(12-14-2014 07:23 PM)XLance Wrote:  Don't you guys think the yellow stream is getting too deep?

I guess that is a matter of perspective and intention. Since when did you start marking twain in yellow streams?

It has simply been my observation that as long as the Big 12 stays at 10 there is really no intention or commitment from either of the top two schools to either leave, or to remain. They stay at 10 to keep the options of the Longhorns and Sooners open. Therefore speculation about where they would go, or might go, has relevance until they either leave, or add to their ranks. Since they refuse the latter it remains palpable that they eventually intend the former. I asserted that when they added WVU and TCU and left Louisville, B.Y.U., and or Cincinnati out.

But until N.D. commits fully, the potential, although not the likelihood, is there for the ACC to be parsed as well. It could and would be a profitable move on the part of ESPN, unless the Irish want to throw in totally.

With autonomy will come the ability to alter structures. It simply remains to be seen whether that autonomy is used to create structures that benefit the most solid 3 of the remaining P5 conferences, is used to consolidate the remaining 4 into groupings equitable enough to keep competition viable, or whether because of the personalities involved nothing happens. Texas has a strong enough economic situation to make their own reality to an extent. North Carolina, Duke, and Virginia may be quite well endowed but the surrounding schools in the ACC are in various stages of economic dependence or independence.

Whatever grouping favors the markets will be the one that the networks seek. Their motive is simple, profit. I'm willing to bet that more consolidation will take place. There are too many inherent weaknesses in both the ACC and Big 12 for a truly competitive system to be developed that will enhance the interest of the broadest segment of the market and keep it engaged until the final week of the season. The Big 12 doesn't have a strong market to exploit, and the ACC doesn't exploit the market they have. It is really as simple as that. Either one or the other will be strengthened almost certainly at the others expense, or both could still be collapsed into 3 relatively competitive and equal structures. But I don't think that things will remain the same for either.

So a refusal to accommodate Texas could be the key to the survival or eventual demise of the ACC. If so the continued myopia of the old core of the ACC could be their undoing. It is after all essentially the same issue that has destroyed the old SWC, Big8, and now stands to destroy the union of those two. Penn State put aside ego and found security. Nebraska has done the same as have Missouri, South Carolina, Arkansas,and A&M. With the Big 12 it remains Texas as the sun, Oklahoma as the moon, and 8 planets that depend upon them for light and stability. The ACC might be a safe haven for old Big East schools, or it could be that two planetary systems have collided and that their orbits are still uncertain. Since the ability to make money has been the lure to consolidation the gravitational pull upon the ACC's schools could still be to the North, or to the South and Southwest. We'll see.