ACC presidents were scheduled to meet tonight to further discuss the league's latest expansion plan, sources tell @YahooSports.Recent Big 12 acquisitions likely ended any Westward expansion plans. The league seriously explored adding 5-7 Pac-12 schools.— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) August 5, 2023
The bi-coastal league had been floated among media members for awhile, and apparently the ACC was actually considering it, but was late to the party.
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The ACC is the washed up cousin/uncle you get along well with and have fond memories with, but that shows up late to all family functions and holiday dinners and doesn't have a good excuse for why they're late
I don't see what Cal, Washington State and maybe Oregon State do here. They aren't top end teams in terms of results or money or make recognition. At Cal does the academic side win our and some sports drop or drop down to FCS. Do the three of the them try and convince MW to some kind of merger? The even bigger question is Stanford with its brand and name recognition and history but recent reluctance to pay up for sports what are their options? Independence?
Yes, an expanded Mountain West - or rename the Mountain West the Pac10 and merge them - makes a lot more sense than with the ACC at this point. If the Pac10 was mostly still together, maybe could see the new Atlantic and Pacific Conference with a west division an east one with just a few massive travel cross-over games. But not much sense now.
Not much sense now/too late = maybe that is why the ACC is doing it now?
lol goACC. A day late and a dollar short always. At least it would've been fun playing Washington St a couple times before the ACC folds.
Ahh yes in a race for more revenue we are going to greatly increase our travel costs just to add more schools. If this is seriously being considered by the ACC then I hope the ACC dies quickly. This is just a stupid idea to stay relevant. Doing something to do something.
Also who is going to agree to a 8PM Pacific kick off game? I know my old ass ain't staying up for that.
I think I saw sharkbait post this on Reddit last night.
If we're going to 20, we might as well add scrubs like UMASS and UCONN to wrap up all of the Atlantic Coast major states, force Notre Dame to shit or get off the pot, add Army and Navy, and call it 20 by adding another Virginia school to counterbalance Tobacco Row
Barf, unfortunately this is probably close to something the ACC is considering.
Not looking forward to it either, but there aren't many quality unaligned teams remaining.
Name a more iconic duo than the ACC and being 2-30 steps slow
If the ACC is seriously considering this, they should all just give up and dissolve. None of those schools add anything to the revenue and just cause us to split more ways.
Adding the PAC-4 leftovers seems pretty irrational...
Stanford is really the only "high-profile" school when it comes to Athletics and they're aren't enough teams to make a western division of the ACC.
More to the point..where does the money come from? The ACC GoR is thru '36 currently and the compensation is already considered inferior....so dilute it out more?
I guess you could try to negotiate with ESPN but they aren't exactly in a position to be throwing money around and they are clearly focused on the SEC. Plus, if you sign a new deal...doesn't that potentially break the existing GoR? Then you risk FSU, Clemson and whoever else leaving.
I can see today's money grab, because that is all this is, collapsing down the road when the endless escalation of media rights comes crashing down. Breaking most of the traditional rivalries and creating tons of games that nobody wants to see will drive viewership down even more whether in person or on TV. Maybe I'm just an ol' fogey and don't like change.
Welcome to the neighborhood. And stay off of my grass.
The original discussions weren't just for the left over 4 schools. It was for before Oregon, Washington, Arizona and ASU left.
And this would at least make some sense. Some well-known programs would have still remained and you would have enough teams to have a west coast division to limit travel somewhat. But would you then have 3 divisions? That would sure be odd.
Well 3 divisions certainly wouldn't be even.
It would make for some interesting championship game qualifications. Maybe a 4 team, two game tournament with the 3 division winners plus the best remaining team (as determined by a simple 14 step tie breaking procedure).
You're feisty this morning. I love it
It's too damned quiet around here. Just trying to do my part to keep the tracker turning from gray to orange.
if i speak...
I hear your sister's going out with SQUEAK!
Not the reference I was going for but leg for Office gif
Wait, why is that fucked up?
Hey, we said no more Journey psyche outs.
Yeah I'm expecting the conference to do something ridiculously dumb like invite ECU, ODU, Army, Navy, UConn, Liberty and maybe UCF and USF. They might try to get WVU but they'll likely rightfully tell us to fuck off, and we'll do something stupid like that.
And somehow the moves will make it so we have to get 10 or 12 schools to agree to dissolve the conference rather than 8 and we'll be even more fucked than we are now.
Maybe they would add those schools and do promo/relegation. That would be cool. But that won't happen.
It would just be too good watching BC get relegated and navy blasting UVA every year.
Yes, I know VT would have been relegated last year.
What would make the most sense for the
ACC would be this...
Try to get WVU, Cinci, and UCF from the Big12, then one other team of choice. Maybe consider 2 additional in the future to make 20.
Problem being, there isn't much reason for them to leave the Big12 and where is the ACC going to come up with the money?
It would be better for fans (WVU fans almost unanimously hate being in the B12) and much more logical geographically but that's not what this has ever been about.
Then leaves the B12 to absorb the remnant PAC which fits much better to their profile.
Obviously, this makes too much sense to actually happen, we'll just continue to cannibalize and chase money instead.
Man, fuck the Acc on every level. Never forward thinking and always too slow to enact any type of innovative thinking. So over this bullshit conference and the people in charge of keeping it afloat.
Always has been and always will be a Carolina country club with ACC leadership. Content to rest on their laurels and so attached to whatever basketball tradition they think they have. I really wonder if we had been left out of ACC expansion in 2003 if we would have ended up in the SEC eventually. But the VT admin seemed like it was set on the ACC and turned the SEC down when we had the chance in 2010/2011. Total shame.
Keep in mind this is all about adding TV sets. If ACC added CA, OR, WA, etc. (You don't get extra money for states you already have coverage). That millions-billions of tv rights. There's also a rumor that Apple could get behind and do a streaming option that opens up international options (like it did for soccer).
The remaining markets are so-so at best, Washington State doesn't bring in the money like Washington does, same with OSU. Stanford doesn't want to play the NIL game. and Cal just doesn't seem like it's a huge draw even in the Bay area.
Honestly, I think the ACC is probably in the best place until it really is two conferences. The Big 12 just expanded and Phoenix is a great market, Denver too, but Utah and Zona don't move the needle. Denver doesn't seem college sports focused either.
The Big 12 still gets less money than the ACC. And while everyone gets to renegotiate sooner than the ACC, sports viewership is down, networks are struggling to afford the content. The next round of deals might be a lot worse for everyone which means the ACC doesn't take a hit for a decade. I think there needs to be new, revenue sports focused, leadership in the ACC as the landscape changes but we just saw the pac 12 crumble, and the Big 12 just picked through the ashes and took what was kind of usable.
Also better leadership could explain to ESPN the sunk cost fallacy and that the SEC isn't better than the ACC at basketball so they should start covering the ACC.
Hypothetically - let's assume we get any new teams to the ACC. What does that do to our existing TV contracts, if anything? How does it impact the existing GoR?
Nothing. The GoR requires new institutions to sign on, doesn't effect the rights of current institutions.
It actually would make it harder to leave. The more teams that sign on, the higher that magic number it takes to break the GoR. Add two teams, the number is now 9 ... add 4, it's now 10.
Add teams to restructure GoR and half the conference bounces to BIG/SEC .
College football has turned into miracle whip buying out all the other mayonnaise brands.
So it was neither football NOR college?
It is almost comical just how fecking hapless our league (and its leadership) really is
I have very little fanfare for Philips so far but realistically what options does he have?
He stepped into the GoR (which itself was short-sighted financially but has been successful at doing what it was designed to do--hold the conference together).
At this point, if he aggressively tries to expand, he would have to dilute the GoR money further which is only gonna piss schools off more. Particularly when they realize they are losing $$ to have the "pleasure" of traveling to Walla Walla.
FsU seems to think they are on-par with Alabama at this point--that's gonna go over spectacularly. You could try to renegotiate with ESPN...but (a) you're probably going to be underwhelmed with their offer (b) it would presumptively negate the GoR and FSU, Clemson and maybe a few others bolt overnight.
So your only rational option is to stand pat, try to weather the criticism and hold things together the best you can. Admittedly its not a great scenario at all, but IMHO when the money starts drying up, these Superconferences are very prone to start cannibalizing themselves.
Agreed. I see a lot of complaints about ACC leadership, but I don't really see what they should be doing differently. Pretty much anything they do is just going to make things worse. I guess they could just say fuck it and rescind the GOR but I don't associate seppuku with leadership.
I think the complaints about leadership are not what they do at this point (not much they can do), but how we found ourselves in this awful situation to begin with years in the making.
So we're holding current leadership responsible for the mistakes of their predecessors, got it.
That's a big fat yup!
Just an institutional problem at the ACC. I think Phillips' completely out of touch speech last year at media days just set the wrong tone and showed he wasn't going to be much different that his predecessor.
Even though it wouldn't save things and I wasn't really supportive of it, the ACC getting completely beaten to the punch by the Big Ten and Big 12 when they were actively exploring westward expansion is just indicative of the ongoing lack of energy with leadership.
Swofford was a fucking idiot. He got a ton of credit for the 2004 expansion but remember, it was never supposed to be us. They wanted Syracuse and only after the Commonwealth held the conference hostage through UVa did we get our invite. Just imagine how awful the reputation of the ACC would have been from 2004 onwards if we weren't here to keep it afloat. The best teams from 2004-2013 would have been Boston College, Wake Forest, and a triple option Georgia Tech in a time where football dominated cash flows. All because this conference valued basketball above their own self interests. Hell, clinging to the past (as well as straight up nepotism) is why Swoffy sold our soul to Raycom rather than put our rights into the open market when we still had negotiating power.
This conference is fucked. Anyone with a pulse in football should be looking to get the hell out. As we are seeing, those who have a history of investing in football have a seat at the P2 table, and we should all be desperate to fill it at this point.
Swofford's lack of surrounding really has screwed over ACC basketball too.
ESPN is paying a Billion dollars to the SEC, and less than half that to the ACC, who do you think they are going to promote? Who are they going to show on the better time slots? Just like in the NFL the first round QB gets more rope than a 3rd round QB even if the 3rd rounder is better.
By the way, if anyone wants to see a textbook example of someone falling upward their entire career, watch the ACC Network retirement special they did for Swofford.
Which is hilarious looking back. We carried the ACC while fsu and Miami continued to underperform for years. We have the third highest average attendance next to Clemson and FSU after a year we won 3 games and after 4 years of mediocrity. I believe we had the third highest win percentage in the Acc since joining. We have the fourth/fifth highest TV draw per average game depending on which source I saw. The most ACC championships begins Clemson since we joined, and records set for most consecutive ten win seasons.....yet because of recency bias every media/poster online sees us as a bad team not worthy of big or sec invite. All the talk is UNC, UVA, Clemson, FSU, Miami.
Our basketball team won the Acc only two years ago and has been showing we aren't a bottom of the ACC team anymore in bball.
How the fuck did we slide so hard that we're not even an after thought in most people's minds!? UNC and UVA being mentioned above us!? And this is most articles you will read, not just one I'm cherry picking.
*and now FSU has one good season after 10 bad ones and everyone thinks they're the only worthy team besides Clemson!? UNC has a Jordan logo and everyone thinks they're good at football? This is what makes me all so mad about the situation...VT has been forgotten about my national media
Because the average fans and pundit is dumb, and focused solely on a what have you done for me lately mentality and openly refuses to look at the big picture. Things change, sports are cyclical. If you're expanding a conference it's about the 50 year ROI and not bringing in the hot items now.
The funny thing is, the way we are showing now in ratings and attendance actually makes us stronger despite the team itself being weak. We can still bring in money when we suck. Compare that to a UNC, who struggles to fill Kenan in their best years and plays in a concrete wasteland when things go south, and... Yeah. Their reputation and brand means jack shit when that doesn't translate to bringing in the money in ratings or attendance, and it's been that way for 30+ years.
Yeah I've seen a lot of fans and bloggers writing up stuff on realignment and passing it off like they have any idea what is really going on. Some really dumb comments too that just show they are a casual observer and are just throwing crap against the wall.
Simply because in expansion roulette, we are now compared to the remaining teams left. The B1G would favor UVA and UNC for example- AAU members, large major schools. VT football is down the list in what the B1G would want/compare. The SEC wants FSU and Clemson- why? big time football brands the SEC does care about this. So at best we are 3rd there. So its not comparing VT to Wake or BC, its the top priority schools that get preference and those are the reasons why.
Counterpoint: when the $EC brought in aTm and Mizzou, it was not about acquiring "big time football brands". It was all about getting a foothold in the Texas and Missouri markets for recruiting and especially for eyeballs on TV screens. VT fits that bill nicely as the most energetic football fanbase in VA by a long shot. We care about football as evidenced by our attendance numbers and we would bring $EC football (and other sports) to an untapped market of subscribers.
I'm not so convinced the SEC is dying to get Clemson and FSU into the conference. Sure, they bring some football tradition, but they bring absolutely nothing as it relates to marketshare. Those states and regions already have ravenous fanbases and recruiting footprints... I see the BIG pushing for those two much harder than the SEC. Just my opinion.
Yep it doesn't make sense but also nobody in the industry is saying it! But some people will continue to just throw it out as fact
I wouldn't care, because we'd be in the SEC instead of Mizzou.
With regards to Jim Phillips, I think he's done a decent job (though I'm willing to have my mind changed), except for a dumb speech at last year's acc media days.
He got us on Comcast and got rid of divisions in the ACC. Not sure what else he could do.
Fair enough.
I wonder if he legally has any power wrt the gor
"Having the pleasure of traveling to Walla Walla" made me lol. Cheers.
I went there a lot in my youth. However it wasn't always the most glamorous trip. Usually someone died of dysentery or drowned while we were flooding a river. The hunting was always a good time, along the way, though.
Gotta charter that ferry instead of fording the river.
How I didn't pick up the very obvious metaphor that bankers have a significantly better chance of success than blacksmiths or doctors, I'll never figure out.
We're gonna end up in a conference with ODU, JMU. and ECU cause of our league's superb leadership
My biggest concerns with this proposal are travel costs for non-revenue sports in the new league. I hope this doesn't lead to the Hokies pairing some of the non-revenue sports out of the athletic department.
This is getting far too little attention in all the realignment talk. I've seen where some athletes in the Pac?-to-BIG schools are getting pretty vocal about that. Non-revenue sports having to travel across the country seems like a really poor use of resources for non-revenue type sports. It could be the end of a lot of university sports teams. Women's softball, wrestling, even baseball could be in jeopardy.
Those are at least name brand sports, you also have to schlep the swimming, track and field, soccer, tennis, volleyball, etc. teams all over.
I've worried about this with an SEC move too. The travel wouldn't be too much of a problem, but the SEC doesn't offer a lot of Olympic sports. Obviously, the pros probably outweigh the cons with an SEC offer, but we have made so much progress across the athletic dept I would hate to see some of the non-rev sports fold because of conference realignment.
Drinkwitz from Missouri had a helluva rant on this. Really puts things into perspective.
Feels a little hollow coming from a guy who's been at 5 different schools in 10 years. While a little sanctimonious, he's still right.
Fucking hell, these two schools would bring absolutely nothing to the table in football, and their best years of basketball are behind them. We do this, the conference is throwing in the towel on athletics and is going all in on being Ivy League Lite
We should make a deal with Stanford- in exchange for membership, they let one of their 2nd teams from their olympic sports play for VT so we can finally win a team national title. Their second team swim and diving would give us our best chance ever. The last 5 members on their womens golf team would as well. I would be for this!
Literally the opposite of how I wanted this to go. Give me Wash St and let Stanford and Cal continue to trip over themselves.
Also, adding 2 West Coast schools instead of all 4 seems like taking a logistical nightmare and making it worse.
Edit: Can someone please record and post FSU's responses to these calls?
Its such a bullshit move, too. It adds nothing and will only increase travel expenses. Its a net loss to add 2 academic schools. Which on the surface, whatever, but they're 5 hours away by plane. Its fucking ridiculous to even consider any non-rev sports playing in-conference games there for schools that would do nothing but leech finances off the rest of us.
It actually could have financial pay offs because if done right it will get the ACC network on more TV's. That's really what we need. Shoehorn the network in to people's TV subscriptions in Oregon, Washington and where possible in California (maybe add San Diego State to the deal for Southern Cal and as a travel partner). Only give those schools partial shares and increase the pool for everyone else.
If it doesn't do this then the merger is useless, but I really do see a possibility for it to increase our per school payout and if so we should be all for it.
(Also I wish we had done this with almost any of the other PAC 12 schools than the 4 that are left right now)
I think what you are trying to describe is the conversion of Oregon, Washington, and California from "out of Conference Market" rates the higher value "In conference/market" rates that everyone points to as why VT is/should be a preferred addtion to the BIG or SEC.
I hope this is simply a courtesy to them.
"Sup, y'all? Want to leave your dumpster fire for our train wreck?"
Can we also sue Norfolk Southern for this? I'm willing to explore it.
And imagine if FSU and/or Clemson is able to get out!?!?!
I am with you.
Stanford, I am sorry we discussed it and while you would fit in well with our private schools and high academic requirements you are simply to far away. It wouldn't be fair to your or our Olympic sports programs to have all that travel time and expenses added to our budgets.
I wonder who decided to throw "Desperation" scented candles into the ACC dumpster fire?
I gave Philips credit above for nor being reactionary and doing something for the sake of doing it.
Pulling in Stan/California only might be the least logical of any possible decision at this point.
If you are the ACC, there is IMHO only one way to "win" (if you can call any of this winning)---you beat the living shit out of every SEC and B1G opponent every chance you get and in every single sport.
Be classless, run up the score, embarrass them...whatever it takes.
The point being, the reason the SEC and B1G have gotten the big money contracts (aside from good timing) is they have had the vast majority of the CFP contenders. People watch winners, period. Watch them to love them and watch them to hate them.
You want SEC money? Beat them on the field, then all of a sudden ESPN/Fox/whoever actually has money left in TV comes calling and you have some leverage to play with.
Winning doesn't mean you have leverage. You need viewers for that. Winning doesn't always mean viewers.
I might need my eyes checked, I def read that wrong! smh
Then why is Nebraska on the list of most watched schools year in and year out, along with Maryland, Auburn and Arkansas. Notre Dame was 6th in 2022 at 9-4. PSU is almost always high no matter where they finish. anOSU has been the most watched program each year for as many years I looked back at. Yes they win, but they're not winning like Bama or UGA or even Clemson (which ranks very poorly compared to their record)
We could beat Bama, UGA, LSU, and UF OOC and still not get viewership for our ACC games like other schools get no matter their record.
People do watch winners as TCU got a big bump last year, but that won't be sustained unless they keep in the playoff hunt The lose early and they won't be watched as much. We don't have to beat the SEC teams we have to have multiple teams in the playoff race late, we have to not have upsets in the ACC. Clemson being 12-0 is way more important than them beating USCe. FSU and NC State with double digit wins are more important than beating a bad UF team.
For reference WVU has more people watching them that VT has over the past few years. They had 3 times the viewers in 2022. UVA had more viewers than VT in 2021. We were below Kansas, GT, Rutgers, army, navy, Miami, stanford. A 3-9 Stanford gets almost double the viewers of a 6-6 VT.
There are lots of fan bases watch way more, way worse football than VT. Winning might get us more views, but lots of other programs have shown that they can sustain better viewership in down years.
If they're promoted by the network yes
Perhaps it's just a move to do anything to renegotiate to a more reasonable tv contract? Not really sure how this would make sense otherwise
ACC shows up super late on Black Friday and rummages through useless shit. More at 9.
"Give me SEC or give me death"
Patrick MF Henry
Getting Stanford Lawyers to challenge UNC lawyers sounds fun.
Somehow Michigan State and Penn State lawyers have to get in there too.
The renewed B1G-ACC challenge.
I've been thinking the last few days about this GoR, and honestly now have more questions on how exactly anyone gets out. Since the ACC is a NC non-profit corporation, it's assets and liabilities are perpetual (typically non-profits are established to exist in perpetuity and if they dissolve, those assets and liabilities are transferred to another organization as successors/assigns.) Even if under NC law they only require a simple majority vote (8) to dissolve the league, would that GoR not be a material asset of the league? Especially considering it has a tv contract attached to it. I worry even dissolution would end in litigation with ESPN claiming they still hold the rights under that deal, or even other schools that don't go P2 claiming they are beneficiaries of the deal and entitled to a share of the revenue. One could argue impracticability/impossibility under contract law (contract can't exist because the ACC no longer exists), but could come down to how that tv contract is worded and structured (did ACC then assign/transfer individual schools' rights to ESPN?)
Honestly if we did somehow make it out and into the SEC, even if ESPN held they only had to pay any former ACC schools what they would make under the ACC deal through 2036, I say still do it. Guarantee status with the P2, and when it gets closer to 2036 start negotiating.
John Swofford/the ACC and the league presidents at the time really made an enormous cluster of a situation.
Once you get into murky areas, that's where the bigger schools will have the opportunity to work out a deal with ESPN that benefits them. So, yes, maybe the GoR doesn't go away with dissolution, but the schools with a destination in mind would still prefer to be in that no man's land than locked into the status quo. Especially once you consider that the destination conference (SEC or B1G) would likely go to bat for them and they have substantially more leverage than the individual schools.
It was a great idea, and a strong tactic to bind us together. The duration was just wrong, it should have been a 10 year maximum contract that could have been regotiated and extended at that point.
it has been very effective at its strategic intent: keeping any more schools from leaving after UMd scooted. However, it is flawed in that the assumption was that simply not losing teams would ensure the success of the league. It failed to account for needing to add quality teams and being utterly unable to do that when competing with B1G and SEC (hell, even B12).
Remember when SEC stole Texas and OU and everyone assumed the B12 would crumble? ACC, B1G, and PAC12 had the chance to unite and run the show but instead came out with this weak sauce "partnership." Apparently that just meant keeping everyone on ice while B1G gutted the PAC12 and then let the ACC shrivel up and die.
The thing that blows my mind is all 15 league presidents knowingly and willfully signed this deal, knowing what they were signing over. I've seen a ton of people throwing around all these theories of getting out of the GoR, like it's unconscionable - how in the world do you make that argument as member institutions when you yourself with full knowledge of the terms agreed to it? I still can't fathom that the member leagues signed over such an absolute grant of rights for this length of time. It's absolute insanity.
Knowledge vs wisdom.
I think those 15 presidents 'knew' what they were signing over, but they didn't understand the impact, much less have the ability to foresee the future of college sports. I don't think any of those 15 presidents could imagine an 18 team conference containing both USC and Rutgers that is making $8b over 7 years. I don't think they could imagine the SEC getting $80m/team for 6 years or whatever. I don't think they could imagine a 12 team playoff.
And candidly, I don't think they viewed athletics the way university presidents do today. The phrase I hear today is that football is 'the front porch of your university' (eg; it's the first part of your home that people see). Riffing on that analogy, I think the 15 presidents who signed the GoR at best thought of football as a side door.
To your original post:
That's the genius of it all. It's a feature, not a bug.
No, that phrase has been around a while. I remember hearing that with respect to Vick and the National Championship Game (which inexplicably never played the 4th quarter).
Ah thanks for clarifying. Regardless, I think it has taken on a new meaning in the modern era.
Guaranteed money is safe money for long term planning.
Somebody posted this to Reddit, and while I am absolutely not going to try to start a political argument here, it is something to consider.
All ACC states South of Virginia are on the list of states where California bans state funded travel for athletics. Boosters can still pay, but if Cal is already half a billion dollars in athletic debt, they're not going to pony up for travel.
As a private institution, Stanford is not affected by the law.
definitely a valid point and worth considering. Thanks for bringing it up. That said, I think it'd be a good idea for the MODS to go ahead and lock this down before it goes off the rails. It's a reality that has to be considered, but no further discussion is necessary.
I hadn't heard of this before, but I don't live in CA. Conference states for B1G and B12 are indicated as this is affecting the former PAC12 teams from California. I am really curious how this will play into UCLA being a member of the B1G. Heck, how did it play for the PAC12 teams that were supposed to play in Arizona as a member of the PAC12?
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Missouri (as of August 28, 2023)
Montana
Nebraska (as of October 1, 2023)
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
West Virginia
Wyoming (as of July 14, 2023)
It could be that college football > politics
Works for me.
So yeah, apparently we are adding SMU too.
Interesting enough SMU is reportedly willing to NOT take an ACC payout for at least several years.
Seems like an easy trade. We add them, but only if Notre Dame signs the Grant of Rights for football first
then their ass should shit or get off the pot then. either they are in or out
That's honestly a trade to make, getting ND means the ACC is making football moves. Right now Big 10 has 5 Top 10 all time wins teams and SEC has 4.
This put the ACC with an actual college football blue blood. That's going to bring viewers, add in a team that can cheat like the SEC (SMU) and you might have something.
This is the only thing I have heard that might work for the ACC and they need to make the expansion reliant on ND joining fully for football. If they are pressing other schools to join then they should too. If they don't and the league adds Cal and Standford, then the league should never schedule them to play ND and always set the schedule for the 6 worst schools from the previous year to play ND the next. Make them never be able to make the playoffs with their schedule.
It's Notre Dame. They would make the playoffs with a 10-2 record and no team on their schedule winning more than 5 games.
Okay, that is an exaggeration, but not by much. I'm old enough to remember Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl with a 6-4-1 record.
Ain't happening unless the B1G did something really bad to the Pope that we just don't know about.
This whole thing is fucking stupid.
Nothing says Atlantic coast conference like Stanford vs Cal.
VT needs to be in the SEC.
i want no part of being in the sec to be frank
Why's that?
digging a hole we have no chance of getting out of
I think the hole we have no chance of getting out of is staying in the ACC and getting left behind. This conference is a dead man walking. By going to the SEC, we get higher revenue, more exposure from sEcSPN, higher quality opponents, and leave useless athletic schools like BC and Wake behind.
I think you might misunderstand the hole we are currently in. Being in the SEC raises both our floor and our ceiling. Added revenue isn't going to do anything but help immensely. Added exposure and a beefed up schedule can only help recruiting. We'd suddenly become a good looking SEC school to players from VA, MD, OH, PA, NY, NJ, etc. It would be a HUGE boost in recruiting which would get us much closer to competing with other SEC schools than we will ever be if we stay in the ACC. Plus, the SEC takes care of their own. We've been the redheaded stepchild of the ACC since 2004. I'm sick of getting screwed by the league for 20 years. The SEC does everything they can to protect all of their assets. The ACC only cares about their basketball schools.
We might only manage to get into the middle of the pack in the SEC. But middle of the pack of the SEC is still way better than any ACC school will be at any point in the future. With our culture, fanbase, location, and SEC money, I think we would regularly notch anywhere from 6-9 wins in a given year and have an occasional special run where we win 10 or 11 and sneak into the SEC CG. If we stay put, we only stand a chance of becoming the tallest midget. And that's not even guaranteed. Our ceiling in the ACC is almost what our floor would be in the SEC.
I dont think it raise our ceiling, our ceiling in the acc is playoffs, at 12 teams SEC 4-5 teams, Big 10 4 teams, ACC 2, Big 12 2, and G5 get 1. We just have to make it to the ACC champ game to have a shot of getting in get in.
In the SEC we have to be better than 5 of the following: Bama, LSU, UF, Tenn, UGA, Auburn, OU, Texas, and A&M. That's a very tough task
Winning the ACC is neither a guarantee for VT nor a guaranteed seat at the playoff table.
But let's assume for a moment that winning the ACC gets us into the playoffs. We'd then have to face teams from the SEC and B1G which are heavily outgunning the ACC for the foreseeable future. So the odds that an ACC champion gets further than the first round of the playoff is pretty slim.
Our odds of winning the ACC are probably about the same as our odds of getting into the top 5ish teams in the SEC. It will take a special season for both. The difference in the SEC is that if we're the 4th best team in the SEC we probably get matched up with the ACC champ or the G5 at large and have an easier path to advance through the playoffs.
Just the mere fact of being in the SEC will do more for recruiting than anything else possibly could. In the SEC we'll have better talent than we will ever get in the ACC. So the 4th best team in the SEC is going to be more talented than the best team in the ACC. I'd much rather make the playoffs as the 4th best SEC team than as the ACC champion. The odds of each are about the same.
We would never be the 4th best team in the SEC. It would be a great year to be in the top eight. Bama, LSU, Auburn, UGA, UF, Tennessee, and Texas are 8 teams that should always out recruit us and year in and year out are better programs than us. We don't even look at A&M, Ole Miss, and whomever would come with us.
A top 4 SEC finish with this expansion would be the 2nd best team VT had, and maybe even better than the '99 team. We would need an entirely different recruiting landscape for multiple generational players to skip through the cracks. There aren't too many Corey Moores and Mike Vick type players out there.
Never is a strong word. I don't think we would regularly be top4 but with a special season I absolutely think we could finish there. It wasn't that long ago that Tennessee was the laughing stock of the league. LSU won a title and then fell off a cliff. Auburn is hot and cold. Florida has been on the struggle bus for a while. If we're getting SEC money and attention and recruits we stand a very good chance of sneaking into the top 4 some years. Bama and Georgia may well be perennially in the top 4 but none of those other teams necessarily will. It'll be a revolving door. And who knows what will happen with bama when Saban retires.
I think the likelihood of VT winning the ACC with ACC money and recruits is about the same as VT getting into the top 4 of the SEC with SEC money and recruits. I'd take top 4 in the SEC over ACC champ every single time. Hell, 10 years from now the 8th best team in the SEC will probably be a lot better than the best team in the ACC. We stay in the ACC, we continue our long miserable slide into irrelevance. We get into the SEC and we dramatically increase our odds of raising the standard for VT. In 5 years, middle of the pack SEC is going to be much better than ACC Champ. And we can easily maintain middle of the pack SEC. Much more easily than we could ever hope to maintain ACC champion.
Is this the new math?1) Bama, 2) LSU,3) Auburn, 4) UGA, 5)UF, 6) Tennessee, and 7)Texas ...= 8?
For now (subject to change whenever the new playoff rules are up for negotiation) winning the ACC is almost a guarantee in the 12-team playoff, since the six highest ranked conference champs get a spot. The ACC has a revenue gap with the SEC/Big Ten, but it hasn't fallen off that much.
yes, for now. But the way things are going, the ACC is VERY QUICKLY becoming much more like a G5 afterthought league than an actual power conference. The SEC and B1G each have renegotiation windows upcoming BEFORE the ACC does. The Big12 is very likely to surpass the ACC long before the ACC even has an opportunity to negotiate for more money. Let's not forget about inflation. $40m per school right now is much different from $40m per school in 13 years time. Our long term contract was a bad, bad investment by the league.
The playoff isn't about rewarding teams for winning their leagues. It's about trying to get the best* teams into the tournament for good football. Besides, winning the ACC, 10 years from now, won't guarantee that the ACC Champion is one of the top 6th ranked conference champions. There is a world, as crazy as it sounds, where champions for the SEC (Bama), B1G (OSU), BigXII (OK), AAC (Tulane), CUSA (Liberty), and Sunbelt (JMU) could all be ranked higher than an 8-5 VT ACC Champ. And some of those leagues probably have 2 or 3 teams that would be ranked higher and "more deserving" of a playoff bid. Don't get all complacent and cocky thinking that the ACC champ is guaranteed a seat in a 12 team playoff. That kind of thinking is what got the league in trouble to begin with.
*as determined by a "committee" that has inherent biases influenced by the coverage that teams/leagues get.
to be fair, it feels quicker than it is because we've been talking about it nonstop for 3+ weeks now, and because we've processed things that haven't happened yet (BigXII expansion, OUT, USCLA) as having happened already because they were announced so far ahead of time. Big XII tv deal is in 6 more years. OUT, USCLA havent even played games in SEC/B1G.
For all the moaning about become a G5 league, our deal is still better than the brand new B12/16 deal.
Right but that's the other side of the pendulum that probably isn't reactionary or forward thinking enough
It's objectively true, but it also doesn't matter that much in the bigger picture. BigXII will negotiate two new tv deals in the time it takes the ACC to negotiate its next one. The gap is small as it is, and there's no reason anyone should expect the expanded BigXII's next media deal to be smaller than the ACC's current one that runs another 13 years.
this is exactly the problem. If we didn't have to wait 13 years (eons in CFB) for the next chance to negotiate I don't think so many people would feel so uneasy in the ACC. But we're behind the SEC and B1G and marginally ahead of the Big XII. The PAC collapsing is a warning to the ACC. This league is in serious trouble, mostly because our hands are tied for the next decade and a half. If we weren't anchored to a deal that's running another 13 years the calculus might be different for teams like FSU and Clemson.
The problem is one TV giant paying quadruple to one league for relatively - in terms of moving the needle - the same product for one league over another. We are in the same situation as if NBC paid the AFC a billion dollars and the NFC 400 mil and said "tough shit". That's where the ACC is with ESPN. They pay the SEC a gazillion dollars and they don't pay the ACC that. Plain and Simple. So we have to choke on it.
There is a part of me wondering with the money hemorrhaging that ESPN is going through if their next offer to the SEC, etc is going to be half of the current offer. They might have already passed the point at which advertisement money is not going to be sufficient to pay for that price tag.
At which point, our long term deal might have served us well.
A pipe dream, but at least a way to spin our horrible deal.
Feels way longer. Been at least 2 years since OU/TX announcement
But nobody was talking about the BigXII passing the ACC in the pecking order until CU left and brought the other four corners schools with
People were talking about a 'power 2' and how the acc was getting left behind.
Sure, there's a nuanced difference in the conversations. Rayo agrees about a P2, Rayo is in denial about the ACC being dead in the water.
With divisions going away, it's unlikely that an 8-5 team would win the ACC. The team that wins the ACC is likely, but not guaranteed to be, I'll grant you, going to end up as a top 10 team.
And the money will definitely be an issue with the SEC/Big 10, but with how the PAC 12's offer from ESPN last summer tanked, and a lot of rights deals in all sports are starting to be pulled back on, except for the elite properties (NFL, NBA, SEC, Big 10). There's a chance the Big 12 won't be able to jump us. Are Fox/ESPN going to need to increase that payout? Is a streamer going to try to get in the game like everyone's been speculating for, what, the past ten years?
All I'm saying is it's not a definite that we (the ACC, Virginia Tech) is done for. There's a huge difference between what we're getting ($40m/yr) , and what G5 schools get (in the low single figure millions). Maybe the SEC/Big 10 become the AFC/NFC, but I'd rather not waste my time worrying about it until it actually happens.
this is a fair point. Unless we go to a 9 (or even 10) game conference schedule, it is still possible, even if unlikely. If a team loses all 4 of their OOC games they could still win the league with an 8-5 record (having 1 conference loss). Lets say there are two teams in the ACC with 1 conference loss each and everyone else in the league has multiple conference losses. VT could be one of those 1-(ACC)loss teams going to Charlotte for the ACCCG to play against a 1-(ACC)loss Clemson squad that is 9-3. IF VT wins that championship game to get to 8-5 after getting skunked in our OOC games we still technically win the league at 8-5.
right, like it says..... unlikely
literally not disagreeing with that
just illustrating how it is still possible.
You are stating a fact, but respectfully, the point you're trying to make is charmin ultra-soft.
Do you know what's going to happen to a team that makes the playoffs, but is actually only as good as the 6th best SEC team? They are going to get their💩pushed in, TCU vs. Georgia style.
If you want making the CFP to end in anything other than public humiliation, you want a team that is legitimately better than just about everyone, including the top 5 SEC programs.
I don't see a path to recruiting that level of talent in a second-rate league. And I don't say second-rate to make a comment on the actual talent on the field, I say second-rate to comment on the financial resources provided by the media deals and to comment on the coverage provided by the media deals.
Another poster described it well in another thread - when ESPN started heavily investing in the SEC, they started saying "the SEC is the best conference." At the time, they might've been, but it wasn't so obvious as it is now. But 15 consecutive years of "the SEC is the best conference" on ESPN all year long has resulted in a generation of recruits that have never heard anything else. There is not a conference in America that recruits like they do, and unfortunately, ESPN is financially invested in making sure that doesn't change. The media has created an absolute monster of a conference and now we all have to just deal with it.
Today's kindergartners will be incoming freshman when the ACC GOR expires. How many of them will have respect for the ACC - not Clemson, not FSU, or (God willing) VT, but for the ACC as a whole by then? I don't have a crystal ball, but my gut tells me it's a lower number than we need it to be. No one will want to play road games against Duke, BC, Pitt, and Wake when they could be playing road games at Tenn, FL, and UGA, etc.
Switching to the SEC lowers our floor for the next 5 years, but it raises our floor for the foreseeable future after that and raises our ceiling considerably. And besides, we just went 3-8 with one of the worst offenses in college football while playing one of the easiest schedules in college football. How much lower can the floor get?
Here
It doesn't lower our floor, it puts a ceiling on us that we never get back.
Instead of having UGA kick our butts in the playoffs we have them kick it in week 5. Then next week Bama does it. TCU had tons of fan excitement this year, lots of people watched their games, they had a season people enjoyed. Every single fan would have agreed to getting beat by UGA in the playoffs if you gave them that option before last season. Every single hokie would 100% take a ACC championship game loss follows by a 70-3 playoff loss right now. If I gave that option for 2026 instead of this year everyone still would agree to take that season. It's a great season.
Sure going to the SEC would up our recruiting, but it's not going to get us the blue chip ratio, half the SEC teams doesn't have that. We've historically been behind UNC in recruiting even when we were winning. We're not going to magically out recruit Tennessee, or even boost us above Miami which is in the ACC and outrecruiting lots of the SEC. We're not going to start pulling 5 star players out from Bama or UGA. PSU, FSU, Clemson, Bama, ND are the places that have been taking VA recruits away from VT from 15+years, going to the SEC isn't going to fix that. Recruiting like Mississippi State doesn't raise our ceiling if we have to play half the blue bloods of college football, we just get beat, a lot. If we had moved in 2004 then maybe it would be different, but its hard for me to believe that now with the top teams going to a single conference that VT can win big in that environment.
Idk what you mean by "win big". VT is never going to "win big" by staying in the ACC. The best we can hope for is winning an ACC championship. It'll take us at least 5 years to get there at this point and by then, even if we do win it, nobody will care or remember. Can you tell me, without looking it up, who won the MAC last year? Because that's the level of relevance the ACC will have in the future.
I would much rather be the 7th or 8th best team in the SEC, regularly, with the occasional special season where we sneak into the playoffs with a legitimate shot at winning at least one playoff game than be the 3rd or 4th best team in the ACC, regularly, with the occasional special season where we win the ACC and then get curb stomped by the 3rd or 4th best SEC team in round 1.
I choose relevance over meaningless trophies.
Being 7th or 8th isn't relevant. And that's a better season than we've had in 15 years. That would be a monumental achievement. We aren't going to recruit better than Bama, LSU, UGA, Auburn, UF, Tennessee, OU, Texas, amd Texas A&M. That means at best we are 10th in talent. And we're not going to be close to recruiting like those teams so there will be a talemt gap. Now those teams have under achieved so yes we could be better on the field by over achieving, but MSU over achieved for years under Mullen, KY has over achieved the last decade. Vandy over achieved under Franklin. Our special years are 8-4 in the expanded SEC.
I guess you and I just have to agree to disagree, then
which is fine, I'd still have a beer with you
I'd buy a round, for sure
Going to be great when ACC adds Cal, Stanford and SMU and ND still says no.
That's how I feel about any ND rumor.
Honestly I bet the only reason Notre Dame wants Stanford in is so they'll count as one of their 5 ACC games per year and they'll have more scheduling flexibility
This is EXACTLY what they want. If we allow them to hoodwink us again my head may explode.
Imagine VT football being good in the 1950's and not having won a major bowl in 30 years, but calling all of the shots for a conference they aren't in. Imagine that for one second.
Honestly, why not make a play for wsu and OSU? I think they'd at least be the more fun of the leftover schools.
The Stanford and Cal to the ACC would only be for Football and Basketball. That makes it a bit more palatable. ND still needs to shit or get off the pot.
I have the feeling ND is worried about being relegated to Peacock.
Looks like there is some strong dissent to the expansion among the league presidents.
At a meeting Wednesday, ACC presidents further explored expansion & again put off a vote, sources tell @YahooSports.This signals that disagreement exists among the group. At least four schools are pushing back. League needs 12 votes of 15 members.— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) August 10, 2023
The article in thread is wild
And the piece that makes this all make sense:
The for sure no votes - FSU, UNC, NC State, Clemson. There is a fifth team that voted no but don't know who that was.
I wouldn't put much stock into stuff swirling around who the no votes were. Non-paywall insider posts at 247 have maintained VT is strongly 'no.'
surprises me that UNC was a NO vote - getting more teams into the ACC, regardless of the cost to member institutions, makes it harder for the GOR to be dissolved. I would think UNC would be pretty desperate to hold the league together
Counterpoint: UNCheat is one of the few schools in the league with obvious appeal to one of the P2. Basketball tradition, "good" academics, flagship university in an unrepresented state, name brand recognition (celebrity alums, etc). As such, they would actually want the threshold to be lower for dissolution IF they are willing to sacrifice control of their fiefdom for the sake of future security. I know that's a big IF, but at some point you realize that your first class cabin in the Titanic isn't worth holding on to when you can buy your way onto a life boat.
...and immediately be picked up by a bigger, more luxurious boat.
UNC is a no because the NC Board of Governors isn't going to allow UNC to leave the ACC without NC State. This is from a very good source
I guess that means that UNC would want to leave the ACC (the implication being that they've conferred with the Board of Governors and expressed interest in leaving the league)
But I don't see how them being tied to NC State has any real bearing on whether or not they make it harder to leave the league unless UNC is supremely confident that they can get themselves, and NC State into a better league together. UNC has been the kingpin of the ACC for a couple decades, though. I find it hard to believe they're willing to give that up to be the whipping boy in another league. If there is any team in the ACC that would really want to keep the conference intact, it's UNC, IMO.
UNC is the most coveted team by either the SEC or Big Ten in the ACC. They hold the cards.
is that true? I haven't heard that
Kind of hope that is sarcastic. People are quick to forget about all the cheating scandals. They are touted for academics (B1G likes) have aspirations in sports (SEC likes), and are in a location that both conferences want to increase their market share in. Unfortunately, UVA gets the same attention.
Ah yes. Because the NCAA/B1G/SEC definitely cares more about academic integrity than the almighty dollar. While I agree that UVA fits the bill better in regards to academics and location I think between the notable UNC alumni, the endless "walmart fans", and their location they have to be the first pick from either P2 conference.
The concensus among media is that UNC is the 2nd biggest 'brand' not yet in a P2 conference. Neither P2 has any team in the Carolina's, so everyone speculates that makes them attractive. UNC could also be a culture fit in either conference.
The football viewership numbers out there for UNC are pretty weak though. I really think some mental gymnastics are going on right now for why UVA and UNC are such a lock for the P2. They are basically similar to Stanford in being viewed as elite academic institutions with very strong overall athletic department and boosters with deep pockets. But we see now where Stanford is being totally left behind. If UVA/UNC are such good fits for the Big Ten, then why didn't they take Stanford in my view? I get the carriage fees argument for VA and NC, but in my view you get that and much better football viewership/football environment for tv with VT and NC State.
I saw on twitter, can't verify as reliable at all, that it was FSU, Clemson, VT and NC State strongly against. And Duke/UNC/Wake were strongly for. It would make sense, idk if there are reliable sources saying otherwise
it sucks that you're getting that from twitter (and it's unverified?) - but it does make more sense to me. FSU Clemson, VT and, to a lesser extent, NC State are all strong football brands that would be very interested in finding a home in a better football conference. They don't want to make it any harder than it already is to get out of the league. Duke, UNC, and Wake are all tobacco road cronies who have been running the league for decades. They don't want to see it collapse (partly because, with the exception of UNC, they know they wouldn't move the needle for any other leagues and would end up left out in the cold
ifwhen the ACC does implode)Don't you mean saw on X !?!
I think I Heard it on the X (ZZ Top) is more appropriate.
You're not kidding, the first time I saw that loading page come up I was in public and about had a heart attack
Nicole Auerbach from The Athletic is reporting the No's were Clemson, FSU, UNC, and NC State
IF Stanford, CAL, and SMU agree to never making more than 60% of a share and the remaining 120% share is divided amongst the 14 regular member, I might agree. But I am still against adding west coast teams to the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Looks like acc has shut down expansion talks for now.
This is all just a bridge to a super league. At this point it's all about money and football.
In a few years OSU/Mich are going to be like wtf are we splitting evenly with Rutgers and Northwestern.
Alabama/Georgia/Texas/Ok are going to be like wtf are we splitting with Vanderbuilt and Ole Miss. FSU/Clemson are already asking why they're sharing. Same will happen in the new Big 12.
The bottom 3/4 of teams in the remaining conferences will feel like dead weight and the top 1/4 of each of the conferences will join together to make a 20 team super league.
All it'll take is Apple, Amazon, some saudi fund thing, or some other streaming service pledging 75 mil/year base + share of subscriber revenue to each team or something like that. Those teams will give players salaries and that'll be that.
The conferences as they are setup now don't make sense anymore.
To change funding though or remove a school would require getting the super majority of other schools to agree. Don't see that happening.
Live video of VT trying to leave the ACC
via Imgflip
Plaid
The days of anything going plaid are probably long gone unfortunately
Unless Joe hits that super secret leg button.
Two 10,000 foot view thoughts:
1) It really seems the problem isn't so much the grant of rights, but the horrific TV deal the ACC signed. It is hard to understand how that many smart people got it that wrong. Tv deals are kind of like the stock market, they always go up over time. So why we locked ourselves in for 2 decades is a level of stupidity I'll never understand.
2) Why doesn't the ACC consider a 9-game conference schedule now that we don't have divisions, the playoffs are expanding, and everyone is moving towards super conferences? The contract with ESPN has been held closely to the vest, but that seems like a lot easier way to increase revenue than adding PAC 4 rejects or playing games on the CW after reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
To make matters worse apparently OU and Texas were interested in the ACC around the time of us negotiating that deal.
Lets see if that's true in a decade (without significantly raising rates on consumers)
Re the raised rates: it is kind of like a cell phone bill. People are addicted, and don't know how to live without it, especially live sports. So, they'll just pay it. Even if they probably shouldn't.
1. Yes, the ESPN contract is the reason the GoR is so long. They're interwoven. The reason it is so long is because Swofford (and the ACC) wanted an ACC network so bad and wanted it to be affiliated with ESPN that they were willing to agree with ESPN's terms. And I dont know how long it would take to build up an ACC network and for it be profitable, but 20 years seems about 10 years too long. My guess is that Swofford, being the blinded visionary he is, thought the ACCN was going to be the thing that took the ACC to that premiere level, but instead it will be the thing that will prevent the ACC from ever reaching that level.
2. To your point, the ACC network is talking up the VT/ODU game as their premiere week 1 game, and VT fans aren't even hyped up for it. Would we feel all that different if it was BC? probably not, but maybe a matchup with Clemson, UNC, GT or even Duke would generate significantly more buzz above the ODU game.
Swofford strikes me as the guy who really didn't understand the mechanisms behind the conference networks, how it could be profitable, how to negotiate the deal, etc. Seems like he felt pressured into it because of the SEC and Big Ten, didn't really understand why/the value, but just had to go get one of those darn newfangled networks and everything would just fall into place magically. The fact that he agreed to this ridiculous long-term deal with ESPN just tells me he had no negotiating power and didn't know what he was doing, just had to get a network almost like checking off a box. And here we are now.
1) yeah they are interwoven to the extent that the GOR references the ESPN agreement. I don't think the ESPN agreement necessarily depends on the GOR. Also not sure that the extension of the GOR through 2036 was necessary since it was originally 2027.
2) Exactly. Instead of adding 16 games via Stanford and Cal, and dividing that revenue and additional expense 16 ways, add 15 games, no cross country travel, and you don't have 2 more schools wanting a piece of the pie or making dissolution that much more impossible.
Also, you touched on this earlier, but every team the ACC adds makes it that much more impossible to dissolve. Stanford and Cal would be receiving a life raft, therefore likely to almost never vote "yes." So now you're looking for 2-3 current members who are already not inclined to agree with the "Magnificent 7" on dissolution.
And re ODU and inventory, it's a no-Brainer. Last year or the year before, we showed an old VT-Miami game on ACCN while the live game wasn't widely televised. What an absolute joke
Sadly does a 9 game schedule hurt the ACC's strength of schedule or help it?
[Laughs/dies a little bit inside]
Until they don't. Like the housing market. With cord cutting accelerating, there's a possibility that the revenue generation of linear cable channels may not continue to go up. In which case, the long-term play would not have been such a bad bet.
But that's just hypothetical. Maybe, maybe not.
Yeah, fair enough. But even home prices rarely collapse and stay there long term. I actually saw an article today (need to see if I can find it now) discussing how cord cutting options were purposely priced at predatory levels to disrupt the market and now that folks are addicted, the providers will be forcing sharp increases upon customers, using inflation as justification. I think that will likely mean that TV revenue stays where it is/increases for the big conferences, but we'll see. To your point, the PAC 12 reportedly turned down 30 mil/school and now they've got nothing.
I'm not sure that's the case. Their revenue is predicated on linear cable channels. In your scenario, yes, people may be paying similar amounts, but the cord is still cut. Those networks (and the ESPNs of the world) make money by charging everybody, including those not watching sports. In a cord-cut model, you're either paying into what you want to watch, or you aren't. Those that are paying in and not watching are no longer counted in the cord-cut revenue model, and that means a decrease in revenue for the cable networks.
There is a part of me that wonders if the next B1G/SEC deals will be for less than their current deal due to this cord cutting, switching to streaming, etc. ESPN is hemorrhaging money and jobs to keep up these payments based on less revenue coming in.
Wouldn't it be something if the SEC went to re-up in 2030 and commanded less than the ACC?
Well after Tech's third consecutive national championship beating a B12 team each time. The SEC won't be worth as much.
Would be amazing. But on the flip side (and probably more likely) they could get the last big deal in 2030 before value crashes and we're stuck with even less after '36