(03-14-2017 03:23 PM)YNot Wrote: (03-08-2017 04:54 PM)JRsec Wrote: Now what I'm about to say falls into the purely unreal category (and not what I would want personally), but if I was the commissioner of the ACC and the head of ESPN I think I would work out something like this to offer to the SEC:
Auburn, Vanderbilt, and Texas head to the ACC. In return the SEC gets Kansas, Oklahoma and N.C. State and West Virginia. Notre Dame remains an independent and now you have two conferences that are essentially equivalent. The end of season rivalries are now the cream of the crop Texas / A&M, Auburn / Alabama, Vanderbilt / Tennessee, Florida / Florida State, Georgia / Georgia Tech, Louisville / Kentucky, North Carolina / N.C. State, and WVU/Pitt.
The ACC gets more football gravitas. Florida State, Clemson, and Georgia Tech get an old rival back to boost ticket sales. Auburn keeps both Georgia and Alabama as out of conference games. Florida keeps both Florida State and Miami as out of conference games. The SEC lands Oklahoma to replace Auburn, Kansas to replace Vanderbilt, and gets a Eastern markets with N.C. State & WVU. IMO N.C. State makes WVU more valuable. And the ACC becomes more Southeastern in makeup and entry into two more states to recruit one of which is solid.
Now I don't want Auburn in the ACC but if you want to set up competitive conferences to boost TV ratings all season long something like this would be a smart move. Now if anything like this ever gets done, IMO, it will be under a league concept with a merger.
But I'm just throwing this out for a new line of discussion. Geographically it makes more sense to swap brands between ESPN properties than it does to suggest that something similar could ever occur between the holdings of separate networks.
Then, the B1G engulfs the ACC and Oklahoma flips to the B1G. The B1G and SEC divide the PAC. Notre Dame finally commits to a conference.
The Big 10 is not nearly in as favorable a position with sports moving forward as the SEC. They have to average 5 million more in TV rights (which they don't) just to break even with the SEC in overall revenue per school.
The CIC is nice but it doesn't get you grants, just gets you to share them, and it doesn't give you membership in AAU. That is purely up to the school applying.
In the end they are still fine schools but in a region that is still bleeding opportunities outside of its major cities. And because of the population shifts they are slowly losing representation and have to recruit the South and West coast to compete. What they have that the SEC has also is passion.
If Oklahoma ever says hello to the Big 10 it will be the last time you hear about them in athletics. None of their recruits come from the North and they depend upon Texas and California connections to compete.
I have to think that with the next round of TV contracts that some of the ACC schools will start looking around for 2034.
What's lost in all of this is that really only Texas could give the Big 10 enough to be worth taking. Kansas is likely below their ability to get into the Big 10 when the Big 10 payouts are at 42 Million plus. The BTN already has solid markets in Kansas and the Big 10 isn't basketball poor. Oklahoma gives them some football gravitas but doesn't multiply its value as it would in the SEC.
My bet is that the Big 10 waits and goes after either a close association with the PAC, or they once again make a play for Duke, North Carolina, Virginia and Notre Dame, and even possibly Pittsburgh and Syracuse.
The SEC could easily finish out with Virginia Tech, N.C. State, Florida State, Clemson, Oklahoma & Georgia Tech if the Big 10 made a big push East.
A fourth conference would form out of the best of the G5 and the rest of the left behind P4.
New P4 Conference:
Army, Boston College, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville
East Carolina, Memphis, Navy, Wake Forest, West Virginia
Air Force, B.Y.U., Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State
Baylor, Central Florida, Houston, Miami, South Florida
The PAC could then add Texas, T.C.U., Texas Tech, Kansas, one of the Nevada's, New Mexico and either stop 18 or add two more. If they took Iowa State and Oklahoma State from the new P4 then that conference adds Colorado State or possibly North Dakota.
But you get the general idea. Both the SEC and Big 10 would profit the most out of the ACC. The PAC's only real options are a few local G5's to promote and the present members of the Big 12.