(01-05-2018 02:14 PM)XLance Wrote:  You're wrong JR. The market model is dead only when ESPN says it's dead.







and as long as the SECN contract is in force the market model will live on in some form or fashion.

You are correct about Texas and Oklahoma being a better fit for the SEC than anywhere else except for leading their own conference which we know with the schools that are available that it won't work financially.
The same holds true for a good portion of the ACC being a better fit for the B1G.
Would ESPN sell off the ACCN to the B1G/FOX in exchange for complete control in the rest of the country?
That would create two leagues with 30-34 schools.
The ACC plus the B1G and add Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Colorado, Notre Dame for 33.
The SEC plus the PAC (minus Colorado) adding West Virginia, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, and TCU for 32 (you could add BYU to get to 33, too).

There's some kind of weird schadenfreude going on in that post.

But it's not happening.

If the Big 10 ever takes ACC schools it will be the Northeastern ones. But most likely the PAC stays at 12. The Big 10 adds two of Kanas, Iowa State or UConn, the SEC picks up Texa-homa, and the ACC adds West Virginia and N.D. in full.

The we have 62 P schools. PAC:12, B1G: 16, ACC: 16, SEC: 18.

The rest of the Big 12 gets absorbed into the AAC or a Western G5 conference.

Why else would ESPN be willing to wait until 2025? They don't want to have to pay all of the Big 12 schools P5 wages.

The only alternative strategy that might one day emerge would be to send Pitt, Syracuse, B.C., N.D., Virginia, Duke and North Carolina to the Big 10 to maximize basketball content value while sending Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Virginia Tech and N.C. State to the SEC for football content value. But that's decades off while there is still a breath in the football lungs in the different regions of the nation. But as that breath dies, I think you will see a concentration in the Southeast and Southwest to keep the sport going.

What I hear most from you Xlance is a pining for the more familial days of the 8 school ACC.

Virginia, Maryland, Duke, North Carolina, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Clemson, & South Carolina. I can see you still adding Georgia Tech for 9 and Virginia Tech for 10 but that's about what you would love to have. The Northeastern schools don't fit culturally with your core anymore than Florida State and Miami do. And then there is Louisville who crashes the party like no other.

So most of your posts come back to this same theme with some variation of we will self destruct in the Big 10 before we ever concede that the SEC was right in the reasons they left the Southern Conference.

That's fine. And I can identify and accept that. But that's not what ESPN wanted was it? They betrayed the ACC core identity to profit from your product on the cheap and added so many different types of schools that your identity is hard to recognize most days.

I really think you would be happier to lop off the Northern schools, let Florida State, Louisville and Miami come to the SEC, and take Kentucky, South Carolina and Vanderbilt in exchange.

Then you could still have your 12 with 2 divisions.

Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina

Maryland, N.C. State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest

Is that ACC Nirvana?

Then more in line with what Spurrier suggested the SEC would have:

Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Louisville, Miami, Tennessee

Alabama, Arkansas, L.S.U., Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Texas A&M

So if we then picked up Texas and Oklahoma then Alabama would slide East and the conference would be set.

Now I could live with that.