(04-27-2021 09:08 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(04-27-2021 07:44 AM)TerryD Wrote:  ...the new doctrine seems to becoming more of the "eat what you kill" variety, not propping up football underperformers.

There is a balance that needs to be reached (you need your opponents to be viewed as strong enough, after all - plus the whole tv ratings thing). That said, the ACC is OUT OF BALANCE.

For my exhibit A, look at spending on basketball [LINK].

By conference...
ACC - 7 of top 25 basketball spending schools
B12 - 5
BIG, SEC & Big East - 4 each
PAC - 1

BOTTOM LINE: The ACC is investing in the wrong sport.

A 14-team conference like the SEC or B1G can afford to have four of them among the top spenders on the secondary sport, but in the ACC half of the teams do that!

Well said, Hokie. Unfortunately, too many ACC schools don't understand the importance of football. We use the media payouts to fund the wrong sports. The problem is most serious in Tobacco Road...Duke, UNC, UVA and NC State. IMO, Wake is the only Tobacco Road school that has actually committed to football (yet Wake is the smallest school without much impact on viewership). This is a leadership issue, where schools need to be held accountable for developing the common good of their conference mates.

In the SEC, almost every school is aligned around football. Alabama is the bell cow, but others follow. Even Vanderbilt seems to focus its limited commitment to athletics on football. The only exception is Kentucky (which derives a large share of its value via basketball).

In the Big 12, there is no doubt that the future of the conference is all about football. It's why TCU and WVU were the perfect additions to stabilize the conference. The Big 12 has stellar performances in basketball, but -with the exception of Kansas- it is always underestimated...because everyone knows that Big 12 football drives the bus.

Too many core ACC fans actually believe that it's only the responsibility of the football schools (e.g., FSU, Clemson, Miami, VT and GT) to deliver the football revenue. In reality, media payouts are 70% to 80% based on football...and all ACC schools need to be increasing their commitment to football.

(04-27-2021 10:12 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(04-27-2021 09:08 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(04-27-2021 07:44 AM)TerryD Wrote:  ...the new doctrine seems to becoming more of the "eat what you kill" variety, not propping up football underperformers.

There is a balance that needs to be reached (you need your opponents to be viewed as strong enough, after all - plus the whole tv ratings thing). That said, the ACC is OUT OF BALANCE.

For my exhibit A, look at spending on basketball [LINK].

By conference...
ACC - 7 of top 25 basketball spending schools
B12 - 5
BIG, SEC & Big East - 4 each
PAC - 1

BOTTOM LINE: The ACC is investing in the wrong sport.

A 14-team conference like the SEC or B1G can afford to have four of them among the top spenders on the secondary sport, but in the ACC half of the teams do that!

Well said, Hokie. Unfortunately, too many ACC schools don't understand the importance of football. We use the media payouts to fund the wrong sports. The problem is most serious in Tobacco Road...Duke, UNC, UVA and NC State. IMO, Wake is the only Tobacco Road school that has actually committed to football (yet Wake is the smallest school without much impact on viewership). This is a leadership issue, where schools need to be held accountable for developing the common good of their conference mates.

In the SEC, almost every school is aligned around football. Alabama is the bell cow, but others follow. Even Vanderbilt seems to focus its limited commitment to athletics on football. The only exception is Kentucky (which derives a large share of its value via basketball).

In the Big 12, there is no doubt that the future of the conference is all about football. It's why TCU and WVU were the perfect additions to stabilize the conference. The Big 12 has stellar performances in basketball, but -with the exception of Kansas- it is always underestimated...because everyone knows that Big 12 football drives the bus.

Too many core ACC fans actually believe that it's only the responsibility of the football schools (e.g., FSU, Clemson, Miami, VT and GT) to deliver the football revenue. In reality, media payouts are 70% to 80% based on football...and all ACC schools need to be increasing their commitment to football.

Well stated.

Again, what is wrong with a school that is good in (men's) basketball from emphasizing basketball? If Clemson, Virginia Tech, Florida State, and most of the SEC wants to emphasize football, they should emphasize football. But if Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia want to emphasize basketball and they can win national championships, there's nothing wrong with it. Not every school has to be a damn football school.

Hokie wants to emphasize football. I get it. Virginia Tech's a football school. Virginia won a national championship in 2019. They have barely any football history. So should they take salary away from Tony Bennett to pay Bronco Mendenhall so maybe he wins 9 games a year instead of 7 and UVa b-ball can have more seasons like 2021 than 2019? Suit yourself.

(04-27-2021 10:04 PM)schmolik Wrote:  Again, what is wrong with a school that is good in (men's) basketball from emphasizing basketball? If Clemson, Virginia Tech, Florida State, and most of the SEC wants to emphasize football, they should emphasize football. But if Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia want to emphasize basketball and they can win national championships, there's nothing wrong with it. Not every school has to be a damn football school.

Hokie wants to emphasize football. I get it. Virginia Tech's a football school. Virginia won a national championship in 2019. They have barely any football history. So should they take salary away from Tony Bennett to pay Bronco Mendenhall so maybe he wins 9 games a year instead of 7 and UVa b-ball can have more seasons like 2021 than 2019? Suit yourself.

I don't believe that funding individual sports (football vs basketball) are zero-sum activities. UVA can have good programs in multiple sports. But football needs much more attention and investment. Football is generating the media payouts, so football needs more focus and attention. UVA doesn't need to compete for the national championship, but it does need to 1) attract over 50K fans per game and 2) win 9 or 10 games every few years.

What if UVa does not want to give it more attention? Money is not always the issue and UVa can afford to pay for what it wants better than anyone other than ND and Duke. In some of these cases the lack of investment is because they don't want academically and socially sub marginal football players as students on campus. How many 4-5 star football players come out of high school every year with a 4.0, a 1300 SAT, and AP credits in Calculus or Chemistry? Damn few. Of that damn few if they live west of the Rockies they are going to Stanford, ND, NW, or Duke. If they live east of the Rockies they are going to Duke, UVa, ND, and maybe Michigan. Since you need on average 20 of these kids a year to stock a team, and 5 schools in particular what this kind of athlete, the 5 schools come up short since 100 such kids a year do not exist. In fact 12-15 are probably the most in any year.

The cheating scandal that went of for years at UNC is due to them recruiting kids who read and wrote at a 6th to 8th grade level. To get enough of them in to compete at the highest level in football meant amassing nearly 40 on campus at one time. Hiding a handful of dumb jocks is one thing, hiding 40 is something else entirely. You can hide them better at private schools than public as well.

Moreover, being dumb as compared to the other students is itself a risk factor for getting in trouble. The "dumb" one gets left holding the bag. I've seen this at State, UNC, and VT. The real tragedy is that some of the "dumb" ones are nice people, just not the brightest bulbs in sea of bright shiny lights.

I would suggest that UVa like Duke, doesn't want to invest more in football.

Perhaps what is needed is a Magnolia Football League that contains schools who are otherwise members of the ACC/B10/SEC - it could be like a JV league where they can reduce expenditures and reduce expectations while still maintaining their customary relationships in other sports.

I suspect that such a league with BC, Army, Navy, UVa, WF, Duke, Tulane, Vandy, Northwestern, and even Illinois, or Rutgers, or Indiana would be very popular, would be watched and as long as you left these schools 4 or so games with traditional P-5 members, they should be fine.

(04-28-2021 02:36 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Perhaps what is needed is a Magnolia Football League that contains schools who are otherwise members of the ACC/B10/SEC - it could be like a JV league where they can reduce expenditures and reduce expectations while still maintaining their customary relationships in other sports.

I suspect that such a league with BC, Army, Navy, UVa, WF, Duke, Tulane, Vandy, Northwestern, and even Illinois, or Rutgers, or Indiana would be very popular, would be watched and as long as you left these schools 4 or so games with traditional P-5 members, they should be fine.

I’m a fan of this. With the growing cost of top notch collegiate athletic programs I think there needs to be an option where schools can gracefully self relegate.

From the P5 ranks, I’d say for sure:

Northwestern
Vanderbilt
BC
WF
Duke

Tulane, Rice, and SMU would fit in well here too. I think there’s some state schools could fit in well with this group. Maybe Army and Navy too.

Lots of schools don't want to play the game.

But they ALL want the revenue from it.

It will end.

(04-27-2021 09:08 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(04-27-2021 07:44 AM)TerryD Wrote:  ...the new doctrine seems to becoming more of the "eat what you kill" variety, not propping up football underperformers.

There is a balance that needs to be reached (you need your opponents to be viewed as strong enough, after all - plus the whole tv ratings thing). That said, the ACC is OUT OF BALANCE.

For my exhibit A, look at spending on basketball [LINK].

By conference...
ACC - 7 of top 25 basketball spending schools
B12 - 5
BIG, SEC & Big East - 4 each
PAC - 1

BOTTOM LINE: The ACC is investing in the wrong sport.

A 14-team conference like the SEC or B1G can afford to have four of them among the top spenders on the secondary sport, but in the ACC half of the teams do that!

(04-27-2021 10:04 PM)schmolik Wrote:  Again, what is wrong with a school that is good in (men's) basketball from emphasizing basketball? If Clemson, Virginia Tech, Florida State, and most of the SEC wants to emphasize football, they should emphasize football. But if Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia want to emphasize basketball and they can win national championships, there's nothing wrong with it. Not every school has to be a damn football school.

Hokie wants to emphasize football. I get it. Virginia Tech's a football school. Virginia won a national championship in 2019. They have barely any football history. So should they take salary away from Tony Bennett to pay Bronco Mendenhall so maybe he wins 9 games a year instead of 7 and UVa b-ball can have more seasons like 2021 than 2019? Suit yourself.

There is no big payout that results from emphasizing basketball.

The big payouts are all mostly generated by football.

For a conference that lags behind everyone else in payouts, placing its emphasis on basketball instead of football is a death sentence, an invitation to be picked apart by the Big Ten and SEC.

That is why emphasizing basketball over football is not a very smart idea for the ACC.

(04-28-2021 04:13 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(04-28-2021 02:36 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Perhaps what is needed is a Magnolia Football League that contains schools who are otherwise members of the ACC/B10/SEC - it could be like a JV league where they can reduce expenditures and reduce expectations while still maintaining their customary relationships in other sports.

I suspect that such a league with BC, Army, Navy, UVa, WF, Duke, Tulane, Vandy, Northwestern, and even Illinois, or Rutgers, or Indiana would be very popular, would be watched and as long as you left these schools 4 or so games with traditional P-5 members, they should be fine.

I’m a fan of this. With the growing cost of top notch collegiate athletic programs I think there needs to be an option where schools can gracefully self relegate.

From the P5 ranks, I’d say for sure:

Northwestern
Vanderbilt
BC
WF
Duke

Tulane, Rice, and SMU would fit in well here too. I think there’s some state schools could fit in well with this group. Maybe Army and Navy too.

How do you convince these schools that the massive pay cut that this would mean for them is a smart idea?

Northwestern and Vanderbilt get, what $50-60 million a year from their P5 conference?

What would membership in the "Magnolia Conference" generate for them?

Are you talking about forcibly imposing this on them or plan to just convince them that less is somehow more?

A small peep into what "football first" means and what happens when other athletes fight back.


https://247sports.com/college/north-caro...758091/The train wreck that is college sports continues.

In November 2020, Clemson cut men's track and CC starting after the 20-21 season. Since the lockdowns started, this is not uncommon.

Members of the teams sued Clemson for violating Title IX. They won through settlement with no guilt assigned to Clemson. Both sports will be continued and a new women's sport will be added. If I read it correctly, by cutting those two sports, they would have had too few male athletes.

The second lawsuit is much more interesting. The women's rowing, cross country, and track teams sued because they were not receiving equal athletic financial aid as other sports. Here is a partial list of the inequities:

The football team gets three meals a day, seven days a week cooked by a professional chef during the entire school year. The rowing team gets two meals a day, four days a week, prepared in the dining halls just during the spring semester.
The football team has access to a putt-putt course, bowling alley and rents out a movie theater in Anderson the night before a home game. No women's teams, to Bullock's knowledge, have access to any of that.
Football players are given fitted suits for away games. No women are given that.
The football team gets two media videos a season. The women's track team did not even get a poster made for them this season.
Women's rowing athletes have to share one locker between three teammates.
I know most will say: But Football is a revenue sport. It is, but for an athletic scholarship at an academic institution, it would seem all athletic scholarships should be equal or they should the scholarships should have designations like the Morehead. If designated scholarships exist, there would havet ob e an equal number for male and female sports and wouldn't be applicable to all members of a team. Clemson must agree since they have agreed to settle.

This is probably going to have huge ramifications in college sports.

(04-28-2021 02:26 PM)Statefan Wrote:  What if UVa does not want to give it more attention? Money is not always the issue and UVa can afford to pay for what it wants better than anyone other than ND and Duke. In some of these cases the lack of investment is because they don't want academically and socially sub marginal football players as students on campus. How many 4-5 star football players come out of high school every year with a 4.0, a 1300 SAT, and AP credits in Calculus or Chemistry? Damn few. Of that damn few if they live west of the Rockies they are going to Stanford, ND, NW, or Duke. If they live east of the Rockies they are going to Duke, UVa, ND, and maybe Michigan. Since you need on average 20 of these kids a year to stock a team, and 5 schools in particular what this kind of athlete, the 5 schools come up short since 100 such kids a year do not exist. In fact 12-15 are probably the most in any year.

The cheating scandal that went of for years at UNC is due to them recruiting kids who read and wrote at a 6th to 8th grade level. To get enough of them in to compete at the highest level in football meant amassing nearly 40 on campus at one time. Hiding a handful of dumb jocks is one thing, hiding 40 is something else entirely. You can hide them better at private schools than public as well.

Moreover, being dumb as compared to the other students is itself a risk factor for getting in trouble. The "dumb" one gets left holding the bag. I've seen this at State, UNC, and VT. The real tragedy is that some of the "dumb" ones are nice people, just not the brightest bulbs in sea of bright shiny lights.

I would suggest that UVa like Duke, doesn't want to invest more in football.

IMO, whether or not to fully commit to football is the debate at UVA (and likely at other Tobacco Road schools). Craig Littlepage (prior Athletic Director) constantly boasted about all the national championship teams...baseball, soccer, lacrosse, rowing and tennis. More recently, the Cavaliers have also had championship teams in basketball and swimming & diving. UVA is generally a leader in the Director's Cup competition and excels at both men's and women's sports.

But conference money comes from football. Prior athletic leaders (AD's such as Gene Corrigan, Dick Schultz and Terry Holland) did focus on football. Attendance at games constantly grew and Scott Stadium had repeated upgrades. UVA has the resources and a really good foundation to be a solid football program. Football commitment is more complex because the competition is greater and constantly evolving. Mendenhall has made steady progress, he needs to continue on this trend.

(04-29-2021 08:31 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  ...conference money comes from football. Prior athletic leaders (AD's such as Gene Corrigan, Dick Schultz and Terry Holland) did focus on football. Attendance at games constantly grew and Scott Stadium had repeated upgrades. UVA has the resources and a really good foundation to be a solid football program. Football commitment is more complex because the competition is greater and constantly evolving. Mendenhall has made steady progress, he needs to continue on this trend.

Wahoowa is correct. Swofford got credit for bringing in a bunch of football hired guns to prop up the conference, but he never really addressed the problem of the old ACC schools not named Clemson. UVa is a classic example.

Irony: I think fans of UVa, UNC, NC State, even Syracuse would all support greater emphasis on football - but those schools have resisted the market demand.

(04-28-2021 10:01 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(04-28-2021 04:13 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(04-28-2021 02:36 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Perhaps what is needed is a Magnolia Football League that contains schools who are otherwise members of the ACC/B10/SEC - it could be like a JV league where they can reduce expenditures and reduce expectations while still maintaining their customary relationships in other sports.

I suspect that such a league with BC, Army, Navy, UVa, WF, Duke, Tulane, Vandy, Northwestern, and even Illinois, or Rutgers, or Indiana would be very popular, would be watched and as long as you left these schools 4 or so games with traditional P-5 members, they should be fine.

I’m a fan of this. With the growing cost of top notch collegiate athletic programs I think there needs to be an option where schools can gracefully self relegate.

From the P5 ranks, I’d say for sure:

Northwestern
Vanderbilt
BC
WF
Duke

Tulane, Rice, and SMU would fit in well here too. I think there’s some state schools could fit in well with this group. Maybe Army and Navy too.

How do you convince these schools that the massive pay cut that this would mean for them is a smart idea?

Northwestern and Vanderbilt get, what $50-60 million a year from their P5 conference?

What would membership in the "Magnolia Conference" generate for them?

Are you talking about forcibly imposing this on them or plan to just convince them that less is somehow more?

That’s the difference between should happen and will happen.

It would take some legislation and/or a hard push from their existing conferences to get something like this to happen.

The result would be a huge cut in costs but a similar one in revenue.

On the plus side you get to claim membership in an academically elite athletic conference and notch some wins against like minded schools rather than going 1-7 in conference play against schools who’s athletic resources far out pace yours.

Corrigan, Schultz, and Holland did not need a football squad that was competitive with Miami, Florida State, and VT for the UVa fans to be generally satisfied. They only had to beat Clemson, NC State, MD, and UNC to be competitive. UVa does not need conference money like other schools in the ACC need that money and the faculty is not going to go along with papering over the misdeeds of misanthropes (unless of course they are wealthy white kids on the lacrosse team).

The sports fans don't run NC State or UVa. They run UNC-Ch but only barely.

The expectations of the fan base is a lagging indicator - take Nebraska for example their fans still have their old expectations but as those older fans die off, the majority of the fan base will have come to expect mediocrity from Nebraska.

The only "fix" to ACC football relative to UVa, NC State, and UNC is removing Duke from the equation because the mouth from Duke faculty has a negative impact on its close neighbors especially those that can't hide a misanthrope.

Trade Duke football for Navy football. Allow both to compete in other sports.

The following schools do not need TV money to compete in any sport -

Texas, TAMU, Stanford, Duke, UVa, NW, Michigan, ND, Vandy, UVa, Southern Cal, Cal. These 12 control or have tended to control the P12, B10, ACC, and B12. They skew the nature of decision making. Vandy and TAMU are the only two in their conference that have never "run" their conference at least in the last 70 years.

These 13 have a different set of interests relative to athletics as compared to those that need football money to operate but can operate with their own football stadium as their backbone - Bama, Auburn, TN, Florida, LSU, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Penn State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Clemson, and Florida State.

Everyone else needs a conference and tv money from football otherwise they can not compete against the above 24 schools.

What is the commonality between these two classes of schools - They have 5 billion dollar or more endowments and access to money that is evidenced by prior endowment activity or they have a football stadium that seats 80-110K people.

(04-27-2021 10:04 PM)schmolik Wrote:  Again, what is wrong with a school that is good in (men's) basketball from emphasizing basketball? If Clemson, Virginia Tech, Florida State, and most of the SEC wants to emphasize football, they should emphasize football. But if Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia want to emphasize basketball and they can win national championships, there's nothing wrong with it. Not every school has to be a damn football school.

Hokie wants to emphasize football. I get it. Virginia Tech's a football school. Virginia won a national championship in 2019. They have barely any football history. So should they take salary away from Tony Bennett to pay Bronco Mendenhall so maybe he wins 9 games a year instead of 7 and UVa b-ball can have more seasons like 2021 than 2019? Suit yourself.

Ok schmolik, do you really like watching FSU or Clemson beat Duke by 20 or more points on tv, or do you change the channel like I do?
I like it when Duke actually tries to beat FSU or Clemson. I love it when Wake Forest takes down FSU or some other big team. It gives the little guy more publicity. Even Kentucky in the SEC tries to compete in football.

But, not every school has to be a football school. Being a basketball or an Olympic sports school is ok too. I just like to see teams with football actually put forth some effort, which, believe it or not, Duke has, to an extent.

(04-29-2021 01:36 PM)Statefan Wrote:  The following schools do not need TV money to compete in any sport -

Texas, TAMU, Stanford, Duke, UVa, NW, Michigan, ND, Vandy, UVa, Southern Cal, Cal. These 12 control or have tended to control the P12, B10, ACC, and B12. They skew the nature of decision making. Vandy and TAMU are the only two in their conference that have never "run" their conference at least in the last 70 years.

These 13 have a different set of interests relative to athletics as compared to those that need football money to operate but can operate with their own football stadium as their backbone - Bama, Auburn, TN, Florida, LSU, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Penn State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Clemson, and Florida State.

Everyone else needs a conference and tv money from football otherwise they can not compete against the above 24 schools.

What is the commonality between these two classes of schools - They have 5 billion dollar or more endowments and access to money that is evidenced by prior endowment activity or they have a football stadium that seats 80-110K people.

Where is Georgia on your list?? We have 92,000 capacity stadium.

(04-29-2021 06:17 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  

(04-29-2021 01:36 PM)Statefan Wrote:  The following schools do not need TV money to compete in any sport -

Texas, TAMU, Stanford, Duke, UVa, NW, Michigan, ND, Vandy, UVa, Southern Cal, Cal. These 12 control or have tended to control the P12, B10, ACC, and B12. They skew the nature of decision making. Vandy and TAMU are the only two in their conference that have never "run" their conference at least in the last 70 years.

These 13 have a different set of interests relative to athletics as compared to those that need football money to operate but can operate with their own football stadium as their backbone - Bama, Auburn, TN, Florida, LSU, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Penn State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Clemson, and Florida State.

Everyone else needs a conference and tv money from football otherwise they can not compete against the above 24 schools.

What is the commonality between these two classes of schools - They have 5 billion dollar or more endowments and access to money that is evidenced by prior endowment activity or they have a football stadium that seats 80-110K people.

Where is Georgia on your list?? We have 92,000 capacity stadium.

Sorry I should have listed you with Auburn and Bama. We can agree to blame Jim Donnan

(04-29-2021 01:36 PM)Statefan Wrote:  The following schools do not need TV money to compete in any sport -

Texas, TAMU, Stanford, Duke, UVa, NW, Michigan, ND, Vandy, UVa, Southern Cal, Cal. These 12 control or have tended to control the P12, B10, ACC, and B12. They skew the nature of decision making. Vandy and TAMU are the only two in their conference that have never "run" their conference at least in the last 70 years.

These 13 have a different set of interests relative to athletics as compared to those that need football money to operate but can operate with their own football stadium as their backbone - Bama, Auburn, TN, Florida, LSU, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Penn State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Clemson, and Florida State.

Everyone else needs a conference and tv money from football otherwise they can not compete against the above 24 schools.

What is the commonality between these two classes of schools - They have 5 billion dollar or more endowments and access to money that is evidenced by prior endowment activity or they have a football stadium that seats 80-110K people.

The well heeled schools may not “need” the TV money, but they do covet the branding prestige of big time athletics. UVA, Northwestern, Cal, Vandy and Duke have all gone through eras with absolutely horrible football...times when their branding (athletic reputations) suffered enough to force course correction. For the good of the conference, these schools need to continually increase their commitment to football. The commissioner may need to appeal to their vanity, or micromanage football related issues, or use public shaming via unequal media distribution.