(03-10-2017 02:24 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(03-10-2017 01:54 PM)omniorange Wrote:  

(03-10-2017 10:56 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-10-2017 10:20 AM)orangefan Wrote:  

(03-10-2017 08:52 AM)XLance Wrote:  You Big East guys are all alike.
It's just like the new kid in the neighborhood that moved in from somewhere else where everything was bigger and better than it is here. We all know this attitude is born out of insecurity. Sometimes that kid grows up, adapts, and learns to appreciate where he is.
That's my hope for you Syracuse and Pitt guys.

I, for one, absolutely do appreciate the opportunity to play in the ACC. However, for anyone to suggest that the ACC "rescued" our basketball, is completely false. The realignment has been mutually beneficial in basketball for the reasons that I have described. It was not bigger and better there than it is here now. It was bigger and better there than it was here then. In fact, the new ACC looks like it will be bigger and better than it was there then.

It would be fair to say, though, that the ACC did rescue our football. However, at the time the ACC started the recent realignment process, it was in desperate need to renegotiate it long term, under market television deal. The initial addition of Syracuse and Pittsburgh immediately increased the annual payout for every school in the conference from $13 million to $17 million and laid the ground work for later improvements to the TV deal. This was all masterfully managed by Swofford and the ACC team, but needed the right additions to make it work. Pittsburgh, at least, was actively talking to the Big 12, so there was never a guarantee that the ACC could even get the schools it wanted or needed (imagine if the B12 now had Pittsburgh, Louisville and Notre Dame along with WVU).

Your phrasing makes it sound as if Syracuse and Pitt were the cause of that increased payout from ESPN. That is, that it wouldn't have happened otherwise. The arithmetic of that suggests that Pitt and Syracuse were each worth three times what the other schools in the ACC were. I'm not buying that.

Understand your point. But the ACC wasn't getting anywhere near the increase they got without any expansion at all. Perhaps it didn't need to be Syracuse and Pitt, it might very well have been Rutgers and WVU (as Woad Blue once advocated), though I doubt the raise would have been as high with those two teams.

The reasons:

1) With the Big East trying to leave ESPN at that time (rejecting the deal the WWL in sports put on the table - and thereby creating the pool of money any ACC increase might get) ESPN was willing to pay more for an expansion that meant the death of the Big East as a hybrid conference of significance to reduce the overall value of the conference to a competitor. And as long as Syracuse (and Pitt to a certain degree) remained in the Big East, the football-centric schools and the basketball-centric schools were going to try and survive and make a go of it.

2) With Pitt on board (and Syracuse to a lesser degree) along with the ACC already having BC and the southern recruiting areas of Florida and Georgia, ESPN was anticipating that when the Big East eventually imploded ND would look to greener pastures for its olympic sports and turn toward the ACC with the conference getting a football scheduling agreement. ND football games mean $$$, as the ratings so far for these games on ABC has shown. (Although they could be monetized even more, but to do that the ACC would have to do something they will likely never do, for reasons I actually support).

So technically, maybe it didn't need to be Syracuse and Pitt, but I doubt no expansion or expansion with any other combo would have gotten the increase the ACC eventually received. So orangefan's point is also valid.

It was a gamble, but one that did pay off for both sides - the ACC and ESPN.

Cheers,
Neil

Rutgers and West Virginia would have been a pure football move. It would have combined the largest football fan base in the Big East and at the time the fan base that was growing fast into the second largest (Rutgers).
What the ACC opted for was the biggest name in basketball in the northeast and the historically best football program.

Disagree. The pure football move would have been either WVU and Pitt or WVU and Louisville.

The second largest football fan base after Miami and VT left the Big East belonged to Pitt. The second best on the field football program actually belonged to Cincinnati, with Louisville having the most upside giving them the edge in my eyes (having won a BCS caliber bowl game back in 2004 vs Boise and defeating Wake in the Orange).

Way back in 2006 when both the Knights and the Cardinals had great seasons, it was Louisville in my eyes that gave off the feel that I was witnessing the next WVU/VT program coming on the horizon. And I admit, I was envious it wasn't SU going through a renaissance of their 60s and late 80s through 90s form.

Back to the attendance factor, Louisville was third best except for the nadir years of CRAPthorpe whereas Rutgers' band-wagon fans had yet to be tested with either a dip back down to mediocrity or loss of Schiano (who no matter what one thinks of him as an actual coach, did get the most out of Rutgers) to see what increase their couple of good years actually yielded.

A test that still is meaningless today due to the influx of Michigan, PSU, Ohio State, Michigan State and Maryland fans in the NYC area to games at Rutgers as well as the Baltimore/DC area easy travel for Terps fans. Compare that to what Louisville attendance has done in a P5 conference with Papa John's Stadium filled with Cardinals fans and one can see why Rutgers was likely never going to surpass the Cardinals in terms of potential attendance and fan support.

Rutgers was all about their proximity to NYC more so than their football fan base or actual football prowess - the same reason they were admitted to the B1G.

Not that I think your post was challenging it, but I stand by my above post as to the reasons why the additions of Syracuse and Pitt were done, and why it actually helped the ACC way more than any other realistic expansion combo possibly could have in terms of TV contract money.

As I have said many times over the years, I just wish the ACC had bit the bullet and invited WVU, Pitt, SU, and Louisville back in 2011 and then when Maryland left invited UConn to replace the Terps.

Notre Dame would still have come for all sports other than football.

Cheers,
Neil