Can someone embed for me? I'm currently on mobile. Here's the tweet from McMurphy: https://mobile.twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1623127085618237442
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Can someone embed for me? I'm currently on mobile. Here's the tweet from McMurphy: https://mobile.twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1623127085618237442
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On phone, just log into Twitter on browser and it gives you the embed option.
PSA: You don't even need to be logged in. I don't have a Twitter account and embed on TKP from time to time.
Click the dots to at the top right corner of the tweet (not the top of the page). Click "<./> embed tweet" and then "copy code" on the next page and paste directly into your TKP post.
the more dominos that fall, the worse off the ACC gets. And the worse off each team in the ACC gets.
The ACC is in solid 3rd right now. Geography and fit is the only thing keeping us from taking basically who we want.
Kicking BC and Wake is a no brainer imo. Both belong in a G5 conference and bring no value. To replace them we should just get the best on the board imo but getting teams to fly across the country may be a hard sell for current membership
There is nothing the ACC can do anymore to save face. The only way individual schools are going to keep up with the SEC or Big Ten is to force the ACC to dissolve in order to get invited into those conferences.
The question that is rapidly becoming more valid is, why would the SEC or Big Ten even want those schools anyway? They're fine without any of us, and it might be in their best interests to watch us wither and die.
This might be an overly optimistic view, but I do think the B10/SEC needs the rest of the country to be somewhat relevant. If the whole college football season becomes just about the rust belt and the deep south, the sport will lose interest.
Yeah those top programs are not thaaat more valuable than the middle to upper mid tier, and those two conferences aren't even that stacked, they still have plenty of middle tier programs.
What sets those top programs/brands apart value wise is their promotion. It's a self fulfilling prophecy when ESPN/FOX decide the brands are more valuable they can make it happen
Georgia out-earned Ole Miss, who I would describe as mid-tier SEC, by $45M. which was 75% of our entire yearly earnings. The data is a few years old and honestly predates the new TV deals. So Ole Miss who is currently $50M ahead of us in yearly earnings is about to get another $40-$50M richer than the ACC. It only takes a few years of that cash flow to bury the ACC and Clemson/FSU are just hoping to survive long enough to take the buyout hit for leaving the ACC.
I'd argue that it's already the case that the rust belt and deep south are the only relevant regions. Just plot the location of all the CFP participants...
I considered this, and that's why I said the 'whole season' - TCU (DFW is not 'the south'), Utah, USC, App State, Tulane (I know they're geographically in the south, but they're not in the SEC any more), Oregon, Washington, Syracuse, Kansas St, etc were all relevant for at least part of this season. Colorado is arguably the MOST relevant team this offseason.
I think the sport can survive if the champions keep coming from the south, as long as the other 120 teams can get their 15 minutes of fame most weeks. And that's what the 12-team playoff is about - it's not about finding the 'best' team, or giving teams a fair shot - it's about handing out participation trophies (which I've come to terms with, and I'm fine with now). As long as teams from around the country can get participation trophies, college football will be okay.
Not with the support of the Fox and ESPN hype machines.
Not sure how you reach that conclusion. There is nothing stopping the ACC from having schools that compete with at least the Big Ten value wise, except for fit and geography. And of course kicking out less valuable programs.
Those are big factors for sure but at least on paper the resulting conference would have similar value to the top two. Would Oregon and Washington be down to fly across the country to play against Clemson FSU VT and UNC? Probably not. Would a conference with Clemson FSU Oregon Washington Miami VT UNC NC State TCU Oklahoma State Stanford and the Arizona schools be able to compete with the B10 value wise? Absolutely on paper. But how the geographic differences play into the interest and potential growth of the league is a question we don't know the answer to
I tend to agree with this. Look at the ACC's 5 biggest brands, and their regular season OOC schedule in 2022:
These 5 teams should never do worse than 15-5 against this line up. In a decent year, these 5 teams could go 18-2 against this line up. However, in 2022, these 5 teams went 13-7 against this line up with 2 losses to G5 teams. The top ACC teams can't be losing to (a) FCS/G5 teams or (b) P5 that don't qualify for bowl games.
IF multiple ACC teams can avoid tripping over themselves for multiple years in a row, the conference will be exciting. Unfortunately, this rarely happens.
We've literally been saying this for the last 18 years and its not happened. Its the reason why the ACC is completely screwed in conference realignment.
But this is what happens when you're in a conference that values basketball over the global moneymaker, football.
Yea, that's the conundrum. We did it in 2016 - the conference finished with:
However, this needs to be the norm; not a once-every-20-years occurrence. I'm not confident that it will happen, but I don't see any reason it can't.
Money. Money is the reason it can't. The ACC doesn't have the cash flow to keep up with the big leagues. And the current structure is just an anchor for the league. As other leagues expand and grow their TV deals the ACC is stuck in neutral, going nowhere fast.
This is
not goingextremely unlikely to happen.The answer is mostly "to keep the other guy from having it". For example, the $EC doesn't need to add F$U or Clemson because it's unlikely that doing so would increase revenues enough to justify the extra split. However, it does have a vested interested in making sure that the B1G doesn't establish a foothold in the southeast and start siphoning off some of that revenue.
Same with NC & VA, which are the 9th and 12th most populous states, respectively. That's a lot of subscriber revenue up for grabs and while neither conference needs it, neither wants to see the other have it, either.
Of course, there also a lot of ego and FOMO involved too, so who knows what will happen...
I don't buy this. I do believe that having CFB at large as popular as possible is in the best interest of the B10 and SEC.
Now this, I agree with. I can absolutely envision either league prioritizing hubris over logic.
I can absolutely envision either league prioritizing hubris over logic.
I am not sure I agree with this. I would have to think the money is the ultimate incentive and to that end, any expansion would involve tremendous economic analysis and due diligence rather than a commissioner saying I want this or that team just to spite another conference.
I wouldn't call it a 'solid' 3rd - more like a tie for third in the short term. B10 and SEC are far and away the top 2. Who's in a better spot between the ACC, B12, and P12? Depends on the year, and which fanbase your asking. The B12/P12 are both super deep conferences. The ACC has more brand names, but only of them has been relevant for an extended period of time in the last decade.
From a long term perspective, I actually think the B12 is the best positioned of the middle-three conferences. Every institution in the B12 is all in on football. Culturally, they are all aligned. The P12 and ACC just do not have that alignment.
My bold prediction: in 12 years, the B12 and the B10 will be the only two conferences with teams in all 4 time zones, and the B12 will include Clemson, FSU, and potentially some other ACC schools.
Completely agree, especially since (unlike the ACC and the P12), the B12 now has competent leadership.
I don't necessarily think George Kliavkoff is a bad commish, I just think Larry Scott fucked that situation up so much that it's not an easy fix.
I don't know what to think of Jim Phillips... On one hand, he got the ACCN on Comcast, which was huge - that alone will be (at least) an extra $5m-$10m per year per school. I also think he's hamstrung by the decisions of his predecessor (Grant of Rights is woof). But Jeez, his comments at the 2022 ACC Media Days wreaked of unawareness and whatever the opposite of inspiration is.
Expiration. Unfortunately, what it looks like the ACC is set to do in a slow and painful fashion.
Edit: I want to like Jim Phillips, but he has not given me much confidence that he's the guy for the job. Also, to be fair to him it's a hell of a job the previous staff left him.
If you actually want to like Jim Phillips, look at what he's actually done, and disregard what he's said.
Honestly that's the best the ACC can hope for, a commissioner that talks basketball but makes football moves. The ACC in 2004 looked great because they had to to stay in the BCS. But they didn't go all in on football which they really should have because even then money was in football. Basketball barely pays its own bills now with the newer facilities everyone is building, you need football money to keep up.
Ironically, this is exactly my feeling re: the ACC. I'm not sure what to think of Phillips, but Swofford well and truly fucked us.
It's funny - Swofford's problem was not dreaming big at all. Scott's problem was dreaming way too big.
Swofford tried his best, but was just short sighted IMO. And the worst part of it was that the Presidents of the ACC schools were all onboard with this. Literally not one of these 16 people (who are presumably somewhat intelligent) could imagine that in 10 years the SEC and B10 would be fetching close to $100m/year/school.
Larry Scott... dude fucked up in sooo many ways. Placed administrative buildings smack in the most expensive city in the US. Had enormous bonuses in place for his associates. Went all in on a strategy that he couldn't execute on.
The problem with the ACC is that they have been and always will be basketball-first. The Carolina schools and Tobacco Road rivalries on the court are what that conference was built on from the beginning. It's always been a very slow acting, country club type league with schools who like to toot their own horns. Even though they did expand in 2004/2005 for football, it was because the Big East was on its last leg, and they still were shortsighted there because they took Miami and assumed they and FSU would just carry the football brand for the league, which never materialized. And taking BC was an absolute clunker of a move. Shoot they didn't even want VT initially. Then as the football arms race heated up around the start of the last decade, they diluted the league even more with a basketball move taking Cuse and Pitt. Too many private schools in the league with small fanbases and lack of football following. And you're right - all of the league presidents were fully bought in on this and no one saw the storm approaching.
for a conference focused on Basketball....we're not doing very good at the Basketball
And even resting on those laurels isn't cutting it anymore. The SEC and Big 10 are making so much money from football they are investing it in basketball now.
Also - LOL at the irony of the Big East, the league the ACC killed with expansion and plucking their best teams, only to go basketball-only and still be a better performing basketball league than the ACC.
The ACC when it expanded didn't factor in that more schools that are decent at BB would cause their favorites Duke and UNC to lose more games during the season. When the ACC feeds on itself, we are bad conference, when the B10 feeds on itself, it is just more competitive.
And yet the ACC won the final ACC-B1G challenge this season...
Except that Clemson FSU and Miami are far ahead any of the Big 12 programs. VT is clearly ahead of all of them except maybe TCU, who they were clearly ahead of before this season. UNC and NC State are better than all except maybe TCU and Oklahoma State. Louisville would be top 1/3, Pitt top 1/2.
The problem is the bottom 4 ACC football jobs: Syracuse, Duke, Wake, BC would all be the bottom of the B12. Only argument is Syracuse over Kansas (and maaybe Cincy or Iowa State but I give the slight edge to the Bearcats and Cyclones). Then GT and UVA are somewhere below WVU and Kansas State but above Cincy in BYU and Houston range.
Suffice to say, the ACC is almost definitely better, but the gap between the bottom and top of our conference is huge, and it's having more of a negative than a positive effect on those involved (partly due to Swofford's contracts and partly due to the nature of the schools we invited, also Swofford's fault). Still we're in 3rd place and adding other valuable properties will only increase our worth
I'll go ahead and rank the teams where they stand (in my opinion) based on: job prestige, budget, fan base, recent success, market, national brand, NIL, etc. The pecking order is something like:
Clemson
Florida State
Miami
- Big Gap -
TCU
Virginia Tech
NC State
Oklahoma State
UNC
-Very close group in order-
Louisville
Baylor
Pitt
Texas Tech
West Virginia
Kansas State
UCF
UVA
BYU
-Slight Gap-
Georgia Tech
Houston
Cincinnati
Iowa State
Syracuse
-Gap-
Duke
Kansas
Wake
Boston College
That middle is a bit muddy, Okst isn't that great of a job, Gundy has made it a lot better, and arguably that's where VT is at, but then Kstate is too. UVA is head and shoulders below us on a job scale. Baylor is probably up a bunch just cause the money from the donors. Also how is Houston not above WVU when they stole their coach. They pay their staff on par with P5 teams when they only got G5 money so I assume they will throw money to compete which makes that a nice place to coach.
Houston gets almost the same allotment from the State of Texas Oil Fund that A&M and UT get so they have plenty of money to pay staff.
Only one I would argue moves up a group is Baylor. The fact that they have finished #13th or higher five of the last ten years and won 3 conference titles and 5 Bowl Games in same time frame. They escaped the Art Briles saga mostly unscathed. They have a huge donor base with a lot of deep oil pockets that keep their facilities in front of most. They also get some rather large religious based donations from the affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
It's such a huge bias to pick us that high. We've been trash for over a decade, hit the lowest point of our trajectory last year, and have shown to the world (other schools and recruits) that anyone can walk into the state and take our kids and we're happy with landing a top 20 kid. I love VT, but we suck. Anyone thinking that this gets turned around and we're suddenly poached by the SEC is going to be extremely let down. Swofford and our own administration have pretty much doomed us. The best we can hope for is an implosion and hard reset of college football.
Who in a regionally acceptable G5 conference is better?
Those are not restrictions I put on who we could add lol
That's my bad for not reading.
If you were to maximize value among available schools (schools either already in the ACC, or another conference outside the B10/SEC) then you'd have a 22 team conference looking like:
East:
Virginia Tech, UVA, UNC, NC State, Duke, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, Louisville, Pitt, West Virginia
West:
Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Arizona, Arizona State, TCU, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Utah
Kansas and Gonzaga added for basketball.
If you have to keep Syracuse (and you prob do) then you add one of: Houston, UCF or BYU for an even 24.
This would create more revenue, but now you still have to split that revenue 24 ways. I doubt it's enough revenue to substantially change per-team revenue for any school.
Not necessarily per school immediately, but in theory you own rights to enough high profile games that you can essentially jack up the price on ESPN or FOX.
I guarantee a conference with all of those programs has more leverage and gets a much better offer per school than the ACC, P12 or B12 do now. There's just too much money in all of those programs together
Is it enough revenue to compete with the SEC/B10? Is it enough to offset travel costs? Let's say this brings in $50m/school (right now the ACC is at ~$35m/school, and soon, the SEC & B10 will be at close to $100m/school) - is it worth it? I would say no.
It's worth it for sure man. Once we hit a certain threshold what is the extra money gonna be spent on? Bidding on coaches and players to the moon? I guess maybe. But we can still beat these guys occasionally while spending 10-20 mil less a year, as long as we aren't totally left behind we'll be fine.
That's kinda what I'm saying - an extra $10m/year, and VT is still 'left behind' where almost every SEC school will be in 3 years.
Out of all the chatter, commentary and speculation that's been thrown out there, this 22-24 model conference is most intriguing.
To have half your in conference season in the east, the other in the west and rotate around the 22-24 schools would give every team a "fresh", different looking schedule each season and each season there would be a couple of good matchups per team.
In this scenario does the conference go through rebranding? If we are significantly changing our geographics, than the Atlantic Coast Conference seems a ridiculous name to keep.
If it goes through rebranding does this open the door for FSU and Clemson to jump ship?
Would be the Coast Conference.
when ACC and Pac12 made their little pact, if figured this was the way it was going to go.
If this doesn't happen, I think we are heading to the Big12.
VT ending up in the Big12 would be a huge failure IMO. We need to be in one of the big two. If the ACC falls apart VT belongs in either the SEC or the B1G. Geographically, any other landing spot would be bad for us, not to mention that the ACC falling apart would just make the gap between the big two and everyone else that much larger. VT is rapidly heading for G5, or even FCS status. We picked a hell of a time to be dogshit at football.
I agree with this (except maybe the heading towards FCS status).
I think SEC makes the most sense for us in terms of location and culture. People have seemed to skip over the money portion of this realignment stating that the big 2 conferences don't need the money. They may not need it but I bet they want it.
As stated in previous re-alignment discussions, the SEC and B1G do not have a footprint in VA or NC. Of the teams in VA I think we are the best fit for the SEC. Bringing in Clemson or FSU to the SEC does nothing for the SEC as they already have market share in SC and FL.
As one of the people who said that, I'll point out that context is key: the addition of any school (VT or otherwise) to the SEC or B1G only makes financial sense if the addition brings in enough net-new revenue that the per-team split goes up.
Let's use Navigate's prediction that the SEC will hit $96M/team in 2026 (after the addition of OU and TU). If the SEC were to add an ACC team at that point (ignoring GoR implications), then that team would have to bring in more than $96M of new revenue in order for the deal to make sense. Otherwise the per-team splits will go down.
That's why I said (and you seem to agree) that the SEC may not want to add teams, especially in markets where they already have a presence. There simply isn't enough new subscriber revenue to be had to make the extra split(s) worth it. It's not that they don't want more money (they do), it's that adding teams may not actually deliver it on a pro-rata basis.
On the flip side, kicking Vandy and the Mississippi schools to replaces them with Clemson, FSU, VT, UNC and NC State would definitely increase the payout per school
I stand by my assertion earlier: that ain't happening.
There is no universe where the SEC kicks anyone out and there is no situation, literally ever, where a school willingly leaves the SEC even if it means being a perennial doormat (Vandy)
Not disagreeing, but why not?
Vandy by itself probably brings up the graduation rate and academic standing of at least three other SEC schools.
Graduation rate don't bring in $$$$
Because the SEC would get sued into oblivion since there's no performance by-laws, Vandy and the MS schools are all founding members. It would be like the ACC kicking out UVA and Duke because they sucked at football.
Most importantly, for all the money athletics makes, it's nothing compared to research dollars which I imagine Vandy stockpiles
Currently, or ever?
Oh, i by no means want it to happen. I wanted the SEC and still do.
I'm just going based on where we are at currently and how things are trending.
Really depends if VT can add that many more viewers I guess to up the revenue. But we are a fit overall with SEC way more than the ACC.
In general yes, but the PAC12 just replaced USC and UCLA with SMU and SDST. This is not a an equal replacement. At this point the only team that will have national recognition is Washington State, and that's only because they bring a flag every week to College Game Day.
I guess you could say that with each domino that falls, the stronger the SEC and B1G get and the weaker everyone else gets
you absolutely can say that... they aren't taking scrub programs... they are in a land-grab battle to grow TV revenue. If this was about competition you wouldn't have two literal west coast teams having to fly cross-country to play at Rutgers.
my whole point is that the ACC is set up to fail. And fail spectacularly. The more moves that are made, the worse off this league is and the GoR has teams held hostage on a sinking ship. The GoR was basically a death knell. It signaled that the league wasn't interested in being competitive - that they just wanted to stick their head in the sand and hope things would go back to the way they used to be. It was worse than short-sighted. It displayed a complete lack of vision at all.
Adding SD St and SMU (while losing USC & UCLA) seems like an act of desperation, not strength to me.
It would basically be like the ACC losing UNC and Clemson and adding ECU and South Florida.
Not to mention that SMU really doesn't fit the geographic footprint of the PAC anything.
It's a shameless move to (attempt to) get the Dallas market
I would think getting from Dallas to Boulder, CO than less miles it is to get from Seattle to Boulder, CO.
Or not too much different from miami to South Bend, Syracuse or Boston. Or pretty much any point to point in the AAC...
Considering SMU is closer to the East Coast it might be more like adding USF and SMU 😂
It's also a huge blow because the all the LA teams are now gone. That's huge blow considering the amount TV dollars, the LA market, the LA industry, and the resources of the city.
They're not 'losing' the LA market - there are plenty of fans of P12 schools who live in LA. That's like saying that the ACC would lose the Atlanta market if GT jumped to the B10. There's still millions of houses in greater Atlanta Area that would get the ACC network.
There are a lot of Hokies in the LA market too. (Hi, I'm one of them. Also a SC alum.) But to your point, it would be technically correct to say they are losing the most substantial portion of the CFB fan LA market. The rest of the P12 CFB fanhood isn't very prominent here, and it's nothing like Atlanta.
No other PAC-12 school is really that close geographically. And it' such a huge metropolitan area, that the rest of the P12 isn't that much greater than any other P5 conference. LA is a destination for people that are already here, went to USC/UCLA, or that want to be here. For instance, according to UMich alumni assoc. there are 20K+ alumni in SoCal and according to the UWash alumni assoc. there are 17K alumni in SoCal.
So, whatever the CFB market is here in LA, P12 is losing a significant portion that essentially puts it on similar footing as any other P5 conference (except Big10 when USC and UCLA join, obviously).
And tbf, LA fanhood is (1) Lakers, (2) Dodgers, and there is no other team here that matters.
Doesn't it make much more sense to go after Fresno State and/or Boise State? I mean they are much better than SDSU or SMU.
Boise doesn't have a fan/alumni base near a major city. Maybe, if P12 goes the streaming route, they're fanbase is large enough to garner some attention? I tend to believe that since no one has had interest in giving Boise a shot yet, there's a reason for it.
Fresno State doesn't exactly fit the P12 profile - USA today has SMU inside the top 75, and SDSU inside the top 150, while Fresno is 250, and Bosie State is outside to the top 300 (woof).
This is Treasure Valley slander and it shall not stand. How would you feel if this turned up on a message board in Nampa? That's right, pretty bad.
Not if you're trying to get in-state cable homes and other money.
This move by the PAC12 doesn't move the needle at all. More mouths to feed without more brand to sell.
Yeah. I read it and was like, "meh".
My proposal, which I must admit, hasn't gained much steam, is to develop one large super-big conference of 131 schools. To maintain a functional organization, the 131 schools could be divided into groups of approximately 12 schools each; likely grouped by geographical regions. The groups could have names associated with the regions such as "Atlantic," "Pacific," Southeast," etc.
I would propose to name this super-big conference the National Conference of Amazing Athletes or "NCAA."
and at the end of the season there could be some kind of tournament where the winners from each region play?
They could even have a "Group Championship Game" as well for each group, possibly played at a neutral stadium.
neither of these teams move the needle in a way that comes close to what was lost. Pac12 is slipping more and more into irrelevance.
SMU in the PAC12?
Is there a German, UK or Australian University that has a football program? Why not add them to your conference for that sweet sweet TV money.
Better yet, lets send coaches over to countries to valuable TV markets and set up football programs there, then create a conference.
VT vs the University of Munich in October. Nobody will remember the game.
I would.
Particularly since I could drive to it.
And if you did it in early October, you could do a two-fer with Oktoberfest.
If they do it in early October, you'll miss most of Oktoberfest.