(09-07-2023 05:02 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(09-06-2023 12:25 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  By 2036, what is now part of The ACC, minus a couple of teams will be merged with The Big 12 as part of what will be for all practical purposes Division II.

Anyone who thinks 10-12 ACC teams are going to cut their own throats and let relegation start 6 years before it needs to is crazy.

A league that can’t agree on growing to increase revenue won’t be agreeing on anything to let teams leave early.

I agree that there will be a Division II, what I would question is the concept of the ACC and Big 12 merging.
To what end? A unified TV contract? Scheduling? Administration?

Cost cutting, survival.

When John Swofford's ACC first started expanding, I figured the conference was assembling a jigsaw puzzle that would look something like this when finished:

Boston College
Connecticut
Syracuse
Rutgers
Pittsburgh
Penn State
Temple (or Navy)
Maryland
Virginia Tech
Virginia
NC State
North Carolina
Duke
Wake Forest
Clemson
Georgia Tech
Florida State
Miami

A fine stripe of north-to-south territory claiming the US East coast.

(09-07-2023 05:54 AM)Garrettabc Wrote:  

(09-07-2023 05:02 AM)XLance Wrote:  I agree that there will be a Division II, what I would question is the concept of the ACC and Big 12 merging.
To what end? A unified TV contract? Scheduling? Administration?

Cost cutting, survival.

M leagues merging at the top level makes a lot of sense for practical reasons. Two big subdivisions within it could still correspond recognisably to today's B12 and ACC.

It would work rather like the AFL and NFL merger that resulted in an AFC and an NFC within one league.

(09-07-2023 08:09 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(09-07-2023 05:54 AM)Garrettabc Wrote:  

(09-07-2023 05:02 AM)XLance Wrote:  I agree that there will be a Division II, what I would question is the concept of the ACC and Big 12 merging.
To what end? A unified TV contract? Scheduling? Administration?

Cost cutting, survival.

M leagues merging at the top level makes a lot of sense for practical reasons. Two big subdivisions within it could still correspond recognisably to today's B12 and ACC.

It would work rather like the AFL and NFL merger that resulted in an AFC and an NFC within one league.

If there is only 1 M conference, then can it really be called an M conference? I think it wouid be lumped among the P conferences. An ACC-Big12 merger would do just that and they wouid be able to align geographically for at least the non-rev sports and eliminate some overhead with 1 office. If nothing else, it wouid be a merger between the 2 best basketball playing conferences and it might be profitable enough to get UConn and Gonzaga involved and hold a near monopoly on the best basketball brands.

(09-07-2023 09:58 AM)Garrettabc Wrote:  

(09-07-2023 08:09 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  M leagues merging at the top level makes a lot of sense for practical reasons. Two big subdivisions within it could still correspond recognisably to today's B12 and ACC.

It would work rather like the AFL and NFL merger that resulted in an AFC and an NFC within one league.

If there is only 1 M conference, then can it really be called an M conference? I think it wouid be lumped among the P conferences. An ACC-Big12 merger would do just that and they wouid be able to align geographically for at least the non-rev sports and eliminate some overhead with 1 office. If nothing else, it wouid be a merger between the 2 best basketball playing conferences and it might be profitable enough to get UConn and Gonzaga involved and hold a near monopoly on the best basketball brands.

Yes, it can really be called an M conference. Key reasons for having a structure that big are regulatory standards, media contract negotiations, collective bargaining, and revenue distribution. In the new landscape schools need more than one 'league' taking that role but they do not need many. The need is to have standardisation without creating monopoly.

So I figure, M# level is one league, P# level is another. A glance at revenues and budgets will make it apparent pretty quickly which is which.

Another way to accomplish the same thing, if schools find it practical, is for two leagues to form, each with its own P/M varsity/JV divisions inside it. It's not hard to imagine a future descendant of the ACC, say, functioning as the M level for a future B1G Ten under the same administrative organisation.