Maryland may actually be leaving the ACC

[TobaccoRoadEagle]

snark answer #1

snark answer #2 "of course we are first to sign, we are the most desperate"

[claver2010]

thanks Roethlisburger on #1, #2 was good

i'm going to work to keep your karma as is you tyrant

[Walsh601]

To answer my own question:

ACC's decision to express solidarity as a league initiated by FSU, UNC, GaTech, Clemson & VaTech presidents

https://twitter.com/McMurphyESPN/status/276770120037179394

does that answer your question? why would those schools (the ones with options probably) bitch?

Eh, I wasn't prejudging. I should have written "instigated" instead of "bitching".

[eagle9903]

To answer my own question:

ACC's decision to express solidarity as a league initiated by FSU, UNC, GaTech, Clemson & VaTech presidents

https://twitter.com/McMurphyESPN/status/276770120037179394

does that answer your question? why would those schools (the ones with options probably) bitch?

Eh, I wasn't prejudging. I should have written "instigated" instead of "bitching".

I figured you initially meant that it was probably BC, Wake, Duke, Pitt, Cuse types whining that got the schools with options to sign it.

[Walsh601]

Nah, if anything it's the schools with the most to lose recruitment wise that would like statements like this. I imagine it's coming up quite a bit: "Hey kid, by the time you're a junior your family will not be able to see you play because your games will be in god forsaken hellholes like Iowa or Kansas."

[eagle9903]

Nah, if anything it's the schools with the most to lose recruitment wise that would like statements like this. I imagine it's coming up quite a bit: "Hey kid, by the time you're a junior your family will not be able to see you play because your games will be in god forsaken hellholes like Iowa or Kansas."

That's a good point. I didn't think of the recruiting aspect.

[Walsh601]

Yeah, Dabo said so himself a few weeks back.

[HJS]

To answer my own question:

ACC's decision to express solidarity as a league initiated by FSU, UNC, GaTech, Clemson & VaTech presidents

https://twitter.com/McMurphyESPN/status/276770120037179394

does that answer your question? why would those schools (the ones with options probably) bitch?

Virgina has options in BOTH the SEC and B10. They could've been forcing their hand (though I understand that UVA's first choice is sticking with the ACC).

Ultimately, I think it makes a lot of sense for the schools with options to force this. By that I mean, if they are passing on opportunities, they want assurances (no matter how hollow) that no one else is going to take them instead. It should also be noted that ESPN is pitching them their own ACC Channel. That would be subscriber revenues that would be added to the current deal. It is entirely possible that ESPN would want some sort of assurance that they aren't ending up with UConn-Cincy when they start spending capital on such a creation.

The good of this is that people are saying they are committed. The bad is that they had to do this at all.

[31southst]

While the most important short term thing is a favorable resolution enforcing the exit fee against Maryland (with a reworked TV deal being second), I don't see how today's announcement is anything but a good sign. I think at this point schools would leave much more because they don't want to be stuck without a chair and less for the extra $$. If it can be reinforced that no would should have that worry, that can help push the conference through the near future.

[hansen]

1) first time we've been on top of anything besides hockey in a long time
2) the ACC channel is a must
3) has Maryland left the ACC yet? this thread confuses me.

[Walsh601]

Delany, Big Ten might feast some more on the ACC

NEW YORK -- You have to read Jim Delany, know his nuances, decipher his meaning.

The only way to cut through the B.S. was to ask the basic question for the most significant figure here at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum.

Are you done?

If you have to ask -- "Done with what?" -- please leave the room. This is about college athletics teetering on the brink of becoming something new and great -- or terrible and destructive. Definitely bigger. This is about the commissioner of the Big Ten proclaiming at one point Thursday morning, "I think the NCAA will survive."

Good to know from Delany, because no matter what happens in conference realignment you can bet the Big Ten will survive. Probably, the SEC too. But at the moment it is Jim Delany's world and we are only living in it.

"I would describe our position," he said with the world waiting in anticipation, "as inactive but alert."

Delany was speaking for his league and any future urge to expand. The addition of Maryland and Rutgers recently was strange enough, described by one veteran observer as the equivalent of purchasing a couple of fixer uppers. The hottest buzz in the industry is that Virginia and Georgia Tech are next for the Big Ten.

In other words, you don't jump from A to C, without first stopping at B. That's why a stop at the red-ink shop (Maryland/Rutgers) was necessary first before proceeding to the meaty portion. Virginia and Georgia Tech would extend the footprint down the East Coast and into the South. They would pacify Big Ten presidents' worries about academic issues.

Georgia Tech, alone, would be huge. Country's biggest airport. Great market. Think of the Big Ten infiltrating SEC and ACC country.

"The paradigm has shifted," Delany told the Forum audience.

For now, the Big Ten is doing the shifting. Gregory Geoffroy -- inhibitions lowered now because he is the former Iowa State president -- told the Des Moines Register Duke, North Carolina, Tech and North Carolina could all logically be in play.

"It all depends on the definition of what a conference is," Delany said.

It's pretty simple these days. Forget geography, forget tradition, forget players getting home at 4 in the morning. Add prestigious academic AAU schools (American Association of Universities) and TV markets and you have yourself conference overhaul. Presidents have proved themselves unrestrained in these matters. They rubber-stamped a $500-million playoff. ACC presidents mercilessly approved the raid that tore the Big East down to its current level.

As if on cue Thursday, those now-threatened ACC presidents issued a statement of solidarity. That made the current climate even more comical. Solidarity? In other news, Bobby Petrino says he is committed to his marriage. Besides, if the ACC CEOs really thought they were solid, why do they have a $50 million exit fee that red-ink stained Maryland didn't even blink at before jumping?

The Big 12 has a binding grant-of-rights for 13 years. That's the only way to keep the Pac-12 out and Texas and Oklahoma in. CBSSports.com has learned that the ACC inquired about that option before deciding on the exit fee.

To be fair, Delany did say he would be "very surprised" if his league expanded to a flyover state, one not bordering a Big Ten state. But he also said, "We're not a national conference but we're a conference with national awareness and national influence."

Delany has a plan. You know he has a plan. Those innuendos and hints tell you.

"We had the breadbasket and we had manufacturing," Delany said of the economic engines that once powered the Midwest. "You don't have success unless you have a real robust job market, real robust manufacturing."

Without telling you, he's telling you. The Rustbelt Midwest no longer has that real robust job market and manufacturing. Delany has mentioned it himself in the past: There is a population shift to the Sun Belt states.

"We have more Big Ten graduates in Phoenix than the Pac-12 does," he said.

That doesn't mean Arizona State is jumping to the Big Ten -- yet. It reinforces Delany's point that his conference needs to go South to replenish itself -- with TV viewers, with prestigious institutions and with athletes. You may have noticed lately that most of the best ones are in the SEC these days.

If a school that cut seven sports in July (Maryland) is considered an upgrade, then conference realignment just turned into the college version of manifest destiny.

And your school may be next. Conference realignment trickles down. You think not? The WAC just added Chicago State just to keep a pulse.

The Big Ten actually started this three years ago to the month. A simple memo explaining that the league was merely exploring expansion touched off the biggest upheaval in college sports since the 1984 Supreme Court decision against the NCAA.

"That was maybe a failed effort to be transparent," Delany said of the memo. "All we got were incoming calls from people [saying] we had upset their TV negotiations."

So the next time the Big Ten considered expansion, they kept it to themselves. And here we are.

"I would never say never [to expansion]," said the SEC's Mike Slive, who just got done going to 14 teams a year ago.

None of them can tell you that they're done. These conferences are either predatory or reactionary at this point. It depends on what side of the demographics you're on. I wrote recently how the Big 12 is fine at 10. I'm not sure anyone believes it.

I'm not sure I believe it.

One hope is that Slive and Delany find out that 14 teams can be too unwieldy, that they stop in their tracks.

"If you were to define a superconference, you would probably take our two leagues and define them," Slive said. "That would be the definition, right?"

Except that term "superconference" has come to mean 16 teams. We may already be there. The two most powerful conferences may have found the limits of their earning ability and power by expanding outside their traditional boundaries.

"At a certain point you're no longer a conference, you're more of an association," Delany said. Slive is not the only one who wonders how history will view this crazy land-grab. But he was the only one wondering out loud on Thursday.

"I'm a trustee of a trust," he said. "What's this trust going to look like 10, 20, 30 years from now?"

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/21295430/delany-big-ten-might-not-be-done-with-expansion

[vegasEagle]

1) first time we've been on top of anything besides hockey in a long time
2) the ACC channel is a must
3) has Maryland left the ACC yet? this thread confuses me.

Not true Hansen. We were on top of the league standings for football in late August and for hoops in October.

[rktbrkr]

I'm sure the MD AD waltzed a smart ass lawyer into the Board meeting and he assured the room that they'd never have to pay $52M. What if he's wrong and MD has to come up with $52M at the same time they claim they don't have adequate funds for their sports programs, then it's on MD taxpayers back. This is really a decision that should be made at the state house.ACC should seek an injunction preventing MD from leaving before they've paid up, make it a real legal foodfight

[HJS]

I'm sure the MD AD waltzed a smart ass lawyer into the Board meeting and he assured the room that they'd never have to pay $52M. What if he's wrong and MD has to come up with $52M at the same time they claim they don't have adequate funds for their sports programs, then it's on MD taxpayers back. This is really a decision that should be made at the state house.ACC should seek an injunction preventing MD from leaving before they've paid up, make it a real legal foodfight

MD Pres is a former Law Professor (but like Barry, never practiced). He vouched for it not being enforceable. The Board is realizing that they will likely be on the hook and aren't happy. Nonetheless, B1G is floating the money and just doing lower future payouts (still significantly more than the ACC).

On an aside, I think the buyout is more enforceable than the specific performance of the Grant of Rights.

[DuchesneEast]

On an aside, I think the buyout is more enforceable than the specific performance of the Grant of Rights.

I have said this before, but it will take a school with balls to fight it. (Texas)

[claver2010]

I'm sure the MD AD waltzed a smart ass lawyer into the Board meeting and he assured the room that they'd never have to pay $52M. What if he's wrong and MD has to come up with $52M at the same time they claim they don't have adequate funds for their sports programs, then it's on MD taxpayers back. This is really a decision that should be made at the state house.ACC should seek an injunction preventing MD from leaving before they've paid up, make it a real legal foodfight

MD Pres is a former Law Professor (but like Barry, never practiced). He vouched for it not being enforceable. The Board is realizing that they will likely be on the hook and aren't happy. Nonetheless, B1G is floating the money and just doing lower future payouts (still significantly more than the ACC).

On an aside, I think the buyout is more enforceable than the specific performance of the Grant of Rights.

Didn't the B12/10 float the money for the couch burners? Also, doesn't it take years for new B10/11/12/14 members to gain a full share or am I making that up?

[eagle9903]

Will anyone else be pretty excited if Delany dies? I'm no Dick Rosenthal, but there are limits to my capacity for not wishing death on people.

[eagle9903]

I'm sure the MD AD waltzed a smart ass lawyer into the Board meeting and he assured the room that they'd never have to pay $52M. What if he's wrong and MD has to come up with $52M at the same time they claim they don't have adequate funds for their sports programs, then it's on MD taxpayers back. This is really a decision that should be made at the state house.ACC should seek an injunction preventing MD from leaving before they've paid up, make it a real legal foodfight

I have no idea how this will play out as no one has ever gone to the mattresses before. I'd be unsurprised if events change in the meantime (like someone else leaving - and thus being out a party - or the tv contract changes positively - and thus killing the ACC's damages formula), but if not who knows. I don't even have any idea whether this will stay in north carolina state courts or be federal (does Maryland's membership kill its diversity argument?).

[TobaccoRoadEagle]

I'd be unsurprised if events change in the meantime (like someone else leaving - and thus being out a party - or the tv contract changes positively - and thus killing the ACC's damages formula), but if not who knows.

the remaining schools signed a letter of solidarity. A FUCKING LETTER YOU ASSHOLE!!! how could you possibly suggest such a thing.

by the way, notre dame signed it to. i view that as a sign they will be a member of the acc football conference by 2015.

[HJS]

Will anyone else be pretty excited if Delany dies? I'm no Dick Rosenthal, but there are limits to my capacity for not wishing death on people.

I think he is about the only one in the B1G he sees value in schools like BC, GT, MD and RU. Since 2 of those 4 are in, and the last two would be even bigger reaches (given the lack of geographic continuity), I think, if you want BC ultimately with a safe landing place, you want Delany to stay in charge for another 10 years.

[eagle9903]

Will anyone else be pretty excited if Delany dies? I'm no Dick Rosenthal, but there are limits to my capacity for not wishing death on people.

I think he is about the only one in the B1G he sees value in schools like BC, GT, MD and RU. Since 2 of those 4 are in, and the last two would be even bigger reaches (given the lack of geographic continuity), I think, if you want BC ultimately with a safe landing place, you want Delany to stay in charge for another 10 years.

Unless the B1G goes to 18 or 20, I have no confidence we end up there.

[Walsh601]

If they add 2 or 4 more we'll be left out. It's pretty clear from comments by the former Iowa president that the schools they're looking at are UVA, GT, UNC and Duke.

[HJS]

If they add 2 or 4 more we'll be left out. It's pretty clear from comments by the former Iowa president that the schools they're looking at are UVA, GT, UNC and Duke.

You are assuming that UNC and Duke would prefer the B1G to the SEC. From what I can tell, the freaking UVA fans preferthe SEC. I have to assume the deeper in the South you go, the less appetite they have for the rust belt (note the icy reception those schools still give BC).

BTW... if UNC, UVA, Duke and GT fled to the B1G, that would be sticking the Big10 squarely in Slive's face. I would not at all be surprised if they countered with something stupid like BC and Cuse to stick the SEC in perceived B10 country. To which the B1G could prevent it by adding SU and BC (which would result in 2 10-team divisions... all continguous and all will some history). I don't think that is happening... just saying it could. What you can be certain of is that BC will be the last piece for a conference... not the next domino.

[cvilleagle]

Interesting:

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8724603/barry-alvarez-says-big-ten-expanded-part-keep-penn-state-nittany-lions

[eagle9903]

Interesting:

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8724603/barry-alvarez-says-big-ten-expanded-part-keep-penn-state-nittany-lions

that's weird to me.

[HJS]

I think it has more to do with the fact that Penn State has carried New York for a while. And, with them on NCAA sanctions, there is a real fear that they will start sucking and B1G's hold on NYC will slip more than it has. So, I do think it has something to do with PSU... just not a fear of them being poached.

[rktbrkr]

So MD doesn't have enough $$ to keep their existing sports programs but they have $50M to pay an exit fee from a high quality conference they've been part of since day one. Either they think they can avoid the exit fee or they intend to borrow $50M from someone. I think there would be a lot of political heat if they sought to borrow $50M from the state of MD, that might not be a slam dunk. If BIG lent them the money wouldn't that be a step beyond merely inviting them to join? Wouldn't that expose BIG to lawsuits from ACC, predatory whatever, inducing (actually facilitating) MD to break a valid contract?

What if judge said you can leave but only after you make full payment to ACC?

Len Elmore on MD departure (I bet there's a groundswell of opposition)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ter ... -ten-move/

Rep Tom McMillan a trustee voted against the move but...

Underarmor billionaire could be bankrolling move, Plank is also a MD trustee

http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomo ... e-big-ten/

[b0mberMan]

I love when this guy shows up to say what has already been said.

[eagle9903]

I love when this guy shows up to say what has already been said.

it is like clockwork, but clockwork built in one of the lesser areas of the former Soviet Union.

[eagle9903]

I can't find the TV thread and EO is moving very slowly. So I'll put this here:

Tom Block ‏@_TomBlock

This ND $$ TV talk is not new. At time ND partnered w/ ACC, was reported 1-2 mil bump per school I've been told 2.

and then:

Tom Block ‏@_TomBlock

#ACC schools expecting $2 million per school bump for Notre Dame, for 5 games per year. Do the math and ESPN is paying 5-6 mil per ND game.

I have no idea if this is anywhere near true (the guy tweeting it is apparently an FSU radio guy). If it is 2 million per school for the 5 guaranteed ND games (or is it 2.5 because its only ND away games?) would be absolutely insane (meaning I don't have much confidence it is true). 28/5 = 5.6 Million a game and 28/2.5 = 11.2 million a game. Unless this is just a way for ESPN to get the ACC leveled up with the Big12 and hold on to the property it completely owns?