(12-16-2020 09:22 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote: (12-16-2020 08:38 PM)nole Wrote: Not down on ND.
How much can one school put in a $45 Million per year per team revenue gap?
ND could be added and decent negotiating job done by new ACC commish and it MIGHT......MAYBE knock that down to $35 Million......and I think that is an insane stretch.
That STILL leaves you with a $35 million revenue gap. That is insane and unsustainable.
I am not down on ND......I am fully seeing the revenue gap titanic that is even bigger than what I was predicting and nobody on this board was agree with. You and I have had this talk for years....I don't mean to be mean, but I was right about this while so many ignored the issue or dismissed.
Now the most common reaction is "can't do nothing about it." I promise anyone who believes this. Market forces CAN make changes and 100% will. I just don't think any ACC fans will like those changes outside maybe 4-6 schools.
You have been right in your expectation of a growing financial gap, and FWIW I never expected it to get this big either. However, let's be clear on the REASON for this gap -- it isn't that the ACC is making less money (it's gone from $10M/yr to $30M/yr in about 7 or 8 years, I think). The problem - which the ACC can't control - is the obscene amounts of money the TV networks keep throwing at the SEC and the B1G.
Now, you can say the ACC should've been better prepared for the possibility of the market inflating this much - and I would 100% agree, they should have been! - my only point was that the expansion teams haven't failed to bring value so much as the leadership of the ACC failed to anticipate this level of TV contract inflation when they locked in for 2+ decades!
As for Notre Dame (or Texas, or Penn State, or freaking Alabama), one single team only brings - maybe - about a $5M/yr bump, probably less at this point because you're only getting more for the additional games, not the ones already locked in...
I've looked at this 100 different ways, and while I think the ACC can make a bunch of little dents in the money gap, I don't see them catching up in one bold move - and I don't see them catching up at all for many, many years.
You didn't fail Mark. You just never realized the game you were playing. You weren't playing to grow into the SEC or Big 10. You were playing to remain the ACC. The pertinent question is why? The answer rests not with Swofford or the ACC presidents, but with ESPN. They helped the AAC grow into the best of the G5 why? They used the ACC to gobble up the best of the Big East. Why? They've used the SEC to cut off Big 10 expansion Southward into Texas. They built the SEC up and invested heavily in them for this purpose. Why? They own every single Southern property of note with the full contracts of the ACC, SEC, and AAC leaving only the State of Texas and Oklahoma to be fully acquired. Why.
I've been giving you guys the answers for years and nobody wants to believe it. The ACC and SEC were used under the old ESPN administration to cut off Big 10 expansion as best they could because the Big Ten at that time didn't play ball with ESPN and started their own network which had difficulty getting carriage. The SECN was born and given total carriage. They tried to scoop the Big 12's top prizes in 2010-2 and failed. Texas was kept on a leash with the LHN which helped also to hold Oklahoma in place.
ESPN leases just enough of the PAC and owns just enough of the Big 10 to get what they want from them. They can see that football is (a) popular and (b) rapidly becoming regional and that region is the Southeast bleeding into the Southwest in Eastern to Central Texas and extending into Oklahoma.
That region has won 22 of the last 28 national championships with the Deep South taking 19 and Texas and Oklahoma taking 3 more. The other 5 were divided among 3 schools: (2 Ohio State, 3 Nebraska all in the 90's, and 1 Southern Cal vacated for infractions 2004).
The majority of recruits are in the Southeast and Southwest and in pockets elsewhere with Ohio, Iowa, and Pennsylvania providing the most. California High Schools are de-emphasizing football programs in their high school systems.
That means that they can avoid a monopoly by keeping a toe in the PAC and Big 10 but really maximize profits by owning outright the Southeast and Southwest.
I will be interested to see what they would do with the ACC North should Notre Dame pass in 2037 on full membership and instead join the Big 10 for the money. I think the initial interest in keeping an independent Big 10 from expanding into the TV markets of New England has been morphed by the smarter heads at Disney into a lure for Notre Dame and their eventual ploy will be to see if they can draw in the football first schools of the Big 10 at some point in the future. Think Notre Dame and 5 or 6 of the top Big 10 programs.
So Disney defers to Ohio State, seeks Notre Dame, and would love to have Penn State, and Michigan, perhaps Wisconsin and probably an insistent Iowa. Nebraska?
The revenue of college football in the SEC and Big 10 is being driven up to set the stage to manipulate other top programs to align in order to remain competitive in revenue and to have access to the recruits in the South and Southwest where high school football is still a religion.
The SEC didn't out plan you. They benefitted just like real estate benefits, location, location, location with a little bit of football first culture tossed in for good measure. The Big 10 will remain competitive but this year's reaction to COVID showed divisions within that conference. Should this SEC contract forge the SEC ahead of the Big 10 by more than a couple of million dollars after their next renewal then pressure will start to mount because Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan will not have a deep war chest with which to recruit the South.
Now don't expect this to happen overnight, it won't. But the table has been set for this eventuality and this is how the network will play it out.
A breakaway, especially if SCOTUS rules in favor of pay for play, might accelerate this a bit. But if it does then gaining control of hoops to sell independently of the NCAA would benefit the ACC greatly and also help the Big 12 schools whether they are still in the same conference or not.
Seriously you should take some pins and place them on a map indicating the schools for which ESPN has 100% of the rights. It will clearly indicate this strategy.
If Notre Dame joins the ACC in full I think your conference survives into the new era. If they don't I think Disney will get tired of paying for about 1/4 of your conference, provided they stay through a pay for play change which they may not.
But whatever we are headed toward will eventually wind up with the schools involved doing some collective bargaining or otherwise they are going to get hosed on future contract negotiations. So whether we call it that or not we are probably looking at an eventual league of about 48 schools.
RE: New ACC commish ![[Image: RG0BS1U.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/RG0BS1U.gif)
