Category Archives: Conference Realignment

ACC Should Add Johns Hopkins for Lacrosse

Posted on by acaffrey

The Blue Ribbon panel appointed by Johns Hopkins University to evaluate the pros and cons of joining a conference for lacrosse as an associate member has issued its report.  The report recommends pursuing a conference affiliation.  The Confidential believes that the ACC should add Johns Hopkins as an associate member for lacrosse only.

First, the ACC needs a sixth team.  Duke, Syracuse, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Virginia, and it was going to be Maryland.  The loss of Maryland means the loss of the 6th program.

Second, in Johns Hopkins, the ACC gets a huge name in lacrosse, as well as solidifying the Maryland region.  The rivalries are there.

Third, this would be the premier conference in the history of… ever.  Imagine if Alabama, LSU, Florida, and Georgia left the SEC and joined a conference with Florida State and Miami.  Regional and dominant!   Or a basketball conference with Kentucky, Syracuse, Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, and Michigan State.  You get the picture.  If you are going six, go all the way.

Fourth, Johns Hopkins has a TV deal with ESPNU that it wants to keep.  The ACC’s rights are owned by–wait for it–ESPN.  This part of it works.  How would Johns Hopkins mesh with the Big Ten Network?  Not as easily.

Fifth, Notre Dame set the precedent here with a partial membership.  Not really breaking any new ground.  And other conferences have allowed members for just one sport under similar arrangements.

Finally, the Big 10 wants them too.  Perhaps.  Maybe.  Why be in a conference with Rutgers lacrosse, when you can be in a conference with 5 of the biggest names in, well, ever.  Johns Hopkins looks a lot more like Duke and Syracuse and Notre Dame, than it does a boring flagship state university with 50,000 members.

So there it is.  Everything works for this.  We just need the ACC to beat the Big 10 to the punch.

 

 

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Conference De-Alignment–Part II of II

Posted on by acaffrey

We may be at a point where there is a several-year “cease fire” with respect to conference realignment.  The leading blog on conference realignment, Frank the Tank, certainly thinks that it plausible.  With all conferences other than the SEC signing Grant of Rights agreements, there is solidarity across the major conferences.  The cost of adding schools will simply be too great to justify a return on investment.  One question that must be posed, however, is whether we will see conference “de-alignment,” that is–a conference parting ways with a parasitic school.  It has happened only once in recent years–with the Big East and Temple.  Will it happen again?  With revenue such a central part of the conference alignment reality, the Confidential thinks it is inevitable.  Part I will discuss the conference landscape.  Part II will look at the targets for de-alignment.

Part II: The Targets for De-Alignment

The Weakest Schools

Assume that, someday, conferences may have to look inward to increase revenue.  In other words, that going from 14 to 12 schools is a better way to increase revenue per school than going from 14 to 16 schools.  Who are the schools in each conference that would be most nervous?

Let’s start with our own backyard–the ACC.  One has to think Wake Forest is the easy target here.  Being the 4th school in a state in one conference may work for the Pac-12 with USC, UCLA, Cal, and Stanford, but Wake Forest is a far cry from any of those schools.  The bottom line is that Wake Forest contributes very little to the ACC in terms of finances, away-game attendance, football success, or basketball success.  Look at it this way–if the ACC dissolved, where would Wake Forest go?

The next most vulnerable conference is the Big XII.  Here, one has to look to Iowa State.  While they add the Iowa “market,” that market is not particularly lucrative.  While Iowa State may be better at football than Kansas, Kansas is a basketball blue blood.  There is really no comparison here.  Iowa State just has not performed on the field well enough to make anyone think that they do anything other than “take.”

The Pac-12 is a strong conference, but it is not quite as strong as the Big 10 and SEC.  Here, Washington State wins going away.  When is the last time that Wazzou was relevant academically or athletically?

The SEC gets tougher.  Vanderbilt used to be a football punching bag, but they have outstanding academics and good basketball.  Kentucky football struggles, but they are a basketball elite.  If the SEC had to lose one school, it would probably be Mississippi State–the second school in a low-revenue state.

The B1G is easy.  Purdue.  See Part I.  Purdue basketball is good, but they are second fiddle in Indiana across-the-board.

The Implementation

While it is not tough to come up with the weakest school in most conferences, it gets a lot harder to find a second-weakest school.  And given that odd-numbered schools do not work for conferences, next to tradition, that might be the most important thing favoring the status quo.

In our ACC, who else does not carry its own weight?  Boston College has been dreadful recently, but adds the Boston market.  Moreover, they have been to more conference title game appearances than Miami.

But what about swapping schools?  It certainly does get more compelling when discussing an outsider school that increases value.  Who has more value to the Big 10–Purdue or Georgia Tech?  From 1909 to 2009, the easy answer was Purdue.  In the era of conference networks?  Not so sure.  And if UNLV were to improve its football product and academics, one could see it catching up with and passing Washington State.  Adding UNLV alone might not generate increased revenue, but swapping it for Washington State might.

Who has more value to the SEC and an SEC Network—Mississippi State or North Carolina State?  Frankly, the SEC doing that–allowing the ACC to then get rid of Wake Forest, could benefit both conferences.

Your response will be… the conferences would never ever do that.  Tradition is far too important. 

The Confidential’s response is… huh?  Tradition did not stop the end of Texas-Texas A&M, Kansas-Missouri, or Pitt-WVU.  It did not stop Nebraska from leaving Oklahoma, or Maryland from leaving the ACC.  It did not stop founding members of the Big East in Syracuse and Boston College from choosing the ACC.  And if this was all orchestrated by ESPN and/or Fox, then the concern about tradition is even more illusory.  AND if conference networks start wielding more power, isn’t it more likely that financial issues will become paramount.  What if TV revenue starts decreasing someday?  These “business decisions” may go from “leaving for greener pastures” to “getting rid of the weeds.”

Frankly, an argument could be made that the Conferences–all armed with networks someday–could benefit by deliberately re-organize the landscape for the mutual benefit of all.  Suppose ESPN sat down with the SEC and ACC and said this… we cannot get maximum value for the SEC in North Carolina and Virginia.  We cannot create an ACC Network unless there are a few more states.  We suggest this… “NC State and Virginia Tech to the SEC (adding two markets) and Vanderbilt and Mississippi State to the ACC (adding two markets to the footprint and being a somewhat offsetting academic arrangement).  Doing this will allow us to bundle the SEC and ACC Network across the entire region from Texas to Maine.”  And that is with just two conferences working together.

Is this any worse than a system where Iowa State and Wake Forest have no options outside of their current conference?  Not saying this is likely, who knows where TV revenue is taking the college sports landscape.  Just remember a few things.  Princeton has as many football championships as Alabama and Texas, combined.  And 50 years ago, the Sweet Sixteen in basketball included NYU, St. Joseph’s, Bowling Green, Loyola of Chicago, Oklahoma City, and San Francisco.

Things change.

Conference De-Alignment–Part I of II

Posted on by acaffrey

We may be at a point where there is a several-year “cease fire” with respect to conference realignment.  The leading blog on conference realignment, Frank the Tank, certainly thinks that it plausible.  With all conferences other than the SEC signing Grant of Rights agreements, there is solidarity across the major conferences.  The cost of adding schools will simply be too great to justify a return on investment.  One question that must be posed, however, is whether we will see conference “de-alignment,” that is–a conference parting ways with a parasitic school.  It has happened only once in recent years–with the Big East and Temple.  Will it happen again?  With revenue such a central part of the conference alignment reality, the Confidential thinks it is inevitable.  Part I will discuss the conference landscape.  Part II will look at the targets for de-alignment.

Part I: The Conference Landscape

First, we need to revisit what has transpired in the past few years.  We have had numerous schools switching allegiance, ostensibly to secure their financial future.  The commentariat over in Big 10 country will tell you that the Big 10 is looking at per school distributions of $40M in the next several years.  Whether that is accurate is anybody’s guess.  But what IS clear is that nobody was talking TV revenue when considering expansion before Frank the Tank clarified just how important than criteria was.  And, while the Big 10 ended up taking Nebraska, they also took Rutgers and Maryland because of the impact on television dollars.  With Big 10 schools currently making $25M a year, it was plausible that these schools could still increase the per-school distributions.

Second, as the TV revenue increases, the value a new school needs to add in order to justify expansion also increases.  See discussion of Texas and the Grant of Rights.  At some point, further expansion may be blocked simply because there are no longer any schools that can cause an increase.  As an example, if we assume that the Big 10 will get to a point where it is distributing $40M in revenue to each of its 14 schools, that will mean overall revenue of $560M.  In order to justify going to 16 schools and not losing money in the process, the two new schools would have to each contribute $40M per year, right?  If the two new schools contributed $30M per year, that would mean a net TV revenue of $620M, or per school distributions of $38.75M.  That does not make sense.  To be sure, the Big 10 appears to be using phased in distribution of TV revenue to help balance that out.  For a school desperate to get to the Big 10 due to concern about a present conference, like Nebraska or Rutgers, that works out.  But the Big 10 is gambling that all added schools will ultimately at least pay for themselves.  Otherwise, they will drag down the per-school revenue distributions once they are entitled to that equal share.

Of course, the ultimate goal is to add members that will actually increase the per-school distributions using an equal share distribution philosophy.  And here is where the math gets crazy.  To actually cause an increased distribution such that all 16 schools could see a 10% increase–i.e. get to $44M apiece–the two new schools in a $40M/year per school distribution model would actually have to contribute $72M per year.  That would increase the TV revenue to the $704M necessary to get to $44M per 16 schools.  The question that begs is what schools can add $72M per year?  Texas?  Notre Dame?  Florida?

This does not just apply to the Big 10.  Take the Big XII at 10 teams.  With $24M in distributions annually, to get to 12 teams and not lose money requires that each of those teams add at least $24M.  The Big XII currently does not see any schools out there that are available and can do that.  Otherwise, they would make the move, right?  And the Big XII being at 10 teams means that a jump to 12 teams would add a lucrative conference championship game, perhaps more than $1M per team.  So it can take a school that simply can earn at par with the rest of the schools and generate a revenue increase for the rest.

Maybe it is an over-simplification, but it appears that the more success a conference has financially, the harder it will be to justify adding new schools.  The odds of these schools contributing enough goes down.  It is just easier to find value-adding schools when making $25M per school than it is when you are at $40M per school.

Third, as it becomes harder to find schools that add value, the inevitable result will be that conferences begin to look inward to those schools that are not contributing to the current distribution.  Take the Big 10.  Will there ever be a point in the future of the Big 10 where Purdue will be contributing to the Big 10 more than it receives?  If the Big 10 is at a $40M per year payout per school some day, will that be despite Purdue or because of it?  With Indiana already contributing the “Indiana market,” a compelling argument will be made that a school like Purdue is taking more than it receives and always will.  At $40M per year, that subsidy from Ohio State and Michigan will be even greater.  Stated otherwise, if Purdue decided to leave to the Big 10, would the per-school payouts actually increase?  Somewhere between perhaps and probably.

Will there be a point where the only way a lucrative conference can increase its per-school payouts will be to jettison those schools that are taking significantly more than they are receiving?  Given what we have seen in the past few years, one can only suspect that the resentment of revenue-parasitic schools will increase.  Tradition will delay the discussion until the numbers are meaningful and significant, but the discussion is inevitable.  As TV revenue grows, the Confidential thinks that we may see de-alignment in the future–conferences getting rid of schools that underperform financially.

Weekend Topic: ACC Football Divisions

Posted on by acaffrey

The folks over at Tomahawk Nation have a nice debate, albeit FSU-centric, as to how the ACC divisions should be reconfigured.  So let’s delve in and discuss.

Given that the current divisions are just a random collection of whatever that nobody could possibly remember, here are they are as of right now:

Atlantic: Florida State, Clemson, NC State, Wake Forest, Maryland (Louisville in 2014), Boston College, Syracuse

Coastal: Miami, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh

The Confidential has previously advocated for a quasi-geographic breakdown of the teams.  John Cassillo over at atlanticcoastconvos proposed the same thing on the Tomahawk Nation blog (midway down):

Atlantic: Miami, Virginia Tech, Virginia, Syracuse, Boston College, Pitt, Maryland (Louisville)

Coastal: Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Georgia Tech

The teams are listed above/below a permanent crossover.

This is essentially the “Old ACC less Virginia.”  Or N/S, plus Miami and Louisville.  Miami works with the North.  Virginia?  Maybe, maybe not.  But they would play UNC every year.

But the FSU folks have an interesting suggestion or two, including a straight–let’s get a strong strength of schedule method proposed by SirChancelot:

Atlantic: Florida State, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Miami, Louisville, Pitt, Virginia

Coastal: Duke, UNC, NC State, Wake Forest, BC, Syracuse, and Georgia Tech

The logic being that the football schools can beat up on each other and establish a strength of schedule that matches up with the SEC.  And if the ACC-Championship Game is garbage, so what?  It always is anyway.  Better to have the 11-1 team get to 12-1 without hassle.  Frankly, the Confidential sees some logic in it, but questions the choice of schools.  How about this instead:

Atlantic: FSU, Miami, Va Tech, Clemson, Georgia Tech, NC State, Louisville

Coastal, UNC, Duke, Wake Forest, BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Virginia

If anyone runs the table in the Atlantic, they should be sitting pretty from a strength-of-schedule standpoint.

Of course, if anyone runs the table in the ACC in any format, will they be excluded from a strength-of-schedule standpoint anyway?  That seems to be a fabricated issue.  It is not strength of schedule that harms the ACC schools, it is losing to teams that one should not lose to.

Moreover, playing all those games may help the strength of schedule, but wouldn’t it increase the chances of a bunch of 4-3 teams.

The Confidential’s perspective is that the ACC has a poor image because it is not top-heavy enough.  The B1G is Michigan and Ohio State usually.  The Big XII is Texas and Oklahoma usually.  The Pac-12 is USC or Oregon usually.  Exceptions happen obviously, but that is what we can expect.  The SEC is great because there are 5 teams that have the ability to run the table–and one or two of them usually do.  The ACC may have a couple of schools that “can,” but they always falter along the way to middling schools.  Bunching up the great teams is not going to help.  However, the idea of ignoring competitive balance has merit.  One can never get it straight anyway.

Otherwise, the suggestions over there involve a re-assortment of the current system.  Swap Miami for Florida State, or Clemson for Georgia Tech.

Nobody suggested this one… organize by number of words it takes to state the school:

Atlantic (1 word): Clemson, Miami, Pitt, Louisville, Virginia, Duke, Syracuse

Coastal (2 words): Georgia Tech, Florida State, NC State, North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Wake Forest

Actually, that is not bad competitive balance for football.  Hmmmm.

From the Confidential’s perspective, the priority of the conference should be as follows:

  1. Maximizing TV revenue–gotta keep up with the Joneses
  2. Maintaining traditional rivalries
  3. Easy of remembering divisions –nobody should have to look up who is in each division, whether an ACC fan or not
  4. Maximizing gate revenue–more $$$
  5. Competitive balance
  6. Ensuring high strength of schedule
  7. Other?

What do you think–what is THE most important thing that the ACC must consider if/when rearranging the divisions for football?   What is your proposal?

4-22-13: An ACC Holiday

Posted on by acaffrey

The ACC’s obituary was written many months ago.  The Big 10–fresh off a harvest of Maryland and Rutgers–would be descending on the ACC and taking enough teams to get to 16, 18, 20, 0r 22.  The issues were merely who and how many.  Meanwhile, the only other issue was whether the ACC’s carcass would be feasted on by the Big XII and SEC at the same time, or whether these conferences would be waiting for the Big 10 to “choose” first.  Well… and it is great to say… you couldn’t have been more wrong.  Instead, as reported here and elsewhere yesterday, the ACC schools have decided to sign a grant of rights.  Much like a grant of rights solidified the Big XII, this grant of rights also solidifies the ACC.

So what are the winners and losers with this announcement:

THE WINNERS:

The ACC schools.  The ACC is a conference of elite academic institutions.  The Big 10 and Pac 12 are also conferences with elite academic institutions.  Had the ACC broken up, it would be meant the dissolving of a fine partnership over athletics.  There is something neat about having Boston College, Miami, Syracuse, and Duke all joined together in a conference.  Add in Notre Dame and Wake Forest, and that is a nice collection of private institutions not seen in any other major conference.  Meanwhile, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, and Pitt are excellent academic institutions on the public side.  And Florida State, Clemson, Louisville, and North Carolina State continue to improve.  The latter are, well, pretty good at football too.  But the real win is that these schools adhered to the idea that the potential value of this conference should not be squandered in the hope of more money immediately.  For once, someone left money on the table.

Syracuse, Wake Forest, Pitt, Boston College, Virginia Tech, Duke, Miami, and Louisville.  In some scenarios, these schools would get left out of realignment.  They avoided this fate, at least for now.

ESPN.  ESPN was somewhere near the brink of potentially losing  control of the eastern seaboard.  Maryland and Rutgers were shuffling off to the midwest to be featured in the Big 10′s network jointly owned by Fox.  If the Big 10 captured a few more, or several more, ACC schools… only the SEC could take on ACC schools–maybe 2?–to keep them under ESPN control.  Maybe the SEC could have landed North Carolina and Duke.  Or maybe they would have been “stuck” with North Carolina State and Virginia Tech.  Good football schools, but schools overshadowed academically by their state flagship schools.  And any ACC schools heading to the Big XII would move away from full ESPN control to partial ESPN control.  Finally, if the Big 10 had gotten too big, ESPN would have had to pay dearly in 2015 to keep their rights.  Frankly, keeping the ACC might have been a cheaper option.

Frank the Tank.  The author of the best expansion blog on the Internet had been saying forever that the ACC was strong.  The Maryland departure, and the echoes from some less-responsible bloggers regarding future Big 10 targets, made even Frank the Tank question just how strong.  But at the end of the day, his belief in the ACC prevailed.

ACC Leadership.  Questioned by many, the ACC home office seems a lot more competent today than they did 8 months ago.

THE LOSERS:

The West Virginia Bloggers.  Look, West Virginia got kind of a raw deal by being passed over for, ultimately, Louisville.  Of course, when is the last time West Virginia won a national championship in hoops?  In any event, few schools in the ACC had serious animosity toward West Virginia.  Pitt, Syracuse, and Virginia Tech (and Maryland presumably) would have liked to see them in the ACC.  Not the other way around.  Fortunately, when that did not pan out, the Mountaineers ended up with a very soft landing in the Big XII.  The response?  Echoing the lack of class from the school’s athletic director (saying Navy was an upgrade over Syracuse in football), a few select bloggers made a name for themselves guaranteeing the destruction of the ACC.  Not just that it was a possibility.  No, these fools claimed that it was fact.  Imminent fact.  Well, folks, you are running out of time for that fact to come to fruition.  So, while your imaginary sources may still whisper in your ear from time-to-time, the fifteen minutes of fame is over.

Some of the Frank the Tank Commentariat.  Like something out of Willy Wonka, some of the commentariat over there acted like spoiled children.  Person A: “NO, I want Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida State.”  Person B: “NO, the Big 10 should take Georgia Tech, Boston College, Duke, North Carolina, Florida State, and Notre Dame.”   Person C: “You folks think small… the Big 10 should take everyone except Syracuse, BC, Wake Forest, and Louisville.  They should then take Texas, Florida, USC, and China.  Look at that market share!!!  We’ll be rich!”  And so on.  The Confidential understands that expansion is fun to talk about.  But the degree to which “money” became the only statistic that matters was beyond absurd.  Even if the Big 10 COULD make lots more money by adding in schools in great markets, there is more to this game than mere money.  When the blog first started taking off, people ignored money.  Now, money means too much.  Money is nice… but there is something to be said for athletic prowess.  At the end of the day, the SEC’s adds of Texas A&M and Missouri likely trump Rutgers and Maryland, on and off the field.  That book has many more chapters to write.  But let a few of them get written before declaring it a best seller.

UConn and Cincinnati.  A poached ACC was an inviting home.  A solid ACC?  Not a great sign.  Things can change though.

Expansion Fans.  While the aforementioned speculation got carried away by some, the speculation sure was fun.  This all started with the Big 10 looking for team #12.  It ended with a 10-team Big 12 and a 14-team Big 10.  Along the way, the Big East had teams in Idaho and California briefly.  And now there is something that we cannot call the AAC.  While the aftershocks of realignment will continue to ripple through the mid-major and minor conferences, the ACC’s Grant of Rights may just slow down expansion within the 5 power conferences.  If so, things may not be as tense for ACC fans, but they will also be slightly less interesting.

What do you think?  Any incorrect winners & losers?  Anyone omitted?  You tell us…

 

 

Conference Expansion is Over? Post Grant-of-Rights Moves for the ACC

Posted on by Mr. Tar Heel

In case you haven’t heard the big news (see tjcuseacc’s post below), the presidents of the ACC unanimously agreed to sign their media rights away to the conference through the 2026-2027 season today. Yes, even Notre Dame (without football, of course). That’s huge. Now if anyone wants to leave, we can basically still own them even though they’ll be playing other teams. So go ahead, Virginia. If you want to travel and play Indiana instead of Duke you can. But it’ll cost you.

This is the “Grant of Rights” thing that had the entire Internet proclaiming the safety of the Texas (Big) 12, even though they’re about as stable as a broken chair. Despite our huge media markets, overall athletic quality and strong history, it’s the only thing that basically separated us from this level of security. But the gap has been closed.

So take a deep breath. Not only does this pretty much kill all of the WVU-blogger talk that our league is about to explode, but it gives us all hope for the future. How about that, Maryland? So what’s next? The league’s leaders have certainly come a long way in the last few months- inviting Louisville (which looks like the smartest move EVER now), pledging solidarity, announcing the creation of a network study….but there’s a lot more to do.

1) Create the ACC Network- We all knew that it was only a matter of time, and the grant-of-rights is exactly what ESPN has been waiting for. If the network didn’t think that the teams were committed to each other, why would they have wanted to throw a lot of money in our direction? They wouldn’t have…but now they can. What television network wouldn’t want a strong presence in Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, DC, Richmond, Raleigh/Durham, Charlotte, Atlanta, Miami, Louisville? Right. This is pretty much a no-brainer. Yes, the Worldwide Leader has pledged a lot of money to the SEC through its own network. But a lot of the markets overlap, and if bundled together, ESPN would have a hold of the preeminent football and basketball brands in all of college sports. We already knew that the league was studying this. We weren’t sure if ESPN is interested. But after today, they pretty much have to be.

2)  Divisional Realignment/Addition of More League Games in Football- It’s not a secret that most fans don’t like the Atlantic and Coastal divisions. It’s not really the names. They actually make sense, unlike the soon-to-be-defunct “Legends” and “Leaders” in the Confidential’s least-favorite conference. But what should the league do? North and South divisions aren’t really feasible, even if they seem obvious. Every team that would be in the “North” division wants to play a Florida team each year. Recruiting IS important, after all. And slotting Miami into the North, while sensible, due to their Big East roots, seems awkward. You can’t move Virginia Tech either. The Hokies LEFT left the Big East so they could play more Southern teams; they don’t want to be in the North. That and John Swofford doesn’t want to make his most consistent team unhappy. Especially when they have a spot waiting for them in the SEC, grant-of-rights notwithstanding. Let’s not even get started with Virginia.

So what CAN the league do? They HAVE to go to 9 conference games…at least. The Big 12 does it. The Big 10 is doing it. More league games just makes sense. It makes scheduling easier, and more predictable, which is actually what fans want- even if they’ll say they want variety. League games matter. Games against FCS teams don’t. That’s why fans don’t show up, FSU. That’s why the Big 10 has outlawed FCS games for their teams in the near future. UNC is in the same league as FSU to play them all the time…not once every 5-8 years. So let’s say 10 conference games; no FCS games; a permanent out-of-conference rival; plus Notre Dame every three years. With that, a new scheduling model would develop.

What if each team had TWO permanent partners on the other side. UNC’s would be NC State and Wake Forest. That’s sensible. Now what if the remaining 5 teams were grouped into two categories (this is for UNC)- longtime rivals (Clemson, FSU) and new faces (BC, Syracuse, Louisville). What if we had non-permanent partner games with our longtime rivals more frequently than with the new faces? Wouldn’t that make everyone happy and create exciting match-ups for fans and television? Check out some of UNC’s potential future schedules under this model-

2014

Georgia Tech                     Miami

Duke                                     Pittsburgh

Virginia Tech                      Virginia

NC State                              Wake Forest

Clemson                              Louisville

Tennessee                          Notre Dame

2015

Georgia Tech                     Miami

Duke                                     Pittsburgh

Virginia Tech                      Virginia

NC State                              Wake Forest

Florida State                       Boston College

Tennessee                          East Carolina

2016

Georgia Tech                     Miami

Duke                                     Pittsburgh

Virginia Tech                      Virginia

NC State                              Wake Forest

Clemson                              Syracuse

Tennessee                          Maryland

Those are great schedules. You’ll notice that that UNC will play Clemson and Florida State every other year. That’s a win-win situation for fans AND networks. It makes scheduling easy. And it actually feels like a conference again. The new yearly game against Tennessee? Why not? There have been rumors about an ACC-Big 12 scheduling alliance and that really makes sense. But almost half of the ACC teams already have a regular rival in the SEC and our leagues overlap geographically. So maybe we just have to suck it up and play #1.

As a fan, it’s hard to find anything wrong with those schedules. Yes, they would need to be worked out for every team. And it probably wouldn’t be this simple. But the reasons to change the current model are. The league has experience a lot of growth in the past few years. Let’s continue to adapt and change for the better.

What do you think? What do you feel that the ACC’s next move should be?

Update on ACC Revenue

Posted on by acaffrey

CBS is reporting that the future addition of Notre Dame will have an immediate impact on revenue.  Even with just a 5-game football schedule and basketball games, Notre Dame will contribute in excess of $1M additional to the television revenue for each school.  While this is not “catching up to the Big 10″ money, the gap between the conferences is not as wide as reported.  This may be why there are lots of rumors regarding schools leaving, but few actually doing so.

That same article also reports as follows regarding an ACC Network:

The ACC is currently considering a 24-hour sports channel with ESPN, which is gathering information and will return to the league with an assessment. If ESPN makes an offer the ACC likes, plans for a channel might commence. The league is evaluating whether a channel makes the most business sense.

Look, who knows if an ACC Network would be successful?  What is clear, however, is that the Big 10 Network is successful. This is where things are headed.  If there is not going to be an ACC Network, then ACC teams might very well end up on the Big 10 Network, to ESPN’s loss.

Perhaps ESPN would benefit from some sort of joint network between the SEC and the ACC, where both channels are a package that is available from the Northeast down to Florida and West to Texas.  That’s a lot of territory to bundle the packages together.  The price could be determined by media market.  The SEC channel could be 90 cents a month in Texas, while the ACC channel could be 10 cents a month there.  But in North Carolina, it could be the inverse.  The extra revenue provided by the bundling would help get both channels more market saturation.

Then again, the Confidential is hardly a financial or television tycoon.  Perhaps ESPN is moving towards jai alai, as that will be the sport of the 22nd century.

What do you think?  ACC Network have ANY potential?

What’s New in Conference Expansion

Posted on by acaffrey

The Confidential is going to take a quick look around the conferences to see what is going on in conference expansion news:

The Big 10–the commentators over at Frank the Tank are busy arguing over whether the Big 10 will be taking some of the ACC or all of the ACC.  The blog author, himself, is focused on the division realignments with Rutgers and Maryland coming aboard soon enough:

It appears that the Big Ten office is heeding the calls for the “Keep It Simple Stupid” approach of dividing the soon-to-be 14-team conference into East and West divisions, with Michigan State heading East with Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers and Maryland, the West having Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota and the only debate being where Indiana and Purdue will be placed.  IU-PU will then be the only protected cross-division rivalry.

It’s a pretty Big 10 centric place.  They are trying to decide whether 14, 16, 20, 80, or 200 teams is best.

The SEC–Mr. SEC has quoted the Missouri athletic director Mike Alden as essentially saying that the SEC will stay at 14 teams unless it decides not to.  Sounds like they are not doing anything.  Unless they do.

The Pac-12–This conference is in Monopoly jail.  Nowhere to go expansion-wise.  Unless Texas decides to come west, who would they add?  Boise State is not academically suited, nor is UNLV.  San Diego State and New Mexico are not worth expanding.  BYU is too religious.  So much for that.

The Big XII–nothing new to report on this front.

The ACC–nothing new to report on this front, other than the expectations of future pillaging.

The Big East–is now a basketball conference, having added Butler, Creighton, and Xavier.  They also have the name The Big East, having taken that from the Big East leftovers.  With Marquette and DePaul joining those three in the West, and Georgetown, Seton Hall, Villanova, St. Johns, and Providence in the East, that is not too shabby of a hoops conference.

The Big East leftovers now have a new name– the American Athletic Conference.  Tulsa is the latest addition to this group.

Conference USA– is thinking about going to 16 teams.  Heck, the Confidential did not even know that they had 14, especially after the American Athletic Conference has taken so many.  Western Kentucky will be taking Tulsa’s spot.

Beyond that it just gets way too confusing.  Too many moving parts.

 

The American Athletic Confidential Looms?

Posted on by acaffrey

As we know, the Big East is no longer.  Well, that’s not true exactly, as the Catholic 7 are taking the Big East name, adding a few schools, and carrying on the business of basketball relevance.  The Big East leftovers, as they have been called, are apparently set to choose a new name–the American Athletic Conference.

Apparently, teams like Connecticut and Temple were tired of the jokes about the Big East having, albeit temporarily, San Diego State and Boise State in a conference in the “east.”  No longer will this be a problem, as the American Athletic is large enough to encompass anyone–from Maine to Hawaii.  If you are an American school, you can be invited someday.  And perhaps will.

The Confidential thinks the AAC members sold themselves short.  American Athletic Conference is a name that is waiting to be dissolved, like Conference USA.  There is nothing about it that fuses the teams together.  American?  Check.  Athletic?  Check.  Wanna be part of our conference?  Check.  Welcome to the Club.  Vanilla.

The question that begs is whether people will get the AAC and the ACC confused?  Maybe that is what the AAC is hoping for.

Of course, the Confidential wonders whether it is time to franchise.  Anyone want to star the AmericanAthleticConfidential?  C’mon, all you Houston, SMU, and Tulsa fans…

 

 

Huge News: West Virginia to ACC in 2014-2015!

Posted on by acaffrey

The ACC and West Virginia have scheduled a press conference for 3:00 p.m. today to announce that the Mountaineers will become a full-time member in the ACC for the 2014-2015 season.  West Virginia was able to extricate itself from the Grant of Rights on the basis that both sides just felt that it was a mistake, couple with the fact that Brigham Young is finally ready to join the Big XII.  With 13 teams being unwieldy, and no suitable schools for a 14th, this just made the most sense.  The oft-discussed cooperative efforts of the Big XII and the ACC came into play obviously too.

Winners:  West Virginia, obviously.  Gets to reinvigorate rivalries with Pitt, Syracuse, and Virginia Tech.  The ACC–gets a football school to help placate the masses, while awaiting a Notre Dame decision.  The Big XII–West Virginia was always a geographical outlier.  BYU–they almost lost out on being at the grown-up’s table.  This salvages that.  The Big East leftovers–this stabilizes expansion for a while.  Hopefully.

Losers: Connecticut and Cincinnati.  They are plainly on the outside right now.   They will have to wait for defections from the ACC, which seem a bit less likely now.  Maryland, who considers West Virginia a rival, for some reason.

Big Losers: Us, for posting this April Fool’s Joke in such a very cruel manner.   Those people who will not realize that this is an April Fool’s Joke and/or post on Twitter that it is.  Nobody likes a spoiler.