Of course, Finebaum and his knuckle dragging audience would think that.
Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)
- Thread starter ISUcyclones11
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Honestly I could see Duke just canceling football and going basketball only to the big east in this scenario.
While I don’t think and don’t hope this happens this would actually be horrific for the big 12.
Like a cousin to us.
Unfortunately none of that matters when it comes to future media deals.
A current P4 school doing away with football? You can’t be serious. That’s suicidal.
Sorry if it chafes you down there but I struggle seeing non-football focused, academically elitist schools like Virginia and UNC ending up in the SEC.
And to be clear I really wouldn't want them in the B1G because they wouldn't do anything but dilute the B1G's football brand IMO, but keep firing away.
It’s Duke. They have never really cared about football and have almost zero path to being good.
Their fans and alumni only care about basketball, if they were forced to make a decision with the ACC falling apart I could easily see them doing so. Their media dollars wouldn’t even shift that much with the new ACC deal that shifts more of their small media money over to Clemson and FSU.
I don’t. One thing that people have to remember is that no conference is being forced to take anyone. They have to provide value. Duke doesn’t provide any value unless they come in with a massive pay cut.
If a Duke or Virginia are willing to come in at a fraction of the price then that changes things but right now I don’t really see any of the ACC schools providing much value to the big ten outside of UNC. Maybe FSU if you could somehow get a massive carriage fee bump but then you also have to deal with FSU and their BS.
The SEC is a bit different as while I don’t think UNC is a great fit there they would be a solid addition.
They can direct their $ wherever they want and still have a football team. To give up football would be astronomically stupid. They’ve had more success than the bottom feeders in your conference recently.
Do you ever see this going the other way with imbalanced payouts? I don’t like the idea of kicking out members, but is everyone satisfied with the same slice of pie?
Maryland and Rutgers are basically Pitt and Syracuse in B1G clothes. They wouldn’t be additive today if they weren’t already on the bus.
Except that Cal and Stanford were already left in the lurch when the Pac imploded. The B1G and SEC won't take them. And there didn't seem to be any interest from the B12 last time. I'd say they are out in the case of an ACC implosion.
UNC's preference remains:
1) Restore "original" 10-school ACC in conjunction with Cody Campbell's media rights pooling and 7x10 rational realignment plans.
2) Create new 16-team conference with best of ACC and best of B12 (CBS and/or Amazon likely new TV partner)
3) SEC
4) B10
5) Keep ACC intact
This from a UNC alum with ties to the Dean Smith regime.
I guess it depends on how you define value. To me right now, it seems like overall brand is the main concern - not eyeballs in market, academic fit, geography, etc. Are you Coke or are you Fanta?
For overall branding value, I would rank:
- S: ND
- A: Clemson, FSU
- B: Miami, UNC
- C: VT, NCSt, LV
- D: Pitt, Duke, UVa, SMU, Stanford
- F: Syr, GT, Cal
- Z: WF, BC
There's arguments to be had plus or minus a grade, but I think that's close.
I think the Big12 would take any of the D or better teams if ACC blows up (maybe not SMU?). I would agree Duke doesn't make sense for the B1G unless they are adding like 6 teams or something crazy like that.
If I was the B1G, I would go big to 24 teams and get Clemson, FSU, Miami, UNC, Stanford, and ND. And if ND just won't play, then Duke or UVa works. Wreck the ACC, and leave the SEC smaller and with no good properties to chase. It might be dilutive overall, but it would hurt the SEC a lot.
It really wouldn’t as again, no one at Duke cares at all about football. Wouldn’t even be a financial hit and they could go all in on basketball the way big east programs can. If they choose as you say to put all of that 20mil towards basketball they might as well not have a football team at that point. It’s just not a priority for Duke and as a small private school that doesn’t care about football it honestly makes the most sense
Agreed but every conference needs bottom feeders, it acts as free bye weeks for teams having good years. I don’t see them getting the boot even if some fans would want it.
I agree with a lot of this and to your point I would have similar rankings give or take a tier.
Big Ten isn’t adding Stanford, they could have easily but didn’t go for it. Only way Duke or UVA gets added is if they take a massive pay cut like I mentioned. Oregon and Washington only got half shares for the rest of the decade, a team like Duke is getting probably a quarter share for an extremely long time.
If I were forced to place a wager on it, that's what I'd guess.
