to placate fan outrage.
then why did marshawn lynch attend the press conference to repeat "i'm just here so i wont get fined" .... PR?
You are not listening. They DO get fined. They don't come out of pocket and pay the fines. They don't. the NFL moves money around, charities, pro bowl gifts, etc. Lynch did not write a personal fine check his whole career. Theatre.
if marshawn lynch didnt ever pay a single fine, why would he show up to literally any press conference he didnt want to attend?
what you're saying is so outlandish... do you have literally anything to back this up
Its not outlandish. Maybe he made an additional hospital appearance, maybe the player association has a slush fund/deduction system, etc. My source is an ex NFL attorney. Individual player fines are theatre. There are creative agreements in the CBA to get them "paid" and it aint a venmo from a player.
It's paycheck deduction at $2500/wk and the fine goes into a charitable fund, not to the NFL
The point still stands, if fines are meaningless then players wont care ever about getting fined, but it's clear that some do
DC has a valid point. Gruden was laughed at by other coaches and owners for being the only coach/player to actually pay a fine.
Primarily because they make zero economic sense. Unless of course these teams are taking losses (LMAO) or lying about their books- which they are of course.
The NFL changed the rules about Public Ownership of a team after the Packers stated as a publicly owned organization their books are open for review every year. That is why the Packers are the ONLY publicly owned team, the NFL would love to have all the books sealed. The Pack openly shows what the NFL disbursement to owners is every year.
that plus PL owners actually very frequently run at a loss in real cash for a given year because it depends on so many factors like qualification for european competition, final table finish, player transactions, and so forth -- and because real cash isn't the same as accounting for balances and so forth. some clubs have gotten zapped for literally having a second set of books (Juve, and allegedly Manchester City), but for the most part the "nine figure fees" dc is quoting are paid out in installments and accounted for over the length of the player's contract (see more details/examples broken down here)
dc knows a lot about some things but global soccer finance is not one of them and coming onto tkp and trying to lecture about such is kinda laughable tbh
It makes sense for 2-3 years...similar to other schools that have left conferences.
For 10+ years...running your Athletic budget on a shoe-string (and probably at a loss)...it makes much less sense...i.e. what shape is your Program going to be in at that point, particularly as compared to your Conference peers?
A single school would have to find a way out of the GoR or negotiate a hugely discounted buyout for it to make sense to leave at this point.
Okay, so make it $20M/year, and have that go for 15 years.
With the increased B1G money, they'd be pulling in the same as ACC revenue AFTER paying the buyout, and after 15 years, they'd be free. No shoestring budget needed.
And if you think this is happening (if it IS happening) in a vacuum, you're kidding yourself.
What makes you think the ACC would accept less than the 38.7 million per school for the 12 years (not counting this year) or 464.4 million owed. That means that they would be operating on the BiG 58 million - 38.7 = 19.3. Hard to run your athletic program on half what it is used to.
Exactly...then you have to also factor in increased costs of transportation for teams, particularly the non-revenue ones.
Chartering planes to fly non-revs to Minneapolis and Los Angeles adds up quickly.
So while it seems easy to say, "we'll just make up the revenue later," you're going to be operating at a huge financial disadvantage to your peers for YEARS. It's going to exact a huge toll on your Athletic Program for years to come.
B10 will start getting close to $100m/school starting in 2024. New B10 contract is for $8B across 7 years divided by 16 schools. That's $71m/school, and does not account for bowl money, playoff money, NCAA Tournament money, etc.
Let's call it $80m/school: $80m/year in B10 money - $40m/year going back to the ACC = $40m/year > $35m/year that each ACC team makes.
They shouldn't even accept that. If FSU goes and gets ~$60 mil from the Big Ten for their rights then technically all of that goes to the ACC correct? A settlement in this case would only benefit the school leaving, the ACC has no reason to settle
At that rate, it would only take them 10 million years to pay it off. Longer, if you factor in interest. ;^)
OU and Texas broke the B12 GoR a year early, so they are an interesting 'test case':
Should any team leave the ACC - and assuming not enough teams leave to break the GoR - I do not think it will be this amicable. It will be very messy...
Sort of, but technically no; a GoR grants your broadcast rights to a conference/broadcaster. This is relevant because, should a team leave, it's not as simple as just paying the conference the revenue that you would have otherwise brought in - though that would be a logical agreement (see OU/TX exiting the B12) - Lawyers can (and will) argue that the conference/broadcaster is entitled to continue broadcasting any/all home games and keeping that revenue.
So, let's say FSU joins the B10 (which is exclusively broadcast on Fox) and OSU plays at FSU in 2028 - Technically, the ACC/ESPN would (argue that they) have the right to broadcast that game, and keep whatever revenue comes from it.
This is why I don't see just 1-2 schools leaving the ACC. It will be insanely messy. You'll have law suits between conferences, between schools, between ESPN and Fox, etc.
I don't see a way that FSU/Clemson leave (and I mean actually leave, not just announce that they are leaving) without 8 total teams doing the same.
I wouldn't be shocked if this is being discussed through back-channels between a like-minded group of ACC schools. Whether anything comes out of it, I don't know, but I'm sure they're doing their due diligence. That could be the source of some of these rumors coming out in the past 24 hours.
That's basically what's going to happen IMO. One leaves, then another, then likely a large bloc of schools at once. A large chunk leaving will put pressure on the league to negotiate a settlement and release from the GoR. The writing has been on the wall for some time and this is the direction things are headed. I feel pretty good that VT will land at the B1G or SEC when all is said and done.
Really hope it's the Big 10. We're a really good cultural fit and would make it easy for me to see a lot of road games. NW, Purdue, Indiana, MSU, Michigan, Wisconsin are all like less than 4 hours. Iowa is a little farther I think and Ohio State is about 7.
You mean we might actually get to PLAY Wisconsin before (checks Hokiesports.com for latest '"scheduled "series dates"') 2031 and 2032? At the rate it's BEEN going , before I die would seem questionable. (And you KNOW Michigan would try to find a way out of playing us...) /s (but not really)
With 20 teams in the big ten we might not play Wisconsin until even later now!
So you're saying our future chances of being ACC champs might go up? I like it.
For real though, I didn't see Clemson and FSU to the Big 10 coming lol. Figured they were SEC locks for sure. Maybe USCe and Florida wouldn't want them to join?
I think USCe and Florida would be voting no and a bunch of people saying there are no TV markets that we pick up by adding schools in states we already own. So there is little additional value added.
Sources? Articles? This is the same whole throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what runs we see every cycle.
I've always heard "see what sticks" and though there's nothing savory about throwing shit at a wall something about "seeing what runs" is more gross to me
There's a lot of rumors swirling, all saying that the ACC has 8 teams planning to leave, and by '26/'27, these 8 teams will have left the ACC. I've heard/read this schtick from a handful of connected people - an online VT recruiting 'insider', someone I know who works in GT's athletic department, a second-degree connection who works at Barstool, etc. Everyone's story is a little different, but the two things everyone says is FSU to B10 and Louisville to B12.
All that said, I tend to agree with Fireman:
It's fun to speculate and create FanFic, but...
This part - Conference affiliation is a president/board level decision - AD has basically no say, and is often not even notified - so unless a 'source' is on a University's board, they probably don't have any informed information
These decisions go far beyond athletics and the AD is a consultant but doesn't get much of a vote. This happens at the BOV / State government level.
I think it's pretty obvious FSU wants out (their AD has been publicly crtical of the ACC revenue they recieve)and probably Clemson too.
What I see happening is this....
I'm sure both have lawyers diligently searching for legal arguments to get a release from the GoR.
Step 1: file Litigation...you probably lose but it creates plenty of media attention
Step 2: create a buzz about how they are being "held against their will" by an "unfair" GoR...(that they just agreed to a few years ago).
Step 3: with increasing outside pressure, legal bills, and possibly even dissention from within the Conference due to negative attention from the media, the ACC caves and agrees to a financial compromise for them to leave.
Whether all those things happen in that manner is questionable and depends largely on how far the ACC is willing to dig in, but the Legal bills particularly are going to be painful when you're already behind in Conference revenue.
What I am pretty sure of is there is going to be a challenge to the GoR in the next year or so.
Ehh I don't think so. I see this happening:
In the end, the billable hours aren't spent on lawsuits, but are instead focused on hammering out new TV contracts for the P2.5
How does that make any sense for FSU?? Once they announce they are leaving, why wouldn't the ACC do the same thing that the MW did to SDSU and withhold $$ and not include them in any Conference decision-making? FSU was one of the major proponents of unequal revenue sharing based on performance that was announced earlier this year..that goes away instantly.
Without a legal argument or release agreement from the GoR...where are they going? Are they willing and financially able to be a Conference pariah for an "undisclosed time"?
The GOR doesn't prevent a school from leaving a conference, nor does it prevent a school from joining another conference. It's sole function is to retain that school's media rights for the conference. So theoretically FSU/Clemson can join the B1G tomorrow if they wished. But the B1G would not benefit financially from that, as the ACC would hold the media rights to any FSU home games, meaning the broadcast money would go to the ACC, not the B1G. But there's nothing in the GOR that prevents any of that from taking place.
So theoretically speaking FSU could play neutral site games against the B10 and not be the home team and therefore would not fall under the media rights agreement? And the B10 would just pay them the difference? Play them somewhere like Pensacola, Jacksonville, Orlando...
Probably not.
Here is the 2013 GOR agreement. Each institution granted it's media rights to ACC "as defined in the ESPN agreement." A quick google search did not bring up the ESPN contract, but I would guess ESPN would ensure that they have rights to a certain number of games, even if at neutral sites.
No, because many games have a "home" team designated for TV contract purposes. Not all of them, like many of the season kickoff games -- those are negotiated independently of conference contract deals. Although for some of them, they include them in the conference deals -- part of the ACC's TV deal is that ESPN gets a night game on Labor Day, and several times, it's been one of the Chick-fil-a Kickoff games in that slot.
Years ago, when we played Cincinnati at FedEx, that was actually originally scheduled as a Cincinnati home game. But Dan Snyder came in and paid Cincy a bunch of money to move it to FedEx.
I believe GT has a deal to play one "home" game a year at the Georgia Dome. (Or whatever it's called in Atlanta now -- it's where the Falcons play.)
Besides, no conference is going to set up one of their teams to play 12 away games a year. And no school is going to want that, because it takes away from their other revenue -- tickets, concessions, etc.
Even if the additional revenue is worth more than that? (Would it be? I don't even know. How much is 6 FSU home games worth?)
A Tech home game is an estimated 2-3 million dollar boost to the local economy based on gas, restaurant, hotels, etc for each game.
And there we have the intangibles. Let's say VT moves their homes games to some place other than the Blacksburg/Christiansburg/Roanoke area. Suddenly, there's a bunch of local businesses not getting their 4Q boost. And some of those businesses might have formal partnerships with the school and may decide that they're not getting a return on that investment.
The only thing I know for sure is that most P5 schools prefer to have 7 home games a year, because that extra game makes a significant difference.
Just some quick Google Fu, and I found this article from 2014 about how much Ohio State brings in for each home game. (VT also gets a mention because we were one of their "premium" games that year where they charged extra.)
Ten years ago, OSU figured they pulled in $7.15M each game:
-$6.5M in tickets
-$380K in concessions
-$270K in parking
It brings a smile to my face knowing that Ohio State fans paid extra to watch Bud Foster drink Urban Meyer's f-ing milkshake.
Which is the point..theoretically anyone could leave the ACC but without some clear plan to recover the $$ that is being left on the table, it is suicidal. And there's no incentive for another Conference to have them join other than pure altriusm...they will be money-losers for the next 14 years.
Which is why FSU (or anyone else) announcing leaving without a clear plan and timetable is a massive gamble...one I don't think any University President would be willing to take.
Basically, I dont think FSU wants to fight the ACC alone. I think they'll wait/collude with other teams in hopes that the conference collapses all together, and FSU can avoid paying a buy out.
I think the response to #3 from the ACC is more along the lines of petty. They start scheduling FSU's home games against the smaller ACC schools nearby, while making them travel to Syracuse, BC, etc for all of their away games for ALL sports really wracking up expenses.
The only thing consistent in CFB is ESPN/ABC/Disney holding Alabama's jock, Mel Kiper's hair coming out of cryofreeze in November every year, and conference realignment every Summer.
This tier of the sport just isn't fun any more.
honestly just as legitimate as this rumor #sauces
I like that OKST snuck into this mystery conference somehow.
Yeah I bet Hawaii is also one of the other schools not mentioned too.
FWIW I had a business dinner with one of the extremely connected OK St donors/ advisors and the topic of conference realignment came up.... this was not discussed lol
That is straight up disturbing. Imma need a minute.
4th_of_4_Hokies: "
"
RIP Sean. Comic genius
I honestly cannot tell if this is satire or someone actually believes this and posted it......
Don't get me wrong, I'd love this to be the case and the ACC to dissolve and for there to be the possibility for us to jump to the SEC or B1G (especially now that we're getting our recruiting legs under us)
But I've heard this same song and dance before, and each time its just FSU and Clemson making a whole bunch of noise because they don't have any way of actually doing anything because the GOR is ironclad.
But hey, if this shit all goes down, fine by me. We'll have an SEC invite before the 2023 season wraps up.
With all that said, either of these would be a welcome change to our on field aesthetic
So you are fine with SEC or SEC?
I don't think GOR is ironclad, but I think the effort, time, and cost required to break it is more than most teams are willing to put up with.
That being said, no one else seems to have a 20 year GOR in place. So the one thing the ACC teams have is the time to justify the length of the fight. Now they just need to crunch the numbers and get enough other teams on board.
Leg for Gummo gif
Either shit really is going down or McMurphy is just having some fun. Ima guess a bit of both. The rumored Pac12 deal is hot garbage so we'll see some schools leave.
Don't believe this. See that symbol in the upper right? It means McMurphy is crossing his fingers when he tweets.
I saw on Twitter last night that the p12 deal is $20m-ish/school, mostly streaming. This was at 3am while I was feeding my 1 month old so I might be crazy. I'll come back and embed if I can find the tweet (assuming it's legit)
Fixed that for...sorry. couldn't do it with a straight face...
FTFY
Pronounced Shitter
Football journalist checks calendar. No recruiting, practice, media days........
I know, lets recirculate the most talked about rumors until we have actual news....
"ChatGPT, invent a college football conference realignment rumor, and write a 600-word article about the rumor that cites anonymous sources."
CTRL-C, CTRL-V, submit, time to play golf.
Mama Giraffe & Co are shivering in their boots as AI comes for their jobs...
From everything we've heard that just isn't true. In fact it's the opposite. Those two schools don't bring the SEC anything they don't already have
did you miss the fact that mattboard just plugged the prompt into ChatGPT, which is known for being less than accurate, if very convincing?
Yes I did lmao
You dare besmirch my journalistic integrity!?!??!
I spent moments copy-pasting that prompt!
Facts are not the point, clicks are the point, and ChatGPT wrote this well enough to get that. people just scroll headlines anyway, just edit that to make it dramatic, but not libel, and GO!
Oregon Washington cal Stanford in talks to bolt to the big10 if they can make it work financially ....fsu Clemson Unc will leave us grasping for straws. We are definitely screwed and I hope I'm wrong but nobody outside of VT fans sees us as a competitive brand for the last decade to make the "next four in" category.
I know everyone's all "GOR is impenetrable" but I'm just not buying it. There's too much tail wagging for me to believe everyone in the ACC is screwed until 2036.
Edit: I know this will get dragged and I don't care but I hope I'm wrong and whatever happens VT is included at the table with the schools that have a pulse in the ACC to put themselves in a good financial situation for the future.
For those wondering, here's the tweet/article that I assume is being referenced:
It's not impenetrable; there's one very clear way out: void the GoR. But to do this, you need 8 teams to agree to it. Do you think there's 8 ACC teams that will willingly leave the ACC? Do you think those same 8 teams would be welcomed by B10/SEC/B12?
VT/UVA combo, UNC/NC State combo to B12
FSU, Clemspon to BIG
Duke, Miami SEC
????
Profit!!!
Why would we go to the B12 for less money than the ACC even assuming the GoR went away?
Because the ACC is dead. We need to leave and leave yesterday. We are not a hoops school and we have never won a team championship in anything- the later two are what the ACC is known for. Get out. now. The ACC is dead.
It's got 13 years of life left which is way more than a lot of people have. So no it's not dead
May not be dead, but it won't be D1 anymore.
I think the only hope to break the GoR is for Clemson (1), FSU (2), Miami (3), UNC (3), NC State (4), Virginia (5), Virginia Tech (6), Pitt (7), and Louisville (8) all to announce they are breaking the GoR to form their own conference. They might then invite teams from the current Big12 or other conferences to join such as WVU, Cincy to get to 10 members to start.
What if they formed their own conference for one year or less, to break the GOR, and then all immediately had deals in place to join a new conference SEC or BIG10 the next year?
Not happening - either these schools having landing places and they want to leave immediately, or they don't have landing places so they don't want to leave. That is a very risk proposition (not to mention the fact that university presidents aren't exactly the risk type).
Also, the idea of forming a new conference with all former ACC schools - for the sole purpose of getting ride of certain ACC schools - seems like the sort of thing that would get destroyed in court.
I see thanks for the clarification from a legal perspective. You're right I can't imagine that exact scenario would play out well legally.
WELP, I'll just continue to panic inside and watch it all play out. 🥲
Then the ACC and it's current member institutions will argue the one year conference was in bad faith and a judge will likely agree.
Don't forget Notre Dame counts too.
Good to see The Alliance is holding strong. You know, aside from that whole raiding USC/UCLA thing.
They should just screw it and be predatory.
Ok, Mr. Rick should F off.
Everybody knows VT fills stadiums and is better for all opponents TV than almost all other teams in CFB.
So I'm reading this as FSU looked for loopholes in the GOR, didn't find any except possibly getting 8 plus schools to leave at once, and this is him trying to shake a few more million a year out of other ACC schools until they actually can leave in the 2030s.
to be fair, that's not a loophole.
8 teams is a majority of the ACC and thus can release those rights, or maybe can dissolve the ACC. I should note, I'm not sure that 8 is the magical number, but I assume this is true because the media keep saying 8, but the ACC contracts/bylaws could require a super majority or unanimous decision on various decisions, such as the release of media rights.
FSU is leaving. before the fucking iron clad GOR. Like I said earlier... so get your popcorn ready. In 2037 when Wake and VT and the other proles can make financial sense to leave what is left of the ACC, I hope we have a varsity football team.
Don't tell ME to get my popcorn ready, its already ready.
Ugh, unless you are advocating getting more ready. Then... Ok.
Yea not a single member of the board has said they have a plan to leave just that they want to or get more money out of ACC
Right- so FSU wants a higher % of the TV deal- at the expense of VT and others. Or?? they leave. Which they are going to do- why? because Duke's president is not going to agree to that. Neither is Sands, Neither is Miami, etc. You are cutting up the same pie. So there literally is not any more significant money for FSU. Thus, they are leaving.
By wishing away the GOR? If they were going to leave in next 3 years alone, they would have announced it.
it must be exhausting to live life this angry
Actually I'm very happy- not gonna lie- the two annual losses to Leonard Hamiltons 8 -deep 6'08 NBA wing prospects coming off our hoops schedule is awesome, seriously.
Oh wow
Excuse me then while this foot assists you out the door.
How: when the GoR expires
When: 2036
Ding, ding, ding. This is just another Florida man being a Florida Man.
I mean, sometimes you just need to pander to your base so they like you. That's just politicking.
Very true and that's all I think this is. Blustering and publicly threatening to try to get their way. But the thing is, they don't have much (if any) leverage against the ACC here. There is no reason for the ACC to concede to FSU's demands.
and with that i'm going to grab some of these on the way home...
Headed to Cigar City for dinner tonight! Probably partake in some of the beers they don't sell commercially though.
Wife said she'd take me to Cigar City if I went to Target with her - seemed like a fair trade, lol!!
Lol, guess I should have added Brewery after Cigar City! Leg for the GIF.
It's a weird legal conundrum.
Every ACC institution has granted their rights to the ACC until 2036, commiserate with the ACC-ESPN contract. ESPN has a contract with the ACC as it's sole media provider. These two things would seem to exist until 2036 until (1) ACC releases back the media rights or (2) ACC dissolves. ESPN can't break the contract without paying a hefty fee, and there doesn't seem to be any motivation to do so. If any institution leaves, it's not some payment they have to make (besides the exit fee, which is different), but a lack of being aired by any media outlet besides ESPN (and the payment that comes with that). If such institution moved to the SEC, ESPN can still air each home game, but the ACC would be paid. If they moved to B1G, Fox/CBS/NBC would be sued instantly by ESPN (or maybe just pay ESPN), that would then pay the ACC.
So, what can FSU do? If they can get a media deal to make double what they would be owed by the ACC, then they break even. Any less, they lose money. But the SEC deal is until 2034 and the Big 10 is until 2030. So, there is no making money any time soon.
Their only options are to sue the ACC to get back their media rights (on what grounds?), negotiate with the ACC to buy back those rights (crazy expensive), or get enough institutions to agree to release those media rights and/or dissolve the ACC (would 8 institutions agree to do so?).
Bitter hits it on the head again.
This FSU posturing again. I would love to see a actual ratings summary of viewership per school. I doubt they have half the audience they say they have.
LMAO he's literally saying that he does not know how they're going to break the GoR, nor does he know when he'll figure it out.
First he is going to propose that they Clemson, and ND (of course) get 70% of the Playoff/NY6 revenue and VT gets 5%. Which of course will probably work. Duke hoops gets interesting.
Yes, but how many closed doors will this deal be made behind?
They can leave at any time. They can be independent or join another conference. It's just their media rights that they granted to the ACC that would stay with the ACC. How those rights are released, transferred, etc. is the real question.
Wait, is this the same Drew Weatherford that Brandon Flowers absolutely demolished in the '07 game? Maybe he still gets twitchy when sees a VT uniform and wants to go somewhere else.
Yep it is.
FSU lawyers, probably.
The more this public fiasco with FSU goes on, the more I have confidence that the silence around VT, UVA, and the NC schools is deafening. Since most conference moves have happened suddenly and without warning, I wouldn't be surprised if we are going total stealth mode on this. VA and NC are far too valuable to be ignored. Something is going to happen and sooner rather than later IMO.
I think VA and NC are more valuable to the SEC than people realize. With the number of people cord cutting, the numbers of subscribers paying ESPN's fees are going down. If you can't grow the number of subscribers how can you get more money other than extracting more money from the remaining subscribers. How does the SEC do that? Well, by converting 'out-of-conference' rates to 'in-conference' rates. All of the fees the SEC network charges goes up significantly if the SEC gets a Virginia and North Carolina school. And I'm sorry, I can't see the SEC picking LOLUVA.
Agreed. I can see UVA and UNC to the Big Ten and VT and NC State to the SEC. But as crazy as it might sound, I can see the SEC preempting the Big Ten and taking all four as a package deal honestly. UVA might not be much in terms of football brand, but they do bring a lot to the table as a major state university and they are very strong/elite in most other sports. I think a combo of VT and UVA might have a ton of appeal to the SEC honestly, and same with UNC/NC State. With that bloc of four, you're getting four extremely strong academic institutions, completely dominating the mid-Atlantic, and covering most all of the bases as far as sports. Also remember university presidents and board members will make these decisions - factors other than athletics will also have some impact. The only hang-up I see with UVA and UNC is they are elite in sports that the SEC doesn't sponsor. I think the B1G makes more sense for them, but crazier things have happened.
And on the financial delta from converting VA and NC SECN subscriber revenue from out of market to in, the rough numbers I've seen suggest that could be $150-200MM alone.
ESPN is bleeding money, doing layoffs, Disney is trying to dump them (clarification - yes, Disney is trying to dump them, but technically, to the letter- they are actively seeking to spin off the business to minority partners as one possible option because they are bleeding money. They have in fact indicated they would sell the property as well though) , subscriptions are down 30%, etc . Also ESPN- they will pay the SEC trillions of dollars and say fuck it. The numbers DO NOT ADD UP. That's the frustrating part.
ESECPN doubled down on the SEC years ago. They take every opportunity to shit on the ACC and other conferences - hell they own the exclusive media rights to the ACC and they still shit on the conference. As long as they can afford to pay the SEC and they want us, I'm good with it. They are inarguably the best football league and the southern footprint is absolutely nuts over football. They could probably do themselves a favor (the least of many) and stop paying so much money to broadcast MNF.
Don't forget that the B1G's great experiment with a full-blown national conference spanning the coasts and a media deal that is really spread out among different networks could also fail in epic fashion.
The issue is that there is one company to work for in your town. One company. They pay your neighbor 8 million dollars a year, and they pay you 100 dollars a year. There is no competition. There is one company. Your buddy gets 8 million, you get 100 bucks. Cool? now go compete against each other. That's what this is.
Maybe, but if you think more long term, then the B1G Network (and the SEC Network as well) may be the winning play. If you account for accelerating cord cutting, what's going to be the next big deal? A one-stop shop where you can stream all of your desired school's sports. Eventually, that's going to be the conference network. Once the conference network has the rights to stream anything, why would anyone who has cut the cord go anywhere else? Would you sign up (and pay) for a streaming ACC Network if it guaranteed that you would be able to see every VT game in every sport that has a camera nearby? I sure as hell would, right now even. It's just a matter of time before the conferences decide to concentrate their rights in-house, and sell them as a total streaming product.
The Pac-12 had the right idea about the Pac networks, just a decade or two too early.
That's all I want. A flat fee or monthly subscription to whatever conference VT is in so I can watch all the games without having to figure out want channel to tune into. A la NFL network.
The next round of negotiations for the B1G and SEC should be interesting, especially if they become more independent from the NCAA. If apple/Amazon/Netflix want to break into sports it could finally mean semi-independent conference networks. The conferences gets more autonomy and the streaming services get rabid fans that will absolutely bump up subscription numbers.
Hulu/Disney+ could be interesting too with the discussion about Disney trying to dump ABC and/or ESPN. They could decide to shuffle their live sports to streaming and have ESPN just be talking heads and AI BS all day.
There is no such thing as cord cutting anymore as you know. Hulu, You tube TV, Directv stream, Sling are no different than verizon fios or cox cable. Zero difference. And oh BTW, you need a "subscription service" to stream ESPN's main channels anyway. You can't just "cut the cord" and buy ESPN. Today, cutting the cord simply means you don't need a physical coax cut into your siding anymore. It has nothing to do with being forced to pay a high fee for a package of stations. i.e. all streaming services now. Sure- you have the option of only buying MLB package- but VT football doesn't play on that.
Learn the difference between "cutting the cord" and "cutting the chord" please. One is video streaming and the other sounds like you are just angry at your guitar.
I'm confused. I'm in the Midwest and previously had Mediacom bundled and got internet and cable tv from them. When I moved to a new house down the street I went with Google fiber for internet and now stream through various apps - Netflix, Apple, Prime, etc. So, I didn't cut the cord??
Do you watch ESPN? you need a subscription service. NFL Network? service. Golf Channel? service. etc. If you just watch movies? and 2 baseball games a week? sure, you cut the cord.
Do you seriously not get this or are you just acting obtuse? Cutting the cord obviously means ditching standard cable/satellite/fios television service. That means no contracts, no dedicated hardware with the fees required, and the freedom to choose whatever streaming service(s) you want whenever you want. They're not the same thing.
100% semantics to pretend that youtube tv - and its basic 90 dollars a month package- is any different than cox cable. Semantics. This isn't 2005 where people were pirating content and keeping it real. Hell this isn't 2017 when Sling was 19.99 a month. Sling is no different than Fios beyond semantics- like equipment rental- which isn't a thing anymore and waived if so, etc. Semantics. You are paying for a shit load of channels you don't want in a bundle.
ok, so we're going with obtuse then. Got it.
What in my post was not true? I JUST had equipment fees waived for the term of the contract in a rental I have. Go ahead, tell me where I am wrong?
The $90/mo starting price for YTTV for one
Dude some of you guys just live to argue with DC over the dumbest shit. YTTV is $72.99/mo and the 4k upgrade (which I suspect most sports fans will add) is another $9.99/mo. So you're right, it's not $90/mo, it's ackchyually $82.98/mo.
Anyway, Max Power indicated that he's using Google Fiber for Internet connectivity. That's anywhere from $70-$150/mo. So hypothetically, if he uses YTTV over Google Fiber, he's paying $150-$225/mo for home internet and a bundle of 80ish TV channels, most of which he probably doesn't watch. And if he doesn't subscribe to a service like YTTV, then he also doesn't get to watch ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU. It's really not a difficult concept.
As VPIhokieME points out, the main difference is that streaming services don't have long-term contracts, so you can cancel any time without penalty. Beyond that, leased equipment, and a lack of channel numbers, they're pretty much the same until you get into the underlying delivery technology.
So yes, Max Power technically "cut the cord", but DC is absolutely right that cord cutting these days mostly means "I no longer have a 2-year contract with my TV provider" and little else.
After tax in PA we pay $89 a month with 4K.
Just for clarity, I didn't actually point this out. DC did. I was just rewriting it in my own words to make sure I understood his point
I push back against DC because he very often makes very categorical black and white statements supported by incorrect facts, and then backpedals/moves to goalposts to say that the broad gist of his point still stands regardless.
It's like if i was giving someone directions and i told them to go 5 minutes and turn right at the blue house to access the highway, but in reality you have to go 5 minutes and turn right at a red house. Is it approximately correct? If i say "go ahead and tell me where I'm wrong", was it wrong enough to mention?
My YTTV is 90 dollars. So do with that what want to do with it. Sorry. I must be a unicorn. and where did I move the goal post on this? I didn't. Would you feel better if I say that YTTV is BASICALLY 90 dollars a month?? thats better? Mine IS fucking 90 a month. so.
In all seriousness, can we drop this whole thread? I keep thinking there's news about Clemson/FSU but it's just arguing about whether $80 is almost $90.
Anyone not splitting their YTTV is a rookie. You get 5 family members (I think total devices at once). I pay $30 a month for YTTV after my in-laws and coworker pay me $25/month for their access.
Is it a rookie move to split a Dish account for the family home (late grandfather's home in Alabama) between four family members?
Seriously. Maybe there should be a separate thread just for pedantic arguments that are barely tangentially related to Hokie football.
I've been out of the game so long that I don't actually know the answer to this. but can you get Cox cable for 4 months and then cancel without penalties? It USED to be the case that the cable companies had contracts and if you wanted to cancel your service before the end of the contract you still had to pay penalties. If they've done away with that, and I could get Cox cable for 4 months and then just cancel the service with no penalty then I guess you're right. But that would have required a change in policies by the cable companies. Because, that wasn't the case when "cable-cutting" became a thing. The whole point was to get away from the contracts and fees associated with reneging on said contracts.
No, the contracts with cable are still there- as I said that is the difference. Today however, its more like XM radio. If you push them, they lower your fees etc. It's not as rigid as it used to be.
okay, thanks for the reply. That makes sense to me.
If I understand correctly, basically, it seems like the cable companies have had to adjust their practices to be competitive with streaming services (i.e. waiving fees, etc). So back when cord cutting was a thing the streaming services were cheaper AND they didn't have contracts (and, therefore, no penalties for cancelling) but now the streaming services have become more expensive and the cable companies have become more lenient (so, effectively, they started on opposite ends of the spectrum and have both trended towards the middle)
The only true difference is that with cable companies you still have a contract. So it's slightly easier to get out of the service provided with streaming services rather than with cable companies; but financially, if you push the cable providers, you can more or less cancel with no fees?
The benefit of the contracts with the cable companies is that the subscription prices don't change. The risk you take when subscribing to a streaming service is that the price can go up at any time. Sure, you're free to cancel without penalty, but you could plan on spending $50/mo for YTTV and then September rolls around and all of a sudden its $90/mo and you're questioning whether or not you really wanna pay that much just to watch a few football games.
yes, and the MAIN orgin for cutting cable was "I don't want to pay 100 dollars a month for the hallmark channel so I can watch ESPN".. that's why people cut. Well that's what all major streaming services are now. Bundles of channels people don't watch, and now they are just as expensive.
Can you show me a single streaming service that has ever let you pay for only the channels you want. Because it has never existed.
Thus my point... semantics are the only difference between streaming -aka cord cutting- and the umm cord in todays world. Just as expensive, required to stream live major sports, etc.
Holy move the goalposts batman.
bullshit. come on man. talk about obtuse. my fucking position did not change one fucking bit in this thread. FFS
Sling. They started as small channel packaging or single channel their model has moved to more packages.
As someone that's had Hulu since 2015 this hits so hard every 2 years they increase the price by $10/mo I think I pay like $70/mo now when it was 25-30 when I started.
A la cart ≠ cord cutting and it never has. Streaming has always been a bundle.
While I would love a la cart options, I don't ever see it happening.
There is one huge difference today than with cable. I can get youtube TV for football season and then get rid of it. That's 8 months of money ESPN was getting from people that they now don't get when people cancel the service, which you can easily do.
Good point. Cancelling is easier in this model yes.
This is what I want. I want NFL Sunday Ticket, but for all of college football. NFL Sunday ticket is $250ish (idk I don't watch NFL)? I would gladly pay twice that, or more, for CFB Tuesday-Saturday Ticket.
Unfortunately, OU Board of Regents vs NCAA in 1984 killed the possibility of this every happening.
Agreed. I would pay for that each year without hesitation.
Not if all the P5 teams go to a single conference that have divisions like the Atlantic coast division the pacific 12 division and the big 12 divisions. But once they are a conference then the conference can negotiate on their behalf and we can finally get back to football how we want it.
For sure. The real issue is that college sports have always lacked (if not been opposed to having) a single decision maker. It's one of many reasons that I think college football needs to leave the NCAA.
Disney isn't looking to dump ESPN. Not sure where you read that. That may spin them off into their own but the mouse will still have a majority stake.
There was a lot of noise a week or two ago about Iger wanting to trim anything and everything. I think a lot of it was probably noise, but I definitely saw ESPN mentioned in those articles along with Disney+, and a few other things.
Edit: I feel like this is a callback to my AI article comment
Pretty sure I saw Disney was looking to dump ABC not ESPN.
I saw a lot of everything and put it up to people throwing stuff at the wall hoping for a "scoop".
I don't have time today to link the hundreds of articles talking about this. Sorry.
You could link one.
Five comments in the 20 minutes since would tend to indicate otherwise!
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disney-taps-two-former-executives-1834423...
https://frontofficesports.com/disney-brings-back-execs-as-it-weighs-espn...
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/02/disney-ceo-bob-iger-wants-espn-minority-...
https://www.sportico.com/business/media/2023/disneys-iger-mulls-espn-sta...
https://www.axios.com/2023/07/13/disney-sale-abc-fx-espn
You should really read the full articles.
Not looking to dump it as I said.
I edited my original post
For the record, the gist of what Disney is trying to do here is have the major leagues buy a minority stake in ESPN so they can partner together to develop and provide direct to consumer streaming options through ESPN+ for those leagues. Options that eliminate regional blackouts and becomes a one stop shop for all streams of the leagues going forward.
These negotiations do not include anything about college sports. That's all separate, and a money maker on its own. What they're doing here is trying to capture all those NBA, MLB, and NHL (possibly NFL as well, though that will be difficult with them now partnered with Google) streaming networks under one umbrella going forward and absorbing the regional network system that is rapidly collapsing.
The college model will remain
https://www.sportskeeda.com/college-football/will-ceo-bob-iger-disney-se...
See that wasn't so hard
Thanks for abiding by CGs!
There was a reason Pry recently stated that VT was the flagship school in Virginia. He is posturing.
So how many current ACC schools have to have some smoke around leaving before ESPN considers renegotiating the contract so that they don't end up paying a bunch of Sun Belt/AAC replacements for the next 13 years? The ACC is not locked in with ESPN, ESPN is locked in with the ACC! They may and to rethink some things or their contract becomes an anchor.
can you explain how the ACC isn't locked with ESPN? My understanding is that ESPN is the sole licensee of the ACC's media rights (which each university granted to the ACC). And they remain the sole licensee until 2036.
And ACC and ESPN have all the leverage, as the ACC owns all the rights until 2036 and ESPN is the sole licensee of those rights. So, if FSU leaves, those rights remain with the ACC and ESPN. Adding ACC members does not release ownership of licensing of those rights, but the ACC probably wouldn't add members except to maintain at aleast 12 to keep an ACCCG.
I meant that right now the ACC is getting the raw end of the deal, but if enough of the bigger names leave, ESPN will have the raw end by paying the same TV contract for matchups like ECU vs BC and App St vs Wake. So ESPN is really trapped with the ACC not the other way around.
Also, I believe that if enough schools leave, the ACC is unlikely to be able to enforce all the buyouts or fight all the court battles. It's a jailbreak scenario, but with only 6-7 big names leaving so the conference does not dissolve. I wonder if ESPN is sweating at least a little at the prospect of being left holding the bag.
But that's the kicker with GoR. It 's not about whether a FSU wants to buy themselves out of the conference or fight in court battles, it's about whether another conference and their media licensee would want them. And it's clearly a No from the SEC and Big10 at this point. The GoR scares away suitor conferences and their media providers from inviting FSU because they wouldn't get FSU's media rights. The rights stay with the ACC and ESPN until 2036. It's akin to buying a house when the seller doesn't have the full right to the title. Sure, you could buy it, but you're not going to want it if someone else owns a portion of the property and can use it as they like.
And while the ACC can come to terms with a university to buy out those rights, it'll be insanely expensive (13 years of media money!!!) and you would come out with less money than if you just stuck with the ACC. That's why FSU is crying about changing the ACC payout because they know (1) SEC andBig10 don't want to touch the ACC's GoR and (2) FSU cannot make more money in another conference for the next decade (the SEC and Big10 payout wouldn't cover the buyout and yield a better profit than staying with the ACC). Their threat about leaving is empty because it would be financial suicide.
It is possible that 8 teams can vote to give the media rights back to the University and/or dissolve the ACC. I'm skeptical that 8 ACC teams would want to do that, but maybe. Currently, the ACC payout is better in the Big12 and PAC12, so unless the SEC and Big10 can promise a landing spot for 8 teams, I don't see how 8 teams agree to give back the rights or dissolve ACC. It's not in their interest.
Would you, as a school president, leave the ACC knowing they own your media rights and hope you can in a conference and win a legal battle? FSU could go to any conference but they would not be in the other conference media deal since the ACC owns their media rights. The school doesnt get money from ESPN, the ACC does and they redistribute it.
No one is leaving unless the conference itself implodes from 8 schools leaving together.
Well what most people don't know is that FSU has one legal precedence up their sleeve, you see that signed with their fingers crossed so it doesn't count. They are exploring their options but can leave anytime because of this. They have the video to prove it so they are free amd clear, Clemson on the other hand was not that smart.
Waiting for this to turn political down here in Florida. It's low hanging fruit for any current elected officials running for higher office to boost appeal.
Zero incentive for ESPN to renegotiate with the ACC. They control the platform to push that only the SEC and B1G matter anyway, so who cares if you sub Middle Tennesee for NC State? When you control the narrative anyway?
Gotta love the hubris of FSU....they have one not-awful Football season and all of a sudden they see themselves as a Football SuperPower again.
They have done two things since Jimbo left: Jack and Shit. This is worse than the never-ending Miami is Bak crap that you have to hear before they inevitably underachieve every year.
They have no way out of the GoR--these are a bunch of empty suits blowing smoke and nothing more.
You're a DISTANT second in fanbase in your own state---UF has a vastly larger base....so shut the fuck up about how "valuable" you are.
Wanna leave??? Good....go to the SEC, leave us your $38/mil a year and we'll distribute it amongst ourselves while you live in the SEC basement year after year and put yourselves at a huge financial deficit to everyone you're competing against.
Are they even 2nd in their state? Miami is inordinately popular according to the media even if their fans don't go to games that aren't bowls.
Depends somewhat on what part of the state you are in.
As a whole, it's definitely
1. UF - by a hefty margin
2. FSU
3. Miami
4. UCF
5. Various...USF, FAU, ect.
Here in Central FL, UCF is probably even and might even be #3 above Miami. Once you're South of Alligator Alley, Miami has a larger base.
But even in the panhandle, once you're out of Tallahassee FSU is #2.
UCF with total alumni already over 360,000 living alumni is going to surpass them long term.
An internet school is not going to pass FSU in anything but useless classes
The vast majority of undergrad (over 55,000) students take their classes on campus. UCF has a larger med school than VT, sits in a massive growing metro area in a growing state. Depending on how the tenure lawsuits and political takeovers of the state universities go UCF will be just fine.
I said what I said. And I didn't say a word about VT- which has never been a Med school- until relatively recent investments in that direction- so that point is ?? I was talking about UCF being an internet school- which it is, and not "passing" FSU in true sports fan support in florida- which they never will. I said what I said.
Agree with this 10000%. FSU has only 3 more total wins than the Hokies since the 2015 season.
Man, if we get left in the cold on the inevitable P2, the damage that the Fuente regime inflicted will become a thing of VT lore.
Fuck that guy.
And there are still parts of this fan base that put him on our "Mount Rushmore" of football coaches.
They defended that guy for years despite the evidence being right under the nose.
He could prove even more catastrophic than initially thought.
The ODU loss was the beginning of the end of VT football as we knew it. That team was so poorly led, we lost on television in a make shift stadium to a bad, bad sunbelt team. Whit showed me plainly that he wasn't serious about competing in football at that point. He showed the world that we can give up 700 yards to a 3 win team in our own state and be OK with that, sideline fights, no backup QB ready, no plan to pressure the QB- nothing. It was right in front of our faces that we weren't serious about football.
Agreed. Truth hurts. That was the day Fu lost the locker room and changes from the top should have come but we kept the status quo.
If we get left out of P2 it's not because of the football team and 5 years of results.
I can't really point to or see another reason of why we wouldn't get an invite, other than the severe dip during Fu years...
Lack of total fan base (none alumni fans, regional fans), smaller overall economic stability (fans didn't start paying for total scholarship bill until 2016), lack well rounded Olympic sports and long term basketball success, national brand recognition is low historically. Those are all bullet points in the negative. The positive are new tv market for subscriber rates.
If the SEC and Big Ten only cared about on field performances, they wouldn't have invited Missouri and Rutgers
or Maryland
Maryland were/are fucking geniuses. Seriously. The ultimate last laugh. Everyone mocked them - OMFG they are leaving the mighty ACC- what about hoops, etc etc. Maryland were fucking geniuses. They said fuck you guys, we are taking the money. Brilliant. Ultimate last laugh. They had the foresight that the ACC was a hoops league stuck in 1989 greensboro with their sweet tea and the perfect little 4 games on Friday of the ACC tourney. Maryland got that. They saw that and said we are fucking out. Good for them. Now they have a seat at the table and can watch Duke hoops look for a conference. LOL. the ultimate last laugh.
We knew at the time they were going to be earning a bit more money, but gave them shit because they were going to be playing teams that (except for Rutgers and Penn State) were from a whole different region of the country. Who knew that they would grow to be a national conference, or that the money difference would be so significant?
Even at the time, it was quite a bit more money. But I honestly believe they leaned into football is king and that was brilliant. A hoops school acknowledging that the money was in football and leaving a conference with Duke and UNC in it- as a hoops school. That's not luck. That's smart
Now what will be really fun/interesting is watching every ACC school use the "we bring the value to the ACC, oh yeah and Clemson" line as bulletin board material as every team wants to bash their face in even more this year
Some really good discussion and analysis here with a guy I've been following on a lot of this stuff.
Could you summarize? I would love to listen, but I don't have 90 mins available to go through that, unfortunately.
Oh man it's a lot including discussion of the origins of how the talks began. He touches in the incentive for each of the individual broadcasting companies
; what worked and what didn't including streaming vs over air. He supposedly has some friends that are part of the big ten board which is where he gets most of the in depth detail regarding those discussions and what the challenges are.
The main points were Oregon and Washington are going to most likely happen and have already been vetted and cleared. Wisconsin is the school that is the worst and always blocks everything from happening and they've been the only once giving issue to any expansion so far.
When he discusses the ACC obviously we're all going to get destroyed with a 40 mill dollar disadvantage every year whether that be due to recruiting or being able to triple a desired coaches salary to pull them from an ACC team. FSU knows this and is pushing hard but their big problem is lack of clinical research. In regards to TV numbers Clemson and FSU are the only schools considered tier 1 in terms of their games pulling in 4mill + viewers every game. When they broke down school athletic revenue the next on the list were Miami Unc UVA (iirc). VT was not mentioned often except in terms of being in top three in terms of our record since 2005, despite spending less than Miami fsu and Clemson. They tend to look at the schools spending to gauge their commitment to the product on the field so that may hamper us in terms of attractiveness.
There's a lot a lot of nuanced discussion regarding the TV networks and discussions made there. Ultimately the networks are and will be controlling the league decisions ie college football becoming ruled by TV now and the decisions they make will be largely hand in hand with the networks not necessarily the conference
https://www.summarize.tech/www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld2Q7WPEYK8
Only a couple days left for this rumor to materialize
Only a couple of days left for the teams to leave by 2024. Everything beyond that is still on the table. Even there's teams that are going to leave, having it happen a year from now was always a slim possibility.
The rumor was that Clemson Florida State Oregon and Washington were joining the Big 10 this week. The Twitter/X post that this whole thread is based on.
Whoever is serially downvoting each of DC's comments to -1 should stop
I really wish you mods could have visibility on votes. DC has pissed someone off and so he has a DV stalker right now. I know Alum has had one (multiple?) in the past. I know I had one at one time. I don't really care that much about the votes (made up internet points don't put food on the table) but it is annoying when I catch a DV on a post that doesn't make sense - I'm at -1 on at least one post recently that isn't justified, IMO. It's even worse when whoever downvotes (for opinion?) doesn't offer any sort of counter argument. It's petty and cowardly.
I honestly think someone has a script that checks the site periodically and downvotes any comment from certain people. I've had multiple comments in completely random threads and topics get hit that really don't make much sense unless someone had set something up to scrub the site and check.
maybe. seems a little tin-hat-ish to me but I guess it's possible. Seems like a lot of work just for spite. I'm much happier doing it the old-fashioned way, myself. I'm not going to pretend that I have never DV'd someone. But it's usually because they are breaking the CGs in some way (mostly personal attacks, or just unnecessary noise)
tin hat:
tin-foil hat:
Joe can see if it becomes bad enough. Had one years ago. I could post something everyone agrees with like Moe's is better than Chipotle or Mac and Cheese is overated and would get downvotes on dozens of my posts for days.
reported for hate speech
Go have your fancy French cheese and pasta.
I know Joe can see it - I wish the mods had more visibility.
In a similar, but different, vein, I think it would be pretty cool to see the stats on how folks dole out legs. I think it would be cool to see how many UVs and DVs each poster has put out there. Who is the most generous? Who has the greatest disparity? Who doesn't vote very much? Or at all?
This info has been released before, I have see it with my own eyes.
show me! I'd like to see this
Alum had one last week, couldn't recall the thread, but it was just contributing to general discussion with all positivity and it was at -1. No idea what that's about.
I added a downvote for him calling UCF an internet school. Since I've got one masters from there and getting another. I'll own that DV.
Yeah don't do that
Why he is calling my degree and academic choices into question. That's worth the DV, but I also responded I don't just DV and not comment.
As long as we're going to have that debate.....
emphasis mine
He didn't call your degrees into question, you're projecting.
he said it was an online school totally agnostic and irrespective of any connection to you.
For curiosity's sake, did you attend in-person?
Like most none science grad school most work was done online but we did have things I would have to go to the Orlando campus for. Same as if I got my MPA from Tech.
right so it sounds like it struck a nerve, which is downvoting for an opinion.
dc's wrong about a lot of things (sometimes wildly so) and this is probably one of them (in terms of actual statistics) -- but for the most part he doesn't really break site rules
So if someone came in and called Tech a Hick school you don't think they would catch a DV?
Only opinions get downvoted here. No one DVs a factual statement (headlines), only when someone says something and it is insulting or offensive, which is their opinion.
i think they would, i think they shouldn't; i understand why you downvoted dc, i think you shouldn't have downvoted dc.
especially because you pretty clearly projected what he meant by his statement
This exchange was **Chef's Kiss**
Down votes are dumb. Upvotes are dumb. This isnt reddit or the mid 2000s. We have mods now. Get rid of them.
but how else would I say
But... you just did it. You said it with the voice of gif. Much more effective.
Yes, that's what we need. More gifs bogging down each thread
Are you new here? Billions of years from now Joes servers will be artifacts recovered with links that direct you to lots of meta history.
I mean he could probably speed up most threads by saving a few hundred megs of gifs that we all use the most. And then having a select box for us all use the preloaded Gifs.
and lose the scoreboard! no way
Downvotes are dumb, I could care less about upvotes, but legs are legit.
And I still haven't been paid out in the legs I earn with real legs. I'm starting to think I never will.
Edit: probably have to agree with this comment though. I think upvotes staying so the leg board can still exist is a great idea. And just get rid of the down votes and allow the mods to do the mod things when necessary.
Yes, they are. And meaningless. BUT WE LOVE THEM!
Keep 'em, get rid of 'em, I don't care, y'all still know who runs the big board
Joe?
+1; UV for the DV
I think it is silly that people get upset about DVs. I know it is in the rules not to DV opinions but people get mad about a -1 of imaginary things makes me chuckle. Feel free to DV this if you disagree.
Especially when they already have thousands upon thousands of legs banked, so picking up a downvote here or there has zero negative impact on them
All of his links got up votes from me. Just because he has negative opinions on some things doesn't mean they should be downvoted.
It's possible he's not getting downvotes for what he's saying, but rather how he's saying it.
although it does seem pretty obvious, tone and intent is pretty hard to measure on internet message boards. DC skirts the boundaries but for the most part he stays in bounds. He's a personality - he's not going to be loved by everyone and he's absolutely unapologetic about that. I don't agree with him on many things but I value (some of) his inputs. Plus, it's kind of funny to me when he goes off the rails once a month and everyone piles on. He always comes back, though. Respect that.
He is probably one of the most objectively realistic people on here. 90% of the time, anyway. That's the frustrating part of the downvotes to me. We don't downvote opinion. And we shouldn't downvote because someone is "negative." But, so many people on here do it to DC regularly. I think I've even seen the mods do it and Joe had to step in at one point.
And the damndest part of the whole thing is VT has fallen so far off from where we once were due to complacency and incompetence, it is unbelievable. We are in a worse place now than we were in 1992. And then, when DC points this out, or how he thinks we got here, he gets downvoted into oblivion. It's unreal. Now don't get me wrong, I like Pry and hope he turns us around, but we have been on a downward trend for over a decade and we still have people on here that won't upvote anything but optimism. It's insane.
Yeah, I appreciate that folks want to stay optimistic but one must take care not to be blinded by it. DC doesn't paint a rosey picture and I guess that rubs folks the wrong way. But you're absolutely right: VT has fallen way, way off and that can be attributed to complacency for sure. Incompetence in all likelihood. And possibly, blind optimism. Optimism has its place, but being realistic and humble is paramount to program building.
People also don't like the truth when it's ugly. DC speaks the truth (about football) and people don't like it right now because its not good. But it's true. And it sucks. But we're not a top tier football program. We haven't been since probably 2010ish.
But DC also loves to argue for arguments sake. I find it amusing and don't typically take the bait, but I have been tempted to go through this thread and rebut every comment he has made, just like he does in about 50% of his comments, just for entertainment and see how many non-relevant comments we can get this thread to. I don't because I don't think those types of arguments add to the conversation, and may have actually downvoted before (been on here for a while so hard to remember) when I thought he was running so far astray for the pure sake of argument that it becomes just noise and devalues the thread. I am used to it enough now I just skip the moving goal post moving arguments and give a leg when he does post something that in my opinion adds more value than noise.
Heard on Dan Patrick's show that the model that the BIG is working toward is a BIG 10 East & a BIG 10 West (BIG 20?). From their perspective, I think that makes sense. They could possibly add Oregon, Washington, and maybe Stanford and another Pac12 school, & look for other schools to fill out their roster in the east.
college football divided into regional groups? Madness
Well, if your region is the continental U.S., then you probably should have regional divisions...
For what it's worth, Patrick said he thinks that we're headed to a NFL-esque setup where you have divisional opponents, and you end up playing each twice (H&A) plus opponents from another division. I don't know if that would happen.
No need to play a school twice in the regular season. There are plenty of teams to choose from. That in itself would destroy CFB.
Oh, I totally agree. While the possibility of beating LOLUVA twice in the same season does have a certain appeal, it would be awful for the game and the fans.
Sigh... I despise this idea. Just what the sport needs. Distilling the fanbases of 133 schools into a schedule so limited you can play multiple opponents multiple times in the same season.
I'll be sure to tune in for Rutgers-Maryland home and away and buy lots of licensed gear.
edit: that said, there should be regional divisions in college football, just not limited to the 24, 30, whatever number of teams
Agree...its distilling the PAC12 down to a sub-conference and the B1G dumping their unwanteds into the West division--here's money Purdue, Neb, and NW all end up there.
All this for some TV money so I can watch 400 Hyundai ads to try to sell me a shitty car that a 12 year old can hotwire.
But what happens when there's no audience for Purdue-Cal on Thursday night because literally no one is asking for that matchup anywhere?
And have the conference championship in the Rose Bowl.... This would be fantastic IMO, especially if VT were in the picture somehow.
Maybe they can rename the SEC to the National Collegiate Football Conference and have the Big Ten renamed the American Collegiate Football Conference and possibly have a playoff that culminated in an annual Collegiate Super Bowl
What if the BIG set up four even regional divisions, that played a round robin format with crossovers as needed, and the divisional champs played each other at the end of the season to see who the conference Champ was? /s
Wait, Carolina is involved?
The shifting continues -- ESPN reporting that Arizona is close to joining the Big 12.
ESPN Link
Zona and ASU to the Big 12.
OU and UW to Big 10.
Just need FSU to gather their 7 friends and stage the coup against the ACC.
Ideal scenario that will never happen:
B1G gobble up all the PAC12 (or whatever # want to join) teams and have two divisions (East and West). Winner of each division meets in the Rose Bowl.
SEC gobble up the MidAtlantic / Southern ACC teams and have two divisions (North and South). Winner of each division meets in the Orange Bowl.
BIG12 gobbles up the remaining and has two divisions (idgaf how they split). Winner of each division meets in the Cotton Bowl.
this makes far too much sense, which is why it will never happen. I like it, though
Yeah, no one is going to can the expanded CFP for that.
I wasn't recommending eliminating CFP. Rather recycling the former NY6 bowl games as conference championships (and attempting to tie them to their original conference partners).
And now it seems the PAC-? might actually survive
Interesting comments yesterday on local radio in Raleigh from UNC AD Bubba Cunningham. I think he's saying what everyone else in the ACC is thinking as they read the comments from FSU.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/38129880/unc-ad-bubba-c...
F$U trying to raise money to leave ACC
If they want to buyout of the GOR for close to $1B go for it.
Don't know how they can pretend to be a non-profit selling equity stakes in the "non-profit".
IMHO, societal pressure will collapse the GOR. FSU will use social media and traditional media to claim they are slaves, there is no competitive balance, the ACC is hiding millions of dollars. They will try this in both the court of law and the court of public outrage. The later brought you the modern NIL ...errrr. pay for play in college sports.
We saw what happened with LIV Golf. Eventually the pressures will break the dam.
I think it will pressure the ACC to take a substantial buyout, rather than have a disgruntled member and a "potential" GOR value to keep them along. Kudos to you for saying FSU would find a way. I thought even FSU was above going full PIF.
I don't see how a giant athletic department that still somehow manages to spend $260M plus a year is equal to/more sympathetic than a college athlete who wasn't allowed to take anything above board beyond a scholarship/room board/stipend. I don't think it'll be public pressure as much as high level TV boardroom and now investor pressure.
I think this whole situation will help VT in the long run. They'll either have extra money to get to the next step/fund their own buyout. Even if VT is permanently relegated to Non-P2 status, at least they'll know where they stand sooner than a decade from now.
We'll see what happens next.
Color me skeptical on VT - at this moment. I think its far more likely we remain in a conference with Duke, UVA, Louisville, GT than move to the B1G or SEC. With literally every Pac 12 an ACC school potentially in play, I just don't see it. UVA is more attractive to the B1G than we are and Clemson is more attractive to the SEC than we are for example. I think the best case for VT is the 3 mega conference model and expand the playoffs to 16 teams. That puts us roughly back in the mid-2000's in terms of where we can possibly compete - win our pod, lose to Ok State or Baylor in the conference title, and sneak into the 16.. etc. Worse case is that the B1G poaches UNC and Miami and the SEC takes Clemson and FSU... leaving us in basically a G5 league.
Et tu, Brute?
Sorry man. probably premature panic.
You joke... but turn on your TV tonight and watch the New York Fucking Yankees sporting a local insurance company patch on the venerable pinstripes.
Football is about the only major sport that doesn't do this yet, right? I could totally see FSU or Miami being the first. Florida man don't care.
NFL teams- which net billions each from the monday night package alone will soon have ads on uniforms. They are hurting for money, of course. The NBA eventually- next 5-7 years- will be the Euro soccer model, where the lakers patch is small in the left upper corner and the corporate logo is the main logo on the jersey. 5-7 years.
How is this legal for FSU to use private equity to fund conference buyouts?! Sheesh never thought I'd see the day
Florida law allows universities to divest their football teams to separate non profit entities.
Well that seems wildly unfair from a competitive standpoint...really would be nice if there was some national governing body that protected and enforced rules to keep the sport fair
Yeah, they've been hiding under a table since about 2010 while the city burns to the ground around them.
Even if the GOR dissolved and the ACC was magically able to sign a new media deal tomorrow, do people think we would actually be able to compete with the SEC and B1G? Real numbers are hard to find for previous deals, but from everything I've read it seems like the SEC schools at least have always out-earned the ACC schools in media deals. Seems like a lot of ACC school fans are just expecting everything to be ok if a new media deal was somehow signed though.
Honestly IMO I hope FSU does somehow make it out and we can blow up the GOR. The ACC is at-best competing for a distant third place in the conference hierarchy now, so drastic change is needed. If VT can make it into the SEC then great. If not, let's form some big ACC-Big12 hybrid conference.
VT can't compete with Pitt right now, because they have bigger, tougher players and they sling us around. OK- that's football. Our previous coach couldn't recruit ACC sized DL, etc. oh well. VT can't compete with Bama, because greater college football is 100% about money, and that money is a self fulfilling prophecy. More money in recruiting means more private jet access to freshman HS football players to build relationships. More money means hiring ex NFL head coaches to 45K per year analyst jobs. More money means influencing the media and recruiting publications to give your players the highest ratings, so that other highly rated players want to play with them. More money means that you can build a football team building every 5 years when the next great thing is in or your rival builds one. ETC. That's what FSU is chasing- simply the gobs of cash Auburn or Vandy get from just being in the SEC. They don't give a fuck about tobacco road hoops rivalries.
I think you missed a 0 on that analyst job position at Bama, Texas, etc.
hell, I'd be an analyst for Bama's football program if they paid me that kinda money
Analyst jobs rarely pay 6-figures. Derek Dooley (very well tenured Saban assistant/analyst) is making $111k. Dean Altobelli (a less experienced analyst) started at ~$47k in 2017, and is now making ~$60k.
Yeah, the reason that ex head coaches take them is because of contract stipulations and they got a job in football so Bama can pay 45k and their old school can pay them 4.5 mil
Actually, when we joined the ACC it had the best media deal in the country. Then Swofford decided to line his family's pockets and the rest is history.
Swoffords mistake was desperation. He took a gamble. The ND deal showed ESPN he was desperate and they took advantage. The GOR showed the league anticipated this day- the conference gets poached. desperation forced his hand on a 20 year GOR. He is a rube, but had Miami been the Canes of the 80's and GT didn't go back to the 1970's wishbone, and Beamer was in his prime, and UVA fielded a competitive team, etc. we wouldn't be in this position. Imagine an ACC with the "wide right" days negotiating with ESPN ? Miami FSU was the best rivalry in college football while Alabama was still learning the forward pass. Imagine if those teams were that good every year? Imagine if the late 90's VT, a top 10 clemson, etc was also in that league playing that way? all of this would be moot.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I'd rather take a small chance at being competitive against B10G or SEC teams than a decent chance of being competitive against even the current ACC teams. The average annual home slate of ACC opponents is not appealing at all.
I don't think that's a minority opinion at all. I'd do the same thing. We'd playing against a lot of the top teams, and even if we lost a lot it'd be better for our team.
This is getting bizarre...
Florida State University taps JPMorgan to help find potential investors
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/04/florida-state-university-taps-jpmorgan-t...
From the article:
Lmao....Florida State Football brought to you by Bain Capital.
Good luck to them on that.
FSU might have now taken the lead for the most apeshit insane and ridiculously pompous Program in the nation.
This is the only logical conclusion
I for one am all for FSU being the canary in the coal mine. Try and bust on through the GOR let's see how it goes.
Curious when schools that really don't make financial sense start getting kicked out of conferences.
If we were the first ones to do it the ACC could actually survive. Wake BC Cuse Duke football, see ya
Man I can just feel going to or watching games becoming a chore. How many 10 pm kickoffs do you think Ohio State and Michigan fans will tolerate? how many 9 AM kickoffs will USC tolerate. I certainly will not give a crap about Oregon vs Illinois, but dammit I watched Oregon vs Oregon St and Wash vs Wash St because you knew there was going to be bad blood all over the stadium.
Lmao half the B10 gets pissed about kickoffs after noon, much less 10pm
How many votes does the ACC needs to get to approve a unequal revenue distribution? Seems like one solution would be to give the best 4 teams each season a 1.5x share (~45M) and then give the bottom 4 a 0.5x share (~15M). Surely, FSU/Clemson will feel like they can achieve that most years and schools like VT, Miami, UNC, NC State will feel like they have a good chance to go on a run. Obviously the bottom dwellers would protest but that provides incentive to invest in football.
Any school that really cares about football would not agree. The bottom four are in the position the ACC is currently in vs. the P2. We don't have enough money to compete; the bottom four would not have the money to put more emphasis on football. And if you are not in the top 5 or 6, you're never going to have a chance at the bonus payout. So I see the vote about 10 to 6 or 11-5 against. However, if there really is an opportunity for FSU and Clemson to leave, I think that changes the thinking of the other 14. You might accept that change to keep them in the ACC.
I feel like there has been a rotating door the past decade or more for the 2nd - 4th best teams in the ACC based on a single season performance. If you are a school making this decision, it comes down to do you think you are going to finish top 4 more often than bottom 4.
VT, Miami, UNC, Clemson, FSU, Louisville, NC State, Pitt should have very little fear of coming in the bottom 4 of the ACC.
UVA, GT would be a little iffy. Wake, BC, Duke, Syracuse would be the 4 that would definitely not want this scenario but their alternative may be worse (ACC folds and they have no conference invites.
EDIT: Since 2017, this scenario would have been great for Clemson (+90M) and NC State (+45M). VT, Wake, Pitt would all be up 15M. UNC, UVA, Louisville, Miami would break even. FSU, BC would be down 15M. Syracuse, GT, and Duke would all be getting hammered with -45M, -45M, -60M, respectively.
When you have unequal revenue sharing, your conference dies. Fact. Everytime. So pull the band aid off.
Yeah but the only times it's really been tried the money has flowed to the top 2 or 3 teams at the expense of everyone else.
I believe if we took some of the money being paid to the dead weight and invested it equally into the top 8 ACC programs it would almost definitely strengthen the conference.
Better than throwing that money into the void by giving it to Wake Forest, Boston College or Syracuse
better yet, lets just kick them out of the league!
"top 8 ACC programs"
OK who might these be? And does it ever change? Like what if Miami relatively sucks for 15 years... unlikely I know, but what if Miami football was a 6-7 win program for 20 years.. far fetched, right? :)
FSU
Clemson
Miami
Virginia Tech
NC State
UNC
Louisville
Pitt
Teams that have decent sized to large followings and are actively spending to win at football.
The top 8 would see their shares increased. GT and UVA would keep around the same shares. The bottom 4 would have theirs decreased.
Example:
Current payout is $40M per school.
Adjusted payout could look like:
FSU: 50M
Clemson: 50M
Miami: 50M
VT: 50M
NC State: 50M
UNC: 50M
Louisville: 50M
Pitt: 50M
UVA: 40M
GT: 35M
Duke: 30M
Cuse: 25M
Wake: 15M
BC: 15M
And before the "this will never happen"s come through. Yeah it won't, but if you wanted to save the conference this is what the payouts would look like
I don't think many of us do.
I just want VT to land somewhere where they compete at the highest level of college athletics.
IMO agreeing to uneven revenue sharing to save your conference is like agreeing to an open relationship to save your marriage. The teams who are getting extra might be slightly happier in the short term, but as soon as they can afford a divorce, they're gone.
At this point, I think the demise of the ACC is inevitable, and needs to happen (this is independent of my hopes for VT). Wake, Syracuse, Duke, and BC have almost nothing in common with VT, FSU, Clemson, and NC State. Say what you will about the SEC and B12, but the schools in each conference are all aligned, think similarly, have common aspirations, and similar (enough) opportunities. It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the B10 moving forward, and if/how the west coast schools fit in culturally.
Lol, interesting to see FSU in the negative and Wake in the positive in spite of all the commentary out there (and FSU's own posturing).
EDIT: meant as a reply to 919hokie!
Shocking, it was all a bunch of noise
The conspiracies about this are just as good as the space lasers and others out there right now.
The story about the buyout is impressive. As the buyout is north of $500,000,000 due to GoR. Then again Florida Man did just win the 1.58 billion MegaMillions. Does that count as a charitable deduction to help with the taxes?
Florida must have some Xtra-strength Copium.
The media and a lot of fake Twitter/X insiders are just perpetuating this nonsense. Basically nothing is going to happen now and probably for a while because 1) schools haven't found a true way out of the GoR and don't have the money, and 2) the schools who likely want to leave the ACC don't have a home yet. B1G is going to be selective moving forward now, and the SEC since it is ultimately controlled by ESPN like the ACC, will not preemptively raid the ACC unless it falls apart because ESPN is getting ACC schools at an absolute bargain right now (thanks, Swofford!)
Realistically, I don't think dissolving the conference is going to work because that would require at least eight schools to have spots lined up elsewhere, which I don't think we are close to that at all. There might be some back channel handshake, wink-wink, well if X happens then Y verbal agreements. But a ton of uncertainty. And secondly, I'm still not convinced that dissolving the conference would automatically nullify the GoR because of the assignment of rights to ESPN and the TV contract that is in place. Someone benefits from it (ESPN, other ACC members left behind) so you better believe there would be a ton of litigation going on to preserve that deal or settle for a large sum of money.
So yeah, this is a bunch of noise until someone has the money to get out of the GoR and the Big Ten wants to make its next move.
The big question is...whats to stop the P2 from letting the ACC slip into oblivion, and then adding ACC teams when they're at their most desperate for either temporary unequal revenue sharing or lopsided terms.
PSU/WVU would benefit to no one caring about Pitt/Virginia Teams anymore
Why would SCar care if Clemson/North Carolina teams can't compete?
Florida would happily watch Miami and FSU burn to the ground
Rutgers certainly wouldn't care about BC/Cuse sucking more
UGA barely finds GT relavent to begin with
I dunno, outside looking in, seems like NCAA has little incentive to care about the ACC...
or maybe I've missed something
This has been my biggest fear since this all started. All valid points.
thats the point when you get the ACC to get its 8th vote to dissolve, the Big Ten and SEC get the schools they want, and the rest go to the Big 12.
The long term thing here is, you're going to rapidly see about half the schools in Division 1 de-prioritize athletics after this goes down because they're not in the SEC or Big Ten. At that point, there is no sense in playing the financial game anymore, and it could end up leading to a pretty significant bubble bursting for collegiate sports.
I am honestly to the point where I kind of want VT to be in that latter group that de-prioritizes sports (at least football).
I think that even if we work our way into the SEC/B1G, we just simply aren't built, from culture, facilities or financial points of view, to compete w/ the modern NIL factories.
I'd kind of like to see us stop trying. There'll be enough other schools like us, quite a few of whom we have history with, that I'd bet some kind of audience that would warrant a decent (but not huge) TV deal. Hokies on the TV every now and again, and still beautiful fall Saturdays in Blacksburg.
I acknowledge that this'll impact the rest of our sports that I'd love to see continue to thrive.
If we don't get an invite to the SEC then this is what I hope for. An invite to the SEC solves all of our woes and then some.
I think we are more than equipped to compete in the SEC but the purgatory we are stuck in now may be the demise of our program as we know it.
I'll be happy watching us play Alabama and I'll be happy watching us play NDSU but I'm afraid that's what it's going to come to.
Sports Business Journal named Triumph as one of the 10 'power players' in the country when it comes to NIL (source), and you don't think we have the infrastructure to compete with the SEC/B10? Jesus people, I get that we're not Bama/OSU/LSU/etc, but we're also not Wazzou/Kansas/Texas Tech/etc.
Time to donate *plug*
If "Orange and Maroon" was the new thing in college football, our fans would immediately say "VT is behind on that" it's tired.
Agreed, the inferiority complex is tiresome.
It's not a complex if it's true. Triumph can be as innovative and as aspirational as it wants. We have a long, documented history of middling financial support for our teams relative to our peers (much less the heavyweights of college football). I see no reason to expect that Triumph, as good as it is, will suddenly be flush with the kind of cash it would need to splash around to be anything more than middle of the pack in the SEC.
And that's my point: middle of the pack in the SEC may be fine. It'll certainly provide for more "televisable" games week in and week out. But I'm coming around to the idea of dialing things back a bit. Join with more like-minded (and like-resourced) schools and have a helluva good time there.
I mean being primarily a military school until about 50 years ago didn't exactly help our giving prior to 2000. Fact of the matter is, our alumni base is getting much wealthier and is actively swelling in numbers to begin approaching numbers that dwarf some of the schools that we think are our peers. Within 20 years, our fundraising will be on par with everyone else. The only part we're currently behind the times is on having multi-generation endowments, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about that.
It very much is an inferiority complex that needs to be broken.
I think we're way closer (culturally) to the middle of the SEC than the bottom of the P5
Okay we'll never have oil money, but we don't necessarily need it. Texas A&M sucked ass last year. Money helps but you can't buy literal points on the scoreboard just yet.
As long as we can raise money for football on the South Carolina/Kentucky level we will be fine, and I don't think we're in danger of not reaching that benchmark
"We have a long, documented history of middling financial support for our teams relative to our peers" Urban Legend- 100%... Same people that said our largest in the NCAA 6 month old nutrition center was outdated and the Beamer Barn now needs to be replaced. Its myth.
Then why didn't fans give enough until 2016 to finally cover full scholarship bill? You might want to wish away high end college football is about, money. But it's there and Tech until very very recently was behind its peers. Hell right now we don't even have a plan to expand the sports complex so Olympic sports and football/basketball aren't sitting on top of one another. Part of that is because of location (stadium woods) part is long term monetary commitments. For example how many endowed coaching positions are there at Tech? When I looked in 2018 we had exactly ONE a women's Olympic sport coaching position.
1) because weaver was bad at asking 2) you banged the "scholarship fund isnt even funded" drum for years until it actually was funded and have kept banging the "scholarship fund wasnt funded til 2016" for 7 years since -- maybe give it a rest lol. 3) there are more ways to donate to the athletic department than the scholarship fund or endowed coaching positions. Dc gave an example. Not having a "Chris Bickell 97 Head Football Coach" doesnt undo the $15m poured into Merryman
Yes college football is about money, no it's not lil ole tech
1) very bad 2) because DC 'a claim that
our real long history of poor financial support wasn't real. The concrete example is the scholarship fund. The core donation measure of any school and we failed until 7 years ago. 3) 15 million into Merryman meanwhile LOLUVA has a plan to put 180 million into a sports complex and several million more into endowed coaching positions, UCF 268 million into theirs, UNC 50 million, Maryland just spent 149 million.
What about the 400mil Reach for Excellence Campaign?
I've seen zero update about this in a year a half or longer. While a plan we need to raise money is great the issue isn't the plans to raise money it's the actual raising of the money that's the issue.
That update a year and a half ago was that we crossed the 200mil mark, so not too shabby IMO. That being said I think this project could be further along by now if VT did a better job with communication. Hopefully we get another update after Giving Day next week.
and all of those places suck compared to Lane -- 85m in renovation + practice facility + merryman. we don't need to spend 268m like UCF because we actually have a real stadium that can handle P5 crowds and doesn't need to be almost doubled in capacity
and all of that money would be better spent on NIL for now anyway
No data that I have seen yet shows NIL taking donations away from major universities. Do you happen to have something?
i didnt say it was, i said it should be
The reality is that because Whit allows other teams the access code to Merryman- and to fans that makes it NOT A FOOTBALL ONLY FACILITY OMFG... is not the same thing as we don't support football financially- its not. It's a myth.
The funding aside, from what I have seen, we do a good job within that funding to build facilities to support our football team. Whit and even Weaver (who sucked) both did a good job at identifying where to put our facility money.
More money would help a lot, but VT has spent fairly wisely within their limitations.
I don't think it's fair to say Weaver 'sucked'. He was a great AD for the pre-arms race era, but was not equipped to lead the program through the late aughts. To be fair, President Stegar and (to a lesser degree) Coach Beamer really weren't either.
Weaver was respected in a big way among his peers. So no, didn't suck. And Beamer should have won(duh) and walked off after the Michigan Sugar Bowl. And I love Beamer
To both you and Bar
I dont think Weaver was good for pre-arms race. Our sports schedules were terrible for most of his career. Our donations were low. We weren't really prepare for both the BE and ACC moves. His coaching hires weren't great outside of track and field and women's soccer. He let Bonnie Hendrickson get away.
It's taken almost 20 years to get our sports to an ACC level. UofL does as well as VT and has become ACC level in way less time. Under Whit we have won conference championships at almost twice the pace under Weaver, and nearly a quarter of those were from Frank Beamer, who he almost lost to UNC. VTs dive team had to practice in Charlotte, NC until 14 years into Weavers employment.
He might have been well liked, He might have been a great human being, but he was not a great AD to get VT into P5 sports. He lucked into to having one of the greatest football coaches of all time to hide the flaws. Our sports did not really advance under him. Our funding suffered for as rabid a fan base everyone says we have and at height of our football program.
UVA's facilities are bad. They're spending to catch up, not pull ahead.
Their basketball arena might be the best in the state. Their total sports complex will be massive. It seems like some of y'all are focused only on football when total athletic spending is the measure here.
Um I believe we are supposed to use the term qualified /s
Its not my fault that many public "huge VT fans, Super fans" on message boards and social media - super fans remember- the best, the top fans - publicly announced that 2016 was THE FIRST time they joined the hokie club. LOL- there is your root cause. Even our top fanbois that have all the message board cred don't put their money where there mouth is.
So you admit we do have a funding problem and donation culture problem long term. That's a change.
Donations are a huge issue- never said they weren't. Not financially supporting the football program is not the same thing as that. Our donations are super lame for a school our size. Always have been.
And that gets back to my original point: NILs are funded significantly by donations (this is my assumption, my entire thesis blows up if not). If, as you acknowledge, we're terrible donators, and if (my second assumption) NILs will play a large and growing role in schools' ability to attract talent and field competitive teams, then we are "not equipped financially or culturally" (I'll yield on the facilities part) to significantly compete in the big time.
It's not an inferiority complex to follow that perfectly reasonable thought path.
It is my understanding that NILs are not funded by donations per se. I think it is a separate deal. The Hokie Club is not NIL- I think I'm correct on that.
I'm trying to find any documentation here, but I can't. By "donations" I mean any fan-sourced funding. In the case of Triumph, this is memberships. I don't think I'm making a giant leap to assume that our lame history as donators won't magically remedy itself in the NIL era.
HOWEVER, I readily admit to kind of checking out of college sports except for the 2-4 hours of actual gametime, so it could be that I'm just not as familiar w/ NIL as I should be to be making these kinds of claims.
I was today years old when I learned that donator is a real word...
EDIT: this was not snark. I literally didn't think it was a word so I googled it, assuming this was a mistake and donor should have been used, but this is absolutely the right use of "donator"
"Donors" didn't sound right. Like we were giving hearts and kidneys to the Hokie Club.
Unless some one actually does what needs to be done and create 1 football only conference with ~5 divisons so that the entire conference (p5) can negotiate the entire football tv deal. and the other sports can be geographically separated amd have other non-football members.
That's why this all started because you couldn't negotiate with the entire ncaa (big F U to Oklahoma) So create a football conference and run it like everyone actually wants. Get some good matches in scheduling but keep regional matches/rivalries
I hope this is where it is all heading so we can be done with this nonsense