The Cutter of Bish
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RE: Rutgers/Maryland Big Ten article
(06-01-2017 06:42 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote: (05-31-2017 04:14 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote: (05-31-2017 01:28 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote: (05-31-2017 01:17 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote: (05-30-2017 11:34 AM)quo vadis Wrote: The B1G has always been more monied and powerful than the ACC - now, and before PSU joined.
Yeah. It could be different, but, it isn't.
ACC made some weird choices over the years, and at their own expense. Given the footprint, they should be killing everyone with their geographical coverage. Chalk it up to bad "business" and politics, I guess?
The ACC made numerous strategic errors over the last 64 years. By contrast, the Big Ten - which already began with an advantage - has made fewer mistakes, IMO.
What mistakes has the ACC made? I'm curious.
Their additions were:
1979 - Georgia Tech
1991 - Florida State
2004 - Miami, Va Tech, Boston College
2013 - Pitt, Syracuse, Notre Dame
2014 - Louisville
The only real mistake I see on that list is BC, and it looked pretty decent at the time.
It's mostly what the ACC didn't do.
* Didn't expand to 12 immediately after the SEC demonstrated the advantages of having a conference championship game in football (HINDSIGHT).
* Didn't act quickly enough to get Penn State before the Big Ten did (IMO).
* Didn't do enough to make Maryland happy, but rather, isolated them (IMO).
* Signed a ridiculously long (12 yr) first TV contract with ESPN which included ALL rights to football (HINDSIGHT).
STUFF LIKE THAT.
The league has done a good job of digging itself out of the hole it created, but never should've even been in that situation, IMO.
Yeah, these are the ones that come to mind.
The thing with UMD and PSU is a lose-lose, imo, and I don't think you could ever get both. And, in this case, the ACC ultimately lost on both, and keeping PSU out was something to appease UMD, because it was UMD who really didn't want them. From what I gather, UMD was just a pill in that conference; there was probably no matter they wouldn't have been completely happy. At best, maybe you swap out PSU for UMD if the Terps got that upset about the gain to leave...would that make the ACC better than the Big Ten? Maryland's a huge get for anyone, really, even if they're hurting financially themselves.
The hesitance to move to 12 was a biggie. Especially because the conference eventually took one of the schools it turned down repeatedly before, Miami. It was a dumb move, and it really started this arms race in expansion and realignment because the Big East began to populate with schools who wanted to be elsewhere anyway, but couldn't find an in with the ACC (or SEC). Miami, Tech, WVU...come on...the Big East basically HAD to take these programs because they were all that was left of the major eastern independents. And Army, Navy, and Notre Dame weren't interested. People knew Miami always wanted to be in the ACC; their term in the Big East always had a countdown. There were others in the Big East who saw themselves as a northern ACC, partly because the ACC wasn't interested at the time in expanding further north than Maryland.
So, by the time the ACC did expand to 12, it did so from the pool of schools it could have had over a decade ago had it simply asked or didn't refuse. The candidate pool didn't expand because the ACC wanted more teams...it never looked outside of what would become the Big East, and it just added to the fickleness of the image. Also, they were terrible at the media negotiations...better at it with the presidents, but not good with execs.
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