(04-11-2021 10:53 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote: With regard to creating more financially meaningful ACC-ND games...
Last season was a media ratings bonanza for ESPN and NBC. Hopefully the one-time, first-time-ever, all-in Fighting Irish conference membership was the start of more calculated risk taking. The pandemic allowed all parties to fully experience the benefits and costs of an expanded conference membership...I don’t believe any party lost in the one-time arrangement.
Maybe the occasional neutral site scheduling is an option for creating better ratings and value...that could be a low risk scheduling approach. Maybe experiment with 4 games for 3 seasons and 8 games every fourth season...that is a medium risk scheduling approach. Paradoxically, ND could actually gain scheduling flexibility in certain years while the ACC could gain a more robust membership in other years. The point is that the media and fans love one-time events...therefore, create events that generate excitement.
I think that trying to sell the idea to ND of 8 ACC games in any one (non-Covid) season would be a very tough sell.
Its not very likely to happen.
As for your bolded text (and as I wrote in another thread), the reaction many ND fans had to playing ten ACC games in 2020 was not the one that ACC fans expected.
It felt awfully constrictive and repetitive to ND fans who welcomed and felt liberated by a return to an independent football schedule.
In 2020, ND proved it could compete for a conference title and make the playoffs as a conference member.
It proved it could do that. Check that box. Nobody can use that argument against ND again. Done.
But, ND's "reward" for going undefeated in the ACC regular season and beating Clemson was.....having to play and beat Clemson a second time.
In 2018, ND went undefeated in the regular season and made the playoffs as an independent.
It also proved it could do that. It also checked that box. Nobody can use that argument against ND again. Done.
In retrospect, ACC membership in 2020 didn't really help ND's playoff chances all that much. Seems a wash, at best.
The argument that conference membership presented an "easier" path for ND to make the playoffs took a dent.
Ironically, 2020 has led many at ND to more strongly embrace football independence.