(10-30-2025 04:53 AM)XLance Wrote: Every expansion has an upside or they wouldn't have been made, but we have come to the fork in the road where any expansion may carry downside as well.
The SEC has been so smart and consistent about their choices, but any further expansion no carry risks.
Of the four schools oft mentioned (FSU, Clemson, Carolina and UVa) for SEC expansion, each pair carries risk.
Florida State and Clemson would fit like a glove into SEC culture, but these are the two schools the SEC needs the least.
The SEC already owns the markets, or at least a good share where those schools are located. Adding FSU and Clemson only mean increased competition for resources for very little increase in revenue.
Carolina and Virginia on the other hand are total opposites. Neither are cultural fits for the SEC, but the potential market means that the pair could offer a financial boon to the conference. The downside is that the uneasy fit could create friction within the conference which is something the sec does not experience now.
the other overriding negative is that taking all four weakens the asset value of the acc and reduces the profitability of espn.
a real quandary.
not really.
you set up self-described strawmen, assign subjective values, and then proceed to dismiss them.
for example, "market". you seem to be calling market by the state a school is in. the thing is, a market is who is buying the product, not who is selling it. so, for example, fsu's "market" is media companies. and the market for media companies is nationwide-anywhere they have distribution. now the "presumption" is the product will be consumed more in their home metropolitan area and state, but it's not necessarily limited to or by that. and even if it were, Florida is a large state with several demographic regions.
and that's just "market"
Your last sentence is full of presumed values arbitrarily set by you.
To start with, with -perhaps- the exception of the unique case of Notre Dame, the ACC could lose
any 3 schools and still have a media deal until 2036.
While I understand that fans like to think in simple binary fashion - "they won the game"/"they lost the game"; "they're a good school"/"they're a bad school"; "they're additive"/"they're a drain on resources" - in reality, that's not how a media company works.
In general, they pay
conferences not individual schools. So it's simply a question of whether a conference can provide matchups that generate eyeballs (which make money in several ways, not just ad dollars. Transmission fees and gaining and keeping subscriptions are examples of a few others), which translates into a return on the media partner's investment.
Which means the value of the product is its marketed brand acceptance. On the field results can help marketing, but they really are a small part of it.
People like to make fun of the big10 trophies, but they are marketing tools - and in general, have been pretty effective.
So I know everyone wants to think their school is awesomely irreplaceable, but every school - even Notre Dame - can be replaced.
Now, sometimes it's not a 1:1 replacement. Either because the brand value needs to be accounted for, or (more commonly) the media partner would like more schools' matchups to select from for a particular platform and/or time slot. The "lose 2, add 4" that we've seen in the past. Well conferences are bigger than 8-12 members these days, so selection options would seem to be less of a concern.
The ACC only needs 15 schools for their current deal, so by adding Stanford, Cal, and SMU, they can lose 3 and not even need to backfill.
Now, the real question is whether FSU, Clemson, North Carolina, and/or Virginia bring any sort of values to the SEC. Of course marketable sports brand is one value - one that is usually talked about around here. Football in particular. But there are many other synergistic values which a school brings to a conference, and sports value isn't necessarily the most important. Think of it this way, internally conferences interact with each other as individual schools. But the media partner is licensing a stable of horses, not individuals. So individual sports brand value is less important. It's about averages over a season and over the several seasons of the media deal.
And even this description is far incomplete compared to the statistical models made and used by the parties in question.
Anyway, so much for subjective determinations and preconceived notions.
At the end of the day, we're more in the dark than the light about these things.
But we do get clues sometimes. For example, were the lawsuits of FSU and Clemson merely Hail Mary plays done in the dark with no hope of payoff? Rather unlikely.
And we repeatedly hear that Fox wants the big10 into the state of Florida. And that the University of North Carolina may want to move and could be a target, and that they may be bringing a friend. And also that the SEC may want to expand into the the states of North Carolina and Virginia. And here we are.
So yes, I think that when the exit cost is nearer to 75M, FSU, Clemson, NC, and VA will be joining the SEC. Will there be others? Who knows.
But if the SEC adds those, then the Big10 adds Miami and Duke, and Georgia Tech could be on the menu as well. Will they add others? Maybe. There's apparently been grumbling about the need to shore up their western flank for scheduling reasons. So we'll see.
Can the ACC "survive" losing 6 schools? Sure, easily. The PAC torched itself apparently due to (among other things), internal squabbling, too high expectations during market turmoil, talk of unequal revenue sharing, no exit fees, and so on. It's VERY unlikely we'll see that with the ACC. If anything, the most disruptive schools are among the 6 that are presumably leaving.
As for backfill, they only "need" 3. And most lists include USF, UConn, and Tulane. I also think Colorado could be on the menu as well.
So no, the only quandry is guessing if certain schools will actually pay the 75M to leave. We just saw a coach buyout of 39M - So who knows...
/
Where is the upside to SEC expansion?
