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MEGA Conference Realignment and lawsuits Megathread: Stories, Tales, Lies, and Exaggerations

Rellyrell said:
Imo, UNC / Duke r the equivalent to SC / UCLA. They’ll decide the fate of the ACC, but I think GT, Clemson, FSU, & us bolt to the SEC. If ND gets the independent TV contract they want, they ain’t leaving Independent status.
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I actually disagree on Duke… and it is rare I disagree with you. I think Duke and the other basketball focused ACC schools will be happy to become a bigger version of the old Big East. Focus on basketball, not have to spend a crazy amount on football. The other thing is the Big 10 in particular does a huge amount of the other sports.

This new landscape is 100% driven by football and Swofford and the Tobacco Road mob’s failure to see that is why the ACC landed where it is. If Miami, UNC, Clemson, and FSU leave, the rest of the conference is a trash heap with Louisville, VT and NC State being the best of the rest. To me, it all seems pretty logical how it should go in a vacuum, with that fourth spot in each really being

Big 10 - NC, UVA, GT, and maybe BC though I do agree and could see Duke winding up here.
SEC - Miami, Clemson, FSU, and one of VT, Louisville or NC State.
 
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Hurracanes said:
Geographically, it’s going to be interesting to see them Cali teams traveling far for games. I don’t think people understand how difficult it is for a team to win on the road when traveling nearly a whole day before Gameday.
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I mentioned this probably 100 pages ago. This is a big deal. Really good call on your part. I have a tendency to be on the derail team so I will be brief.

ND joined Hockey East, it was a brutal
schedule for them travel wise. They lasted about three years and went to the Big 10 for hockey. The travel thing gets old and my longest regular bus rides were about four hours. We had some longer ones to Clarkson and St. Lawrence and those sucked. That said, can’t complain, most of my travel back then was an hour or less.
 
Macca said:
I mentioned this probably 100 pages ago. This is a big deal. Really good call on your part. I have a tendency to be on the derail team so I will be brief.

ND joined Hockey East, it was a brutal
schedule for them travel wise. They lasted about three years and went to the Big 10 for hockey. The travel thing gets old and my longest regular bus rides were about four hours. We had some longer ones to Clarkson and St. Lawrence and those sucked. That said, can’t complain, most of my travel back then was an hour or less.
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How long before the non-football (and maybe basketball) sports start breaking off into more regional conferences. A school like USC probably would have loved to do that with the PACXX schools, but they probably would have told them to kick rocks if they tried to stay in for everything but football at this point. But I do think eventually you will have so many schools traveling so far (and time will heal hurt feelings) that you will see the non-revenue sports breaking away into more regional groupings.
 
Shogungts said:
How long before the non-football (and maybe basketball) sports start breaking off into more regional conferences. A school like USC probably would have loved to do that with the PACXX schools, but they probably would have told them to kick rocks if they tried to stay in for everything but football at this point. But I do think eventually you will have so many schools traveling so far (and time will heal hurt feelings) that you will see the non-revenue sports breaking away into more regional groupings.
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I think the travel aspect of this gets played up a bit too much for conferences looking to expand. If your team is in a major market like Miami, LA, Atlanta, these are easy takes for a conference like the B1G and SEC because they're easy for all other member institutions to travel to with plentiful direct flights everywhere and generally are enjoyed as fun trips. The bigger problem travel wise are these institutions that are out in the middle of nowhere and the towns only exist because of the university. Places where you have to fly into with 2-3 connecting flights and then bus an additional 2-4 hours to get there.

But I'm with you, the logical conclusion to all this is let football do its own thing and let all other sports stay in regional conferences. But I guess the SEC won't have that problem.
 
BioCane said:
I think the travel aspect of this gets played up a bit too much for conferences looking to expand. If your team is in a major market like Miami, LA, Atlanta, these are easy takes for a conference like the B1G and SEC because they're easy for all other member institutions to travel to with plentiful direct flights everywhere and generally are enjoyed as fun trips. The bigger problem travel wise are these institutions that are out in the middle of nowhere and the towns only exist because of the university. Places where you have to fly into with 2-3 connecting flights and then bus an additional 2-4 hours to get there.

But I'm with you, the logical conclusion to all this is let football do its own thing and let all other sports stay in regional conferences. But I guess the SEC won't have that problem.
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Yeah, I was thinking of it more from a school like USC's perspective; now their baseball team (or some other similar sport) has to travel to Happy Valley. Cross country flight, drive to the school (I assume that sports that aren't football probably aren't flying into the local small airport), 3 hours earlier...

Again, I get it... football and money, but I think it would make sense for those schools to eventually have more localized leagues for the non-football (and maybe basketball) sports.
 
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Follow the money guys. These conference decisions are exclusively driven by money and football, maybe a sprinkling of basketball.

The travel hassles of non-revenue sports are an afterthought
 
wspcane said:
I actually disagree on Duke… and it is rare I disagree with you. I think Duke and the other basketball focused ACC schools will be happy to become a bigger version of the old Big East. Focus on basketball, not have to spend a crazy amount on football. The other thing is the Big 10 in particular does a huge amount of the other sports.

This new landscape is 100% driven by football and Swofford and the Tobacco Road mob’s failure to see that is why the ACC landed where it is. If Miami, UNC, Clemson, and FSU leave, the rest of the conference is a trash heap with Louisville, VT and NC State being the best of the rest. To me, it all seems pretty logical how it should go in a vacuum, with that fourth spot in each really being

Big 10 - NC, UVA, GT, and maybe BC though I do agree and could see Duke winding up here.
SEC - Miami, Clemson, FSU, and one of VT, Louisville or NC State.
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In another post, I mentioned something similar, and I agree w/ u. I still believe UNC & Duke r joined at the hip, but I can definitely see this, as well.
 
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Rellyrell said:
In another post, I mentioned something similar, and I agree w/ u. I still believe UNC & Duke r joined at the hip, but I can definitely see this, as well.
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I'm curious to see how politicians would react for NC State since Duke is private. May be like Oklahoma though were Okie State got left out and people were like eh whatever.
 
Category69 said:
I'm curious to see how politicians would react for NC State since Duke is private. May be like Oklahoma though were Okie State got left out and people were like eh whatever.
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That is one of the reasons things are played so close to the vest now. If you can keep it quiet until the deal is done, it is a lot harder to derail it. The Athletic had an article on it earlier this week (I think someone posted it in this thread) talking about how they all learned from when the ACC expanded. That info was out in the public with tons of time before it was official and that caused politicians to get involved and the governor of VA told UVA that they needed to get VT into the ACC (they were not originally part of the expansion when Miami was set to join).
 
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MiamisMoperiestMopes said:
Dumb question but why do academics matter?

How does UM aligning with SEC or B10 hurt or help the overall mission of UM?
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The school presidents ultimately decide on whether the school goes to another conference or not. So going to a conference with like minded institutions and, better yet, if there's associations in place that might provide a research boost/collaborative with the other conference teams that the B1G supposedly has, that might seem more appealing to an academic like a school president than which conference has more recent national championships.
 
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BioCane said:
The school presidents ultimately decide on whether the school goes to another conference or not. So going to a conference with like minded institutions and, better yet, if there's associations in place that might provide a research boost/collaborative with the other conference teams that the B1G supposedly has, that might seem more appealing to an academic like a school president than which conference has more recent national championships.

In UM's case, supposedly their school president is letting DRad call all the shots athletically, so it's hard to say which he may prefer. Given his background, he may prefer the SEC. Their insiders are saying they're already SEC bound, but I'll believe it when I see it, seem like a better fit with the B1G to me.
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The better fit is the most money for least amount of hassle to exit ACC. All things being equal, SEC is the preference, but in these situations, all things are never equal
 
Rellyrell said:
In another post, I mentioned something similar, and I agree w/ u. I still believe UNC & Duke r joined at the hip, but I can definitely see this, as well.
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I could see UNC saying Duke has to come as a condition. And certainly the dollars may make it where it’s worth the expense of having football, even for Duke. Fascinating times.
 
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wspcane said:
I could see UNC saying Duke has to come as a condition. And certainly the dollars may make it where it’s worth the expense of having football, even for Duke. Fascinating times.
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I see people saying Cal could choose to drop football, that seems more likely for Duke than Cal in my estimation. They're not committed to football, they're not interested in football, their stadium environment is notorious for being so quiet that it's like being on a practice field. I could see them getting an invite to follow UNC in all sports but football, but I'd be surprised if they earn a football invite to the big leagues.

Everyone acts like UNC is a sure thing to go to either conference, and sure they kill it in basketball, but they're barely a middling football program in the ACC. Miami, FSU, GT, Clemson, VT, BC, and even Wake and NCST arguably have all easily had better runs in the conference than UNC over the last 20 years. It's not like they're Texas, but maybe I am not seeing how much value there is in having a strong brand with a good logo.
 
BioCane said:
I see people saying Cal could choose to drop football, that seems more likely for Duke than Cal in my estimation. They're not committed to football, they're not interested in football, their stadium environment is notorious for being so quiet that it's like being on a practice field. I could see them getting an invite to follow UNC in all sports but football, but I'd be surprised if they earn a football invite to the big leagues.

Everyone acts like UNC is a sure thing to go to either conference, and sure they kill it in basketball, but they're barely a middling football program in the ACC. Miami, FSU, GT, Clemson, VT, BC, and even Wake and NCST arguably have all easily had better runs in the conference than UNC over the last 20 years. It's not like they're Texas, but maybe I am not seeing how much value there is in having a strong brand with a good logo.
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Unc is in the largest state by population and tv market not in the big10 or sec. Virginia is next after them. That adds millions of eyes to their tv footprint, whether they are 8-5 every year or not.
 
BioCane said:
I see people saying Cal could choose to drop football, that seems more likely for Duke than Cal in my estimation. They're not committed to football, they're not interested in football, their stadium environment is notorious for being so quiet that it's like being on a practice field. I could see them getting an invite to follow UNC in all sports but football, but I'd be surprised if they earn a football invite to the big leagues.

Everyone acts like UNC is a sure thing to go to either conference, and sure they kill it in basketball, but they're barely a middling football program in the ACC. Miami, FSU, GT, Clemson, VT, BC, and even Wake and NCST arguably have all easily had better runs in the conference than UNC over the last 20 years. It's not like they're Texas, but maybe I am not seeing how much value there is in having a strong brand with a good logo.
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UNC is a prolific sports program, bro. They r not a football school, but they are a blue blood in basketball, & have a very strong baseball program & their non revenue generating sports LaCrosse & women sports r pretty outstanding. However, I could imagine UCLA/SC jumping before seeing UNC & Duke jumping. It’s called Tobacco Rd Mafia for a reason. Also, UNC’s academics r pretty stellar.
 
calinative umstudent said:
Any contract they get can almost be doubled if they joined a conference ESPECIALLY if the conferences get so big the start eliminating non-conference games from their teams schedules.
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I don't think it's a matter of whether they'd join another conference. It's a matter of would the SEC or B1G want them. Every school, including Miami, has to add value. Duke with basketball. UNC with basketball and football is at least a wash. Miami in football and on the plus side for basketball..
 
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