(12-29-2019 04:25 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(12-28-2019 05:46 PM)Indytarheel Wrote:  

(12-28-2019 10:33 AM)Hallcity Wrote:  So, what are these other schools doing with all that money? Building great teams in other sports? Supporting academic programs? Paying humongous salaries to administrators? Whatever they’re doing seems to have no visible effect. Their athletic programs aren’t more successful. Are we sure those numbers were compiled in the same way? How do we tell how much TV revenue Clemson football received from the ACC? I’ve never seen any breakdown of football versus basketball conference revenue

Why ask the questions? It is the same thing over and over again; yet, it is very interesting they never seem to be able to explain why the shortfall doesn't effect the outcome on the field. They have yet to demonstrate a correlation between success on the field versus TV revenue dollars etc. Hell, prior to Bowden retirement, if I am not mistaken, FSU nor Miami never brought in the cash compared to UF. Yet, FSU and Miami have more success on the football field than UF. Maybe it is something I am missing.

If you have $50 million dollars, and that's what's needed to field a competitive football team, what happens if the other guy has $100 million? If he plates the weights in the gym with gold, will that make his players play better? If the players he recruits can't take any of that gold home with them, will he sign better players?

Whatever Clemson has, it's obviously enough. Why do you need more than enough?

Short sighted, but not surprising coming from one of the biggest #goacc fanboys on the board.


We are competitive now. What happens when the schools with the excess revenue push the price of being competitive beyond our reach and we are partially handicapped by the ACC holding us back due to not being competitive in revenue with our peer conferences?

(12-29-2019 05:36 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 04:25 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(12-28-2019 05:46 PM)Indytarheel Wrote:  

(12-28-2019 10:33 AM)Hallcity Wrote:  So, what are these other schools doing with all that money? Building great teams in other sports? Supporting academic programs? Paying humongous salaries to administrators? Whatever they’re doing seems to have no visible effect. Their athletic programs aren’t more successful. Are we sure those numbers were compiled in the same way? How do we tell how much TV revenue Clemson football received from the ACC? I’ve never seen any breakdown of football versus basketball conference revenue

Why ask the questions? It is the same thing over and over again; yet, it is very interesting they never seem to be able to explain why the shortfall doesn't effect the outcome on the field. They have yet to demonstrate a correlation between success on the field versus TV revenue dollars etc. Hell, prior to Bowden retirement, if I am not mistaken, FSU nor Miami never brought in the cash compared to UF. Yet, FSU and Miami have more success on the football field than UF. Maybe it is something I am missing.

If you have $50 million dollars, and that's what's needed to field a competitive football team, what happens if the other guy has $100 million? If he plates the weights in the gym with gold, will that make his players play better? If the players he recruits can't take any of that gold home with them, will he sign better players?

Whatever Clemson has, it's obviously enough. Why do you need more than enough?

Short sighted, but not surprising coming from one of the biggest #goacc fanboys on the board.


We are competitive now. What happens when the schools with the excess revenue push the price of being competitive beyond our reach and we are partially handicapped by the ACC holding us back due to not being competitive in revenue with our peer conferences?

Can you even imagine what they could spend money on that they’re not already spending it on? That’s the question. If they genuinely have far more money to spend, why aren’t they already spending it? Why is it that Clemson football is so competitive despite an alleged huge financial disadvantage? Why isn’t Texas dominating college football? They’ve got more money than anyone but they’re mediocre in football.

(12-29-2019 05:13 PM)Garrettabc Wrote:  It mostly comes down to rising coaches salaries. But I’m not as worried about the money disparity as much as some. FSU will remain competitive because of geography and it’s brand is still strong. Florida residents also don’t pay state income taxes which is kinda big deal to multi-millionaires.

bull****. Facilities make coaches look cheap. The big ones have ENORMOUS upkeep costs. You have to spend millions a year just to keep a non-new football stadium in operational condition. New stadiums at the P5 level start around $350,000,000. You can hire a shitload of Jimbos for that. Basketball is roughly a third the costs*. Baseball is remove a zero from football*. TF Bank Stadium (Minnesota) is the most recent time a P5 brought a brand new major facility out of thin air I can think of off the top of my head. They did a nice job and it's classy and maximizes the view of the city but it's no Taj Mahal. Cost? $500m.

And not having crazy TV money means you can't afford to go whole hog on a football stadium rebuild and instead have to constantly piecemeal renovate it. There's a lot of pent up demand for changes in CFB stadiums like we've seen in NFL stadiums:
- Universal chairback seating
- Way WAY more box seating
- Premium seating
- Premium dining
- Restaurant seating
- Mixed use stadiums that are constantly in use (in the case of CFB classroom/offices/dorms) to decrease overhead and make facilities generate revenue year round and broaden the base of support in the future for upkeep

It's just that right now the P5 football facility build out is getting in the way ... everybody has an indoor facility now so you can practice when you think it's too hot or too cold or too rainy or you don't want others to see you. We're on our way to everybody having a football operations center so that the football team doesn't have to share with anybody else. Locker rooms and weight rooms age and are renovated as fast as daily driver cars.

It's easy to keep that gravy train going when Mickey Mouse is dropping $75m in your lap every year just for TV money. One year of TV money = One brand new lesser football facility. Take out a loan on 7 years of TV money and you've got yourself a brand spankin new football stadium which, coincidentally, now doubles or triples your revenue from attendance and increases attendance. So this money isn't chasing facilities around for nothin' ... it's chasing more money ultimately.

If, OTOH, Mickey Mouse is dropping only $30m in your lap every year not only does it take you more than twice as long to pay for the same things but you're constantly falling behind and constantly having to worry about coaches getting poached for more money if they're successful. And should that coach demand equal facilities to who they play against and you can't pay for them, doesn't it make sense for that coach to go elsewhere? Even if his career flames out, he can soothe himself to sleep with $10m-$25m in income (most of us would call that retirement) and get a side gig with ESPN talking on TV for a few hours a week for $80k/yr.


* Based on my totally conjecture ballpark observational wholly non-scientific math

(12-29-2019 05:47 PM)Hallcity Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 05:36 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 04:25 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(12-28-2019 05:46 PM)Indytarheel Wrote:  

(12-28-2019 10:33 AM)Hallcity Wrote:  So, what are these other schools doing with all that money? Building great teams in other sports? Supporting academic programs? Paying humongous salaries to administrators? Whatever they’re doing seems to have no visible effect. Their athletic programs aren’t more successful. Are we sure those numbers were compiled in the same way? How do we tell how much TV revenue Clemson football received from the ACC? I’ve never seen any breakdown of football versus basketball conference revenue

Why ask the questions? It is the same thing over and over again; yet, it is very interesting they never seem to be able to explain why the shortfall doesn't effect the outcome on the field. They have yet to demonstrate a correlation between success on the field versus TV revenue dollars etc. Hell, prior to Bowden retirement, if I am not mistaken, FSU nor Miami never brought in the cash compared to UF. Yet, FSU and Miami have more success on the football field than UF. Maybe it is something I am missing.

If you have $50 million dollars, and that's what's needed to field a competitive football team, what happens if the other guy has $100 million? If he plates the weights in the gym with gold, will that make his players play better? If the players he recruits can't take any of that gold home with them, will he sign better players?

Whatever Clemson has, it's obviously enough. Why do you need more than enough?

Short sighted, but not surprising coming from one of the biggest #goacc fanboys on the board.


We are competitive now. What happens when the schools with the excess revenue push the price of being competitive beyond our reach and we are partially handicapped by the ACC holding us back due to not being competitive in revenue with our peer conferences?

Can you even imagine what they could spend money on that they’re not already spending it on? That’s the question. If they genuinely have far more money to spend, why aren’t they already spending it? Why is it that Clemson football is so competitive despite an alleged huge financial disadvantage? Why isn’t Texas dominating college football? They’ve got more money than anyone but they’re mediocre in football.

My hope is that they pour it all into basketball so you ostriches will finally pull your heads out of the sand and realize just how big a problem this is going to be going forward.

(12-29-2019 02:57 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 01:38 AM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-28-2019 02:31 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Clemson seats 81,500
OU seats 86,000
LSU seats 101,000
OSU seats 105,000

You can buy 2 season tickets at Clemson for just a $160 donation.
That price at Ohio State is $750.

Essentially an extra $55 per ticket at Ohio State compared to $11 a ticket at Clemson

That's $46 million to OSU on mandatory donations, minimum, compared to Clemson's $6 million.

Clemson has always charged reasonable prices.

Easier to sell high dollar tickets to high profile games against Michigan, Penn State, etc. than it is to games against everyone in the ACC except our rivals FSU and GT. It also helps when opposing fan bases travel to away games instead of always returning ticket allotments.

Ticket allotments are about 4,000 in the ACC. Most schools don't mind the return of allotted tickets if they have demand at their own venues, so that they can re-sell the tickets to their own fans.

Generally allotted tickets are not good seats. With the popularity of ticket services like Stub-Hub it is easier to find better views of the field using an outside ticket service rather than buying tickets through your own school for away games. Plus you can often find parking too, for schools where good parking is hard to locate in advance.

He's also overestimating how well B10 fans travel to Columbus.

(12-29-2019 05:30 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 02:57 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 01:38 AM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-28-2019 02:31 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Clemson seats 81,500
OU seats 86,000
LSU seats 101,000
OSU seats 105,000

You can buy 2 season tickets at Clemson for just a $160 donation.
That price at Ohio State is $750.

Essentially an extra $55 per ticket at Ohio State compared to $11 a ticket at Clemson

That's $46 million to OSU on mandatory donations, minimum, compared to Clemson's $6 million.

Clemson has always charged reasonable prices.

Easier to sell high dollar tickets to high profile games against Michigan, Penn State, etc. than it is to games against everyone in the ACC except our rivals FSU and GT. It also helps when opposing fan bases travel to away games instead of always returning ticket allotments.

Ticket allotments are about 4,000 in the ACC. Most schools don't mind the return of allotted tickets if they have demand at their own venues, so that they can re-sell the tickets to their own fans.

Generally allotted tickets are not good seats. With the popularity of ticket services like Stub-Hub it is easier to find better views of the field using an outside ticket service rather than buying tickets through your own school for away games. Plus you can often find parking too, for schools where good parking is hard to locate in advance.

I’ve been to every UNC trip to Death Valley since the late 1970s. Unless the UNC fans were wearing orange they aren’t buying tickets off the secondary market either.

I'm surprised I didn't see you there, but I was always stuck in the lower corner with 3,999 other Tar Heel fans.

(12-29-2019 07:24 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 05:30 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 02:57 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 01:38 AM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-28-2019 02:31 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Clemson seats 81,500
OU seats 86,000
LSU seats 101,000
OSU seats 105,000

You can buy 2 season tickets at Clemson for just a $160 donation.
That price at Ohio State is $750.

Essentially an extra $55 per ticket at Ohio State compared to $11 a ticket at Clemson

That's $46 million to OSU on mandatory donations, minimum, compared to Clemson's $6 million.

Clemson has always charged reasonable prices.

Easier to sell high dollar tickets to high profile games against Michigan, Penn State, etc. than it is to games against everyone in the ACC except our rivals FSU and GT. It also helps when opposing fan bases travel to away games instead of always returning ticket allotments.

Ticket allotments are about 4,000 in the ACC. Most schools don't mind the return of allotted tickets if they have demand at their own venues, so that they can re-sell the tickets to their own fans.

Generally allotted tickets are not good seats. With the popularity of ticket services like Stub-Hub it is easier to find better views of the field using an outside ticket service rather than buying tickets through your own school for away games. Plus you can often find parking too, for schools where good parking is hard to locate in advance.

I’ve been to every UNC trip to Death Valley since the late 1970s. Unless the UNC fans were wearing orange they aren’t buying tickets off the secondary market either.

I'm surprised I didn't see you there, but I was always stuck in the lower corner with 3,999 other Tar Heel fans.

There hasn’t been 4K Tarhole fans at the last two games combined.

All this rah, rah talk and yet, no explanation for the success of FSU, Miami or Clemson during a time when their counterparts had huge revenue advantages. No matter what era you want to point to, the revenue disparage didn't effect FSU winning its 3 NCs, nor Miami's 5 nor Clemson's 3 soon to be 4. HallCity pointed to Texas.... I will point to Tenn and Michigan. I will point to Purdue, Mississippi State, Indiana, Vandy, etc and ask why haven't the new found riches improved those programs to the point of being PO contenders. I mean, they have the excess dollars to hire better, improve facilities and provide better means for recruiting; yet, where is the success?

(12-29-2019 08:08 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 07:24 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 05:30 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 02:57 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 01:38 AM)Kaplony Wrote:  Easier to sell high dollar tickets to high profile games against Michigan, Penn State, etc. than it is to games against everyone in the ACC except our rivals FSU and GT. It also helps when opposing fan bases travel to away games instead of always returning ticket allotments.

Ticket allotments are about 4,000 in the ACC. Most schools don't mind the return of allotted tickets if they have demand at their own venues, so that they can re-sell the tickets to their own fans.

Generally allotted tickets are not good seats. With the popularity of ticket services like Stub-Hub it is easier to find better views of the field using an outside ticket service rather than buying tickets through your own school for away games. Plus you can often find parking too, for schools where good parking is hard to locate in advance.

I’ve been to every UNC trip to Death Valley since the late 1970s. Unless the UNC fans were wearing orange they aren’t buying tickets off the secondary market either.

I'm surprised I didn't see you there, but I was always stuck in the lower corner with 3,999 other Tar Heel fans.

There hasn’t been 4K Tarhole fans at the last two games combined.

That's
Did Finebaum tell you to say that?

(12-29-2019 09:30 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 08:08 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 07:24 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 05:30 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(12-29-2019 02:57 PM)XLance Wrote:  Ticket allotments are about 4,000 in the ACC. Most schools don't mind the return of allotted tickets if they have demand at their own venues, so that they can re-sell the tickets to their own fans.

Generally allotted tickets are not good seats. With the popularity of ticket services like Stub-Hub it is easier to find better views of the field using an outside ticket service rather than buying tickets through your own school for away games. Plus you can often find parking too, for schools where good parking is hard to locate in advance.

I’ve been to every UNC trip to Death Valley since the late 1970s. Unless the UNC fans were wearing orange they aren’t buying tickets off the secondary market either.

I'm surprised I didn't see you there, but I was always stuck in the lower corner with 3,999 other Tar Heel fans.

There hasn’t been 4K Tarhole fans at the last two games combined.

That's
Did Finebaum tell you to say that?

I’ve seen it with my own eyes, as has everyone watching the game on tv. Y’all can’t even travel to Charlotte yet we are supposed to believe you do to Clemson?

Some answers to the OP.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/...a06ba2e7e2

(12-29-2019 08:33 PM)Indytarheel Wrote:  All this rah, rah talk and yet, no explanation for the success of FSU, Miami or Clemson during a time when their counterparts had huge revenue advantages. No matter what era you want to point to, the revenue disparage didn't effect FSU winning its 3 NCs, nor Miami's 5 nor Clemson's 3 soon to be 4. HallCity pointed to Texas.... I will point to Tenn and Michigan. I will point to Purdue, Mississippi State, Indiana, Vandy, etc and ask why haven't the new found riches improved those programs to the point of being PO contenders. I mean, they have the excess dollars to hire better, improve facilities and provide better means for recruiting; yet, where is the success?

You won’t get an answer because all they want to do is whine.

The average college football fan of any football program anywhere in the country doesn’t give two-shitz about revenue. The average fan cares about wins and losses. They care about Jimmy and Joes, X’s and O’s. Some of the whining on this board from the so called ACC fans that have a huge chubby for the SEC need to go find an SEC team to support.

Here in Kentucky we share our armpit of a state with an army of big blew mouth breathers that can’t spell university or couldn’t find Lexington with a map that still managed to go to Walmart get a damn tshirt and yell Go Cayuts. I’m sure you whining SOB’s that live in a state with SEC sister shaggers can do the same.

Where’s the Tylenol?

Food for thought:

Yesterday it was announced that NFL attendance averaged 66,000 per game for this season. These were the lowest attendance figures since 2004.

(01-04-2020 08:30 AM)XLance Wrote:  Food for thought:

Yesterday it was announced that NFL attendance averaged 66,000 per game for this season. These were the lowest attendance figures since 2004.

Is San Diego still playing in a tiny soccer stadium in LA?

I think the Forbes Top 25 in that listing says everything. The TV money disparity means that Ole Miss and Arkansas bring in more revenue than Clemson. Remove TV money and that Top 25 list changes completely. Those extra dozens of millions of dollars a year mean they can improve facilities much faster ... they can afford to fire iffy coaches much faster ... they can just flat out go pay for a hall of famer coaching staff in a minor sport because it's peanuts on the balance sheet ... it's just a competitive advantage. DUH.

The Forbes piece goes on to show that TV revenue is about a third of the overall pie in the program. It has a plurality within the pie that is only growing and growing quickly.

(01-04-2020 01:15 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  I think the Forbes Top 25 in that listing says everything. The TV money disparity means that Ole Miss and Arkansas bring in more revenue than Clemson. Remove TV money and that Top 25 list changes completely. Those extra dozens of millions of dollars a year mean they can improve facilities much faster ... they can afford to fire iffy coaches much faster ... they can just flat out go pay for a hall of famer coaching staff in a minor sport because it's peanuts on the balance sheet ... it's just a competitive advantage. DUH.

The Forbes piece goes on to show that TV revenue is about a third of the overall pie in the program. It has a plurality within the pie that is only growing and growing quickly.

If competing with Ole Miss and Arkansas scares you, maybe your school doesn’t even belong in a P5 conference. What minor sports are they killing it in? Do you really think that firing iffy coaches faster is the key to college athletic success? Naively, I thought that being careful to hire the best coaches to begin with was the key.

When the SEC adds the new TV contract and grows the revenue gap another $20 million per team per year.....gonna get REAL interesting.

(01-04-2020 01:58 PM)Hallcity Wrote:  If competing with Ole Miss and Arkansas scares you, maybe your school doesn’t even belong in a P5 conference. What minor sports are they killing it in? Do you really think that firing iffy coaches faster is the key to college athletic success? Naively, I thought that being careful to hire the best coaches to begin with was the key.

OK, let's say you hire the best coach. How are you going to keep him when Ole Miss can pay them double? Bama can pay them quadruple?

One day in the not too distant future some SEC nobody like Missouri or Vanderbilt or Ole Miss is going to spend double what Duke or UNC spends on their entire coaching staff. They're just going to write that check because the money bags are being air dropped by Disney on a monthly basis. They'll send in however many bag men are needed to compete with free adderrall and free Jordans. And when the Iron Dukes and the Rams Club look up and wonder why it is their proud blue blooded programs are being outhired and outrecruited by nobodys in a conference that doesn't even care about basketball .... then we'll achieve some progress. Assuming the ACC still exists as constituted presently then.

Regarding not belonging in a P5 conference....



For those that are colorblind, those stands are about 70% Alabama red. Not content having their home field turned into a road game playing Bama ... Duke signed up to get shelled by 5+ touchdowns again in the Benz in front of even more Alabama fans. Maybe Duke thinks it can catch up on being down in revenue by being Alabama's FCS game every year. So far the market demand for Alabama fans watching Duke lose by 50 is pretty strong.

(01-04-2020 02:07 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(01-04-2020 01:58 PM)Hallcity Wrote:  If competing with Ole Miss and Arkansas scares you, maybe your school doesn’t even belong in a P5 conference. What minor sports are they killing it in? Do you really think that firing iffy coaches faster is the key to college athletic success? Naively, I thought that being careful to hire the best coaches to begin with was the key.

OK, let's say you hire the best coach. How are you going to keep him when Ole Miss can pay them double? Bama can pay them quadruple?

One day in the not too distant future some SEC nobody like Missouri or Vanderbilt or Ole Miss is going to spend double what Duke or UNC spends on their entire coaching staff. They're just going to write that check because the money bags are being air dropped by Disney on a monthly basis. They'll send in however many bag men are needed to compete with free adderrall and free Jordans. And when the Iron Dukes and the Rams Club look up and wonder why it is their proud blue blooded programs are being outhired and outrecruited by nobodys in a conference that doesn't even care about basketball .... then we'll achieve some progress. Assuming the ACC still exists as constituted presently then.

Regarding not belonging in a P5 conference....



For those that are colorblind, those stands are about 70% Alabama red. Not content having their home field turned into a road game playing Bama ... Duke signed up to get shelled by 5+ touchdowns again in the Benz in front of even more Alabama fans. Maybe Duke thinks it can catch up on being down in revenue by being Alabama's FCS game every year. So far the market demand for Alabama fans watching Duke lose by 50 is pretty strong.

Not terribly worried. We pay our head basketball coach something like $10 million a year. If need be we could pay a football coach more since Duke has a large athletic endowment. Duke already supports more sports than most schools in the SEC.

From my vantage point it looks like Ga.Tech’s problems have been poor coaching hires, the fact that a science and engineering heavy curriculum is unattractive to many prospective student athletes, the fact that Tech alums haven’t been that generous in their donations to the athletic department and the acute SEC envy of some Tech alums. If it turns out that Tech made a good football hire and if Tech can make a good hire to replace Pastner, most, but not all, of these problems will be solved. Alumni money will come rolling in and you’ll quit worrying so much about the SEC. People obsess about TV money when they should be worrying more about contribution money.

(01-04-2020 04:31 PM)Hallcity Wrote:  Not terribly worried. We pay our head basketball coach something like $10 million a year. If need be we could pay a football coach more since Duke has a large athletic endowment. Duke already supports more sports than most schools in the SEC.

From my vantage point it looks like Ga.Tech’s problems have been poor coaching hires, the fact that a science and engineering heavy curriculum is unattractive to many prospective student athletes, the fact that Tech alums haven’t been that generous in their donations to the athletic department and the acute SEC envy of some Tech alums. If it turns out that Tech made a good football hire and if Tech can make a good hire to replace Pastner, most, but not all, of these problems will be solved. Alumni money will come rolling in and you’ll quit worrying so much about the SEC. People obsess about TV money when they should be worrying more about contribution money.

Georgia Tech's recent problems, in order of their destructiveness:
1) Mike Bobinski, Former AD
2) Dave Braine(-less), Former AD
3) Wayne Clough, Former President
4) Bud Peterson, Former President
5) The growing TV dollar disparity
6) Extra unnecessary hurdles from The Hill, in part due to the above people
7) Dan Radakovich's "put it all on a credit card" spending spree before leaving (and his mishandling of the NCAA investigation which by himself caused the penalties to get much worse)
8) Being part of the USG which is now wholesale controlled by UGA

GT has the right AD now. And signs point to them having the right President now too ( https://news.gatech.edu/2019/11/04/athle...ts-cabinet ). Josh Pastner currently stands out like a sore thumb as the last remaining hold out from the former dunces. I have very high confidence GT will compete in a high level in football very soon and everywhere else they've made a change has shown immediate and dramatic improval.

Duke's athletic endowment is large in the context of athletic endowments. Athletic endowments however are quite modest in the grand scope of things. UNC's athletic endowment is less than 1/10 their academic endowment. I cannot readily find information on the size of Duke's athletic endowment, but it is widely believed the largely athletic endowment is Stanford. As of 2003, Stanford's athletic endowment was $270m and second place was Notre Dame at $130m. Assuming Stanford's athletic endowment has a generous return of 7% annually that is $18,900,000 added to the till in Palo Alto. Disney just paid each SEC team more than that per year for JUST ONE FOOTBALL GAME a week! So the athletic endowment argument just doesn't get it at this level. TV money makes endowments look vanishingly small over the long haul. You pay possibly the best basketball coach on Earth $10m. Texas A&M paid three times that to change their most recent football staff. Football is 80% of the revenue going forward. And Duke like most of the ACC isn't adjusting well to that reality.

I'm much more receptive to the argument that the ACC is leaving huge sums of money on the table because the NCAA pays for everything with basketball money. If that's the case alright fine: Then let's hear the ACC sharpening their NCAA axe and talking about which conferences have no business in Division 1 and are only there to collect their NCAA checks like welfare queens (Southland, Atlantic Sun, American East ... etc). If you really really really believe in basketball that much and want to change the revenue equations here ... axe the NCAA.