(08-09-2022 11:48 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: Here's the thing: the ACC was actually "proactive" in getting the GOR and long-term ESPN contract into place.
They're serving their intended purpose: keeping the conference together!
Remember that the ACC feared that there were going to be more defectors from the league after Maryland went to the Big Ten, so that's why the league signed the GOR and entered into such a long-term deal with ESPN. Schools like FSU, UNC and Clemson signed off on the GOR and long-term ESPN deal because they cared more about the security of the league than flexibility in seeking other conference options as free agents. The fact that it's now a disadvantage to those schools a few years later doesn't mean that the GOR and ESPN contract aren't doing *exactly* what they're supposed to do.
I'm constantly perplexed by people's surprise that conferences are set up to protect the "screwed" (e.g. Wake Forest and similarly situated schools at the bottom of the ACC totem pole) as opposed to advantaging the "screwers". Bylaws and contracts are create to *protect* the conference in virtually every way possible as opposed to finding loopholes or easy ways to destroy them. Schools like FSU, UNC and Clemson can't turn around and get mad at the ACC for not being "proactive" when the league took the exact steps that it needed to in order to preserve the league after the Maryland defection.
In that situation, at the time, it appeared to be a little of both.
just from what I read and watched on the news, I had the impression that FSU and clemson wanted the SEC, and behind-the-scenes were declined/not invited.
While people were nervous that the AAU schools might go to the big10.
Delaney seems to be asking every AAU school out there whether they were interested, even vanderbilt (who apparently declined). And NC was his alma mater.
So there were concerns.
ND didn't want to join a conference that was about to implode.
And espn was helping them set up a network.
so I think it was a little of both. but it felt a lot like desperation.
The proactive one was Delaney, reaching out to find out about interest. and apparently not doing in quietly - which is a choice, to be sure.
And so here we are, in a similar situation. Everyone wondering what the B10 and the SEC will do. this time because media money dwarfs other conferences, and no one wants to be left behind.
What do you do as a school to be proactive?
What do you do as a conference to be proactive?
Each has raw materials and options. So what do they do with them?
When talking about realignment poaching, we all seem to be talking about the PAC/B12/ACC conferences, the schools in them, and a few other schools from the old big east.
But that's because we're nice.
The big10's deal is now over a billion dollars.
At what point do they look at the SEC and say "I want one of those, and one of those..."
So in the meantime, we'll all talk about the possible - That the Big ten could go after KS, or maybe the NC/VA cluster, or maybe the other AAU or florida schools in the AAC, or maybe the PAC schools - slooowly.
But in the meantime, the business people are going to look at the whole board. including the professional sports, and weigh options.
As for holding together - I think you're right that the ACC GoR has been very effective - so far. The length of it (and of the media deal) may be its eventual undoing, and could lead to ACC dissolution. But for now, it's seeming to be effective.
And I agree, it's not the conferences that will be looking at WF and other such schools in big conferences, it's the media companies. "Why are we paying this much for
that? We should be paying less..."