Crazy Expansion Idea #48500287691
Alright, well the established expansion talk centers around Nebraska and Missouri being combined with an assortment of Big East schools or some form of Texas contingent. I'm here to bring forth a completely off the wall idea that's kind of out there, but would be a great situation.
Assuming Nebraska and Missouri are in, the conventional knowledge is that we need 1-3 more schools to round out the conference. Instead of going for Notre Dame, Big East castoffs or the crown jewel in Texas why not expand to the South East? There are rumors the SEC will respond to expansion by raiding the ACC for Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Clemson. So why don't we push them in that direction even more quickly by pre-emptively striking and murdering the ACC? We could steal North Carolina, Duke and Virginia Tech. This gives a one established football power and the basketball equivalent to Michigan/Ohio State in terms of rivalry. North Carolina and Duke are elite academic institutions while Virginia Tech is on par with Michigan State and Indiana. The only hang up would be getting Virginia Tech into the AAU, but I feel that is something that could be worked out. They aren't exactly a lightweight in that area. This would give us a footprint extending from the Atlantic coast to the great plains spanning twelve states. North Carolina and Virginia combine to have just shy of 18 million people which is around four to five million more households for the Big Ten network to expand into. Duke and North Carolina have the added benefit of bringing in national fanbases in basketball. The Big 10 immediately surpasses the Big East in terms of basketball supremacy and the football side gets two established powers in Nebraska and Virginia Tech while North Carolina and Duke seem to be heading in the right direction on those fronts.
So what do you guys thin, good idea or should I really chill out and get some sleep?
(1) Duke and Carolina would never move to B10 because their travel costs would soar and they would be swapping what is effectively a basketball conference (where everyone bows to them) for a football conference (where they would play second fiddle to the football powerhouses)
(2) Money is made in football not basketball and match-ups of Michigan v. Duke and OSU v. Carolina in football just wouldn't be all that compelling; TX and ND are the home runs for a reason and that reason is football; Nebraska and Pitt also probably would generate higher football ratings than Duke and Carolina; remember, every time you add a team it is one more mouth to feed, so unless they can bring in at least $25 million the B10 would soon be going backward in terms of revenue per team
(3) V Tech is not AAU and AAU is by invitation only; V Tech can't just apply and get themselves in no matter how much the B10 would want it
If you want basketball schools, Kansas might be available soon and Pitt and Syracuse almost certainly would love to join B10, though again whether they bring the requisite $25 million in revenue is questionable
I'm pretty sure you completely missed my entire post.
1. The whole idea is that the ACC is going to explode anyway. We are pre-emptively nudging it in that direction.
2. There is no way Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Rutgers or UConn could generate the kind of money Duke, North Carolina and Virginia Tech could.
3. Virginia Tech is a legitimate institution and according to World News(I know not the best way to determine this) they are tied with the low end current Big 10 schools and significantly better than Missouri. If the Big 10 wanted them they could easily round up an AAU invite since for the Hokies.
this move will be made for football money, sir. don't even worry about the ancillaries. the footprint expands, but not much more than pitt, et all from the BEast. If they're going to purge the ACC, look north to Maryland and the Balt/DC metro market they are in.
This seems to be boiling down to this: eyeballs for the Big Ten Network and AAU membership. So, here is my ideal:
Pickup from Big 12: Missouri and Nebraska
Pickup from AAC: Maryland and Virginia
Pickup from Big East: Rutgers
It's a geographically contiguous conference with a strong eastern component. You pickup great media markets, particularly St. Louis, Kansas City and D.C. New Jersey is the 11th most populous state and has only one major state university. And they are all members of the AAU so Mary Sue Coleman and her colleagues can feel better that it isn't all about money.
Added bonus: We get to tell Notre Dame to take a long walk off a short pier.
You pick up 10 senators and their clout w/r/t research grants.
Sadly, there's no way UVA and MD are in play (for state political reasons) unless the ACC becomes obviously destabilized by SEC expansion.
In what world are you living? Yes, maybe ... maybe, a team or two will get picked off by the SEC, though most of the teams in the ACC would never even consider moving to that conference based on academics alone. And the ACC just negotiated new TV contracts that substantially close the gap with the SEC in revenue per team anyway. Any teams picked off by the SEC will be quickly replaced by the ACC snagging replacement teams from the Big East (they have done this before, if you recall).
I don't know much about how expansion is going to fall out, but I know one thing for certain: the ACC will be one of the survivors when the dust settles for exactly the reason that they have schools like Duke and Carolina.
A link for details on the ACC's new TV deal is here:
http://ncaabasketball.fanhouse.com/2010/05/17/report-espn-wins-acc-tele…
One final point. The idea that the B10 can twist arms or wave a magic wand to get V Tech into AAU is about as off base as you can get. The AAU is a collection of the top 63 research universities in the country. This means most of the Ivy Leage, all of the Big Ten, the top schools in the Pac 10 and, incidentally, teams such as Texas, Missouri, and Nebraska. Admission is by invitation only and invites are rare (requires a vote of the existing members). I highly doubt the above schools would be lining up eagerly to admit V Tech to AAU just to improve the opitics of the B10's expansion plans. At a minimum, I certainly would love to be a fly on the wall to hear the B10's pitch.
a) I'd love for this to happen. I get to watch Michigan baseball or basketball pass through on occasion, but to have all the sports year in, year out ....
b) I am under the impression that the ACC is one of the survivors, filling out the loss of say Miami and FSU with former Big East teams. Sure their football gets watered down, but much like we wait, debate, and long for the next football season, football down here is the warm up act for the real season. The Big East is fertile ground for building a basketball power centric conference.
c) If we're going to do that, I think it would be more academically based: Duke, UVA, Maryland being the core academic targets. Since Maryland is adjacent to the Big 10, and you get the DC metro TV market if you go after Maryland and UVA. I could see Maryland, UVA and Virginia Tech.
d) If you pull Virgina Tech, UNC and Duke, you are leaving behind so key rivalrys: UNC / NC State, UVA / Va Tech.
Swap Virginia Tech for UVA or Maryland and you might be on to something.
You're as wrong as wrong can be about the ACC. The new TV deal there makes them more or less expansion-proof. The SEC can't increase its revenue by expanding the conference like the Big Ten can, so any new team only takes away what they can shell out, if that team has a full share. And because there's only a few million difference between the ACC's and SEC's deal (per team) an ACC team can demand a full share. Take three ACC teams and put them in the SEC and the SEC's deal suddenly becomes worse than the ACC's, so what's the point?
That's poorly-thought-out point #1. #2 is that the AAU is a 51-member institution and it takes 75% (40 votes) to get someone in. All the other members are going to tell the Big Ten Fuck. That. if they try and get VT in solely for the sake of Big Ten expansion. The AAU isn't a Big Ten playground.
Poorly-thought-out point #3 is that the only reason VT is in the ACC in the first place is because the Va. legislature made the ACC take them. Even the ACC thought they weren't as desirable an invite as Syracuse, 1, and 2, you try and leave UVA behind and the Va. legislature will again throw a fit.
the Big Ten take Va Tech and leaves UVa behind. This is different than when the Virginia legislature forced UVa to push for Va Tech.
It was obvious that with BC and Miami leaving the Big East, the conference perceived dead, and thus, so was anyone left in it. It was trying to get Va Tech off that sinking ship that motivated the legislature. If Va Tech is poached from the ACC, the ACC will still be fine (and probably go after Syracuse, who they wanted originally anyway).
Regardless, all of this aint gonna happen.
If the Big Ten only takes Syracuse or Rutgers, they're much dumber than I think they are.
The ACC's first move is going to be calling Syracuse and after that UConn and take two schools that have much larger fanbases and alumni bases in NY and take the market. I don't see the Big Ten letting this happen. Two of the five are going to be Syracuse and Rutgers.
UConn goes to the ACC, Pitt too if they're not part of the five.
ND is the focus, but B10 wants New York to offset population growth in the South. If they can get ND and either Rutgers or Syracuse, I think they get on basic cable in most if not all of New York. Additionally, Nebraksa would help with ratings so long as their current return to top form continues. If you believe Nebraska's recent resurgence is a blip, maybe you go with Missouri to lock down the St. Louis and Kansas City markets.
So, let the Pac 10 have TX and her ugly sisters. The B10 needs to get ND and a major foothold near NYC. FWIW, Rutgers has the benefit of being the state university of NJ, so while it does not have the history of Syracuse football or even close to the quality of Syracuse basketball, it would bring an extra state with a population of nealry 9 million.
My wish list: ND, Nebraska and Rutgers (resulting in 14 mouths to feed instead of 16).
Question: If B10 cannot get ND, does picking up both Rutgers and Syracuse get them New York? Not so sure, but it will block anyone else (e.g. ACC) from getting it while we wait for ND to come to their senses.
If the only schools left in the ACC are UVA, Maryland, NC State, Wake, and BC, plus some Big East leftovers, it's as dead a conference as the Big East was perceived to be. Not that a crazy thing like that is going to happen, but in the OP's scenario, the ACC is clearly an absurdly weak, WAC-like conference as compared to the Big Ten and SEC. No way the Va. legislature would be on board with that.
They aren't going anywhere, the ACC, with UVa is their conference, and they aren't leaving NC State.
I can see Ga Tech, Miami, Fla. State and maybe Clemson being interested in the SEC, but not any of the other ACC schools. Losing any or all of those schools just puts the ACC back where they were before getting Fla. State. Not great, but not Big East, either.
You missed the part where the OP thinks UNC and Duke would go to the Big Ten. That's the scenario I'm referring to, under which the ACC would left with squat.
Which is his third-and-a-half poorly thought out point, really: I half think even if ten schools left the ACC, UNC and Duke would stay behind, play each other ten times a year, and still call themselves the ACC. And if the four southernmost ACC schools went SEC, I promise you UNC and Duke would just engineer themselves a super-conference of good basketball schools with Syracuse, UConn, probably Pitt, and so on, and ignore the Big Ten. Which is why the whole OP scenario is completely bogus.
But still: if we pretend his gumdrop rainbow fantasies are true, then my point remains about the Va. legislature.
or did a complete memory dump right after reading the OP. I was just responding to your well reasoned points.
And you certainly have good insight (with good reason) into the ACC and Duke and UNC's mindset. I agree that if the ACC lost the 4 southern schools, the ACC would probably replace them with the schools you mention. Rutgers also may make some sense for the ACC.
Interesting that in all of this discussion, West Virginia is never mentioned.
I think we should go after 6 of the Big 12 schools. How about the 4 Texas schools(Texas, A&M, Tech, and Baylor, appeasing the Texas legislature), Missouri, and Nebraska. To me, that sounds more like a blockbuster conference than one that includes Rutgers or Syracuse. Plus, I'd rather have the huge recruiting pool of Texas than the whiny bastards at Notre Dame. Think about it...a conference that goes from Pennsylvania to Iowa and down the entire heart of the nation to Texas.
Texas et al to the Big 10 has several threads from about a week or so ago.
Well...guess I'll never be mistaken for the Mathlete! Screw Mizzou then!