(05-25-2025 07:14 AM)murrdcu Wrote:  

(05-25-2025 01:48 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-25-2025 12:02 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(05-22-2025 11:43 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(05-22-2025 11:12 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  UNC and Duke seems like a move that ESPN would want to make as well. Not that they haven't separated rivals before, but basketball season on ESPN is very different without the regular promotion of both those brands and the rivalry. Duke is a favorite of the promoters and marketers in Bristol so that very much makes sense.

The only real hurdle I see to that, assuming it's UNC's desire, is the power players in the State of NC making an issue of Duke getting the parachute instead of NC State. That to me was one of the reasons a VA school made sense as a partner for UNC. In that scenario, no, the 2nd state doesn't get to go, but neither does the elite private. UNC by themselves is more justifiable from a political perspective compared to a private school that doesn't represent very many people in the state. In the absence of an in-state rival, a closely related out-of-state rival made a lot of sense...especially coming from a market the SEC hadn't already penetrated.

It will all boil down to what is in the greatest mutual self interest of both the SEC and ESPN. The SEC will be amenable to adding 2 or adding 4 if the 4 are the right schools.

ESPN will be amenable to what protects the greatest % of their holdings. If it is easier to hold the ACC together with just the loss of FSU then that's what happens. If Clemson is hellbent on leaving the N.D. deal at least helps hold some things together. If Clemson is staying it elevates both schools' SOS.

I think the worse case scenario for ESPN would be UNC insisting on leaving. Moving the 1 or both football brands along with UNC would erode the holdings quite a bit for ESPN. If it's UNC, Duke, Clemson and FSU the SEC would be getting the best 4 brands the ACC has to offer and ESPN would be keeping them, but the rest would have a tough time maintaining value. That could destabilize Miami and Notre Dame.

It will get interesting.

This scenario wouldn't exactly be the betting favorite move, but let's say UNC and company are set on trying to save the ACC. Let's say ESPN would prefer that for the time being.

Florida State and Clemson could leave and the above priority could still be met.

Doing some quick math on the schedules. We currently have 16 schools playing 8 games a piece. That's 128 SEC games. If we added a 9th game with the current membership that we've bumped up the total to 144. If we had 18 members and 9 games then that total is 162. If we had 20 members and 9 games then that's all the way up to 180 games. That's a massive leap in available content over what we have as of today.

FSU and Clemson will help quite well. Going from 128 to 162 is an additional 34 games and if it's consumed with quality football programming then that sounds like a boon. Going to 180 games and 20 members with football powers would be good too, but that's not happening unless we're penetrating the ACC further. Personally, I would be fine with adding Virginia Tech and Miami.

In that scenario, we can figure out the basketball powers later. True enough that Notre Dame might be ready to depart in that scenario, but maybe not? If UNC and crew are sticking around then they can rebuild with Irish-friendly new members.

Twenty members and 180 games and you still need a bit of a bell curve. Why not address the bell curve with a couple of stellar hoops brands?

You beef up football with Clemson and FSU. North Carolina with Belichick will be an item. Duke helps with the bell curve but adds a major hoops brand to pair with Kentucky and North Carolina until the SEC's new brands are accepted more nationally.

If the ACC loses traction, you make that jump to 24. At that time Virginia Tech, Miami, maybe N.C. State to complete the Research Triangle, and one of Virginia or Kansas does all that is needed to protect the markets ESPN dominates. The football schools add to the middle, Kansas winds up the brand or Virginia the academic angle.

Now you have 198 truly marketable football games and you dominate hoops. And frankly none of it hurts with Softball, Baseball, or Women's Basketball.

It will come down to what ESPN wants. Kick that around some.

I have to believe that foursome of UNC, FSU, CU and Duke are probably the first four out the door as there has not even been a peek leaking out of the state of Virginia. These three schools over against ACC expansion in order to keep the exit paths less complicated to leave while Duke has supposedly been the most aggressive socializing school since e the settlement was announced. Virginia may need an ACC implosion to politically move away from the ACC.

Virginia may just need to be marketable to get away. Their numbers just don't work for either the SEC or Big Ten, though both conferences truly wished they did. Each would love to have the flagship of the State of Virginia in their ranks, but the networks and number crunchers simply can't justify it. Toss in that Virginia is not a state that has steller support numbers for college athletics and it becomes even more difficult to justify. Truly from a numbers standpont Virginia Tech is the healthier consideration.

If a conference took both Virginia and Virginia Tech they still wouldn't dominate the market of the state the way Texas/Texas A&M, Florida/FSU, or UNC/Duke or N.C. State would. Nor is the state like Georgia where UGA dominates college sports viewership with an 85% share throughout all areas of the state not in the Atlanta DMA and 52% of the Atlanta DMA share. Texas, Florida, and Georgia all have a large % of college sports viewers. Not Virginia.

The Big 10 presidents would love to add Virginia as an academic stalwart and another Beltway presence, like Maryland. The networks only see even another Stanford. The time was the Cavaliers always had solid basketball to go with mediocre football. For a brief time under Walsh, they had a solid football product. Now they have neither a dominant hoops program nor a mediocre football program.

Entertainment value is now the organizing principle of an athletic conference. Athletics are no longer the byproduct of an academic conference. And that's the issue facing some dramatically solid academic schools which could not imagine a world where their classroom achievements would not be enough to merit their inclusion.