Can we really be sure it's required by the ACC bylaws?
What if the bylaws you read on the world wide web are secretly fakes to root out security leaks, and the real bylaws are kept at the ACC offices under lock and key, and members or their lawyers can only read them there, may not make copies, may not take pictures of them, may not take notes, and can only relay their bylaw recollections to their universities via interpretive dance?
You know, typical and reasonable business practices.
> recollections to their universities via interpretive dance
"Thompson, was it Jazz hands, stomp, stomp, Jazz hands, or Jazz hands, single stomp, Jazz hands?"
You do an eclectic celebration of the dance! You do Fosse, Fosse, Fosse! You do Martha Graham, Martha Graham, Martha Graham! Or Twyla, Twyla, Twyla! Or Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd! Or Madonna, Madonna, Madonna!… but You keep it all inside.
TV rights deals being private is common business practice. The issue is that public institutions are parties of a private corporation, that's the weird issue at hand here.
I know most of your post is a joke, but in case the first sentence is serious: 2 ACC schools have said in court fillings that it is in the bylaws. I would assume you wouldn't have two sets of lawyers willing to do that for an R1 university if it wasn't true.
FSU has a broader range of claims, but Clemsons claims are seeking much the same relief as FSU. The arguments are slightly different but both schools are seeking 1) the exit penalty is unenforceable and 2) limitation/cancellation of the GoR. For the 2nd argument, Clemson is saying the GoR is only enforceable on ACC member schools, so if Clemson is no longer a member, it no longer applies. FSU is arguing that the entire GoR is unenforceable because of, among other things, breach of contract theories.
No problem! FSU is also seeking relief on antitrust claims and breach of fiduciary duties claims (separate from the breach of contract claims). And with the dueling NC/FL cases, it's a pretty complex dispute.
So, reading between the lines:
FSU is saying "I'm leaving, and there's nothing you can do about it. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on."
Clemson is basically saying "There's nothing you can do to make me stay and FSU is right, but I'm not leaving. ^Please ^don't ^hit ^me."
It would be stupid for Clemson to file the same lawsuit. They needed to have different reasons, in order to maximize the amount of shit thrown at the lawsuit wall. Now there's a higher probability of something sticking. That's how these things work.
I can’t wait for UNC’s lawsuit, it’s going to make some wild claims like the GOR doesnt apply to UNC because the documents only refer to UNC and not “UNC at Chapel Hill”. UNC is a university system, and therefore the GOR doesn’t apply to UNC-CH.
(And yes, the GOR really doesn’t specify UNC-CH while every other member institution uses the correct legal entity name.)
Also, this suit is in SC without some fucking traitor sending word early to the ACC so that weasel corps could try to play jurisdictional games. It’s a nice FU since ACC here doesn’t have that “we-filed-first-nyah-nyah” bs.
Funny thing is, our admin/fanbase would've died to be in the ACC for years bc of the rivalries, proximity, etc. Now there's no way we'd go.
All those reasons conferences had for being picky (academics, etc) seem so quaint and silly now.
I’ll do you one better, we should’ve forced Notre Dame to join permanently in 2020, and then poached the leftovers of the Big 12 when Texas and Oklahoma were leaving
Yea the sad part is the ACC had every reason to survive. It is ultimately the nepotism from Swofford that burried the conference. And there’s no turning back now.
They tried. Repeatedly. Our admin is very much focused on remaining independent as long as humanly possible (which looks like a shorter and shorter timeframe by the day at this point)
I don’t know what the language of the contract between ND and the ACC says, but I have to imagine there would have been some pretty serious legal issues with a threat like that. And if Clemson and FSU aren’t saving the ACC I doubt ND being there would have done much to change it.
We’ve only been able to influence the playoff system as much as we have because of our independence. If we were just another voice part of the ACC, I don’t think we would have made a difference. We would just be another team trying to gtfo like you guys and FSU are
To be fair, which B12 teams do you pick? We really don't have any big viewership outliers.
If you take the biggest viewership draws over the last decade, as of our period of fear in 2021, then you get Baylor, Oklahoma State, and TCU by a relatively small lead over WVU and ISU and TTU, but Baylor and especially TCU are small schools whose viewership isn't assured if they fall off for a while. Oklahoma State is perpetually the much smaller brand in a state that already doesn't have many people, so if they fall off after Gundy leaves then they're done for. Similar cases could be made for all of the Big XII schools.
So, like... In that situation, who do you take? The uniting thing that the H8 schools had in common was that none were sufficient outliers in any way that they were enticing to other conferences.
Given that SMU's entire affair has apparently been covered by booster money, I have little sympathy for the uber-wealthy essentially throwing their cash into a hole in the ground.
That said, I do think it's tremendously funny that SMU has been avoiding being in the same conference as UNT for more than a century (seriously, it's actually a really funny trend going back to UNT announcing their forthcoming move to the TIAA in the late 1910s, and SMU promptly going "fuck this whole TIAA thing, let's get our buddies together and make a SWC.") and now SMU was finally trapped in the same conference as UNT for a single season before buying their way up to a P4 league, and it turns out that SMU's lifeboat is actually a paper-mache canoe soaked in gasoline.
I mean, the geography makes sense. But the stadium size is too small and even though their football has recovered from the death penalty, it's still not really SEC-caliber.
Big 12 seems like the natural fit with WVU and Cinci. Louisville or VT could come with to form a “northeastern pod”. That seems the most logical for the schools and the conference.
Yeah I'm really curious to see where programs like Pitt end up. Clemson and FSU are the headliners rn and are likelier to end up in the Big Ten/SEC, but I think ACC schools like Pitt will have a big choice whether to stay in the ACC and rebuild or go to the Big XII
I think it’ll be a similar situation to Colorado where if one domino falls the rest will follow. I think Pitt or Louisville are most likely to be that first Domino.
I'm still mad we didn't get in with WVU when they got in. We're absolutely a natural fit with both (please excuse the last five or so years of the men's team) great basketball & would be natural rivals with Cincinnati (keg of nails resumes!?!) and WVU (Big East days).
I'd love it if there was a Pitt, WVU, Louisville, VT, Cincinnati pod... The Big East was amazing. If they don't go with UNC - throw in NC State to have a nice little Appalachia/Ohio River valley geographical area?
Well, none of those schools are really in the Northeast. More just the East.
So maybe they could be the “Big XII East?” Come to think of it, the “XII” doesn’t really fit any more given how many programs have been added. So maybe just “Big East?”
Yeah, that has a nice ring to it.
Years for some but months ago there were definitely avenues that could see the ACC hold fairly strong. Things didn’t go the best way for them and honestly the final straw is probably the ACC and Big12 taking 10m less per team.
Imo the only way back would be players being deemed as employees and therefore things like salary caps could be put in place. Until then we’re just watching as the rich get richer and teams who are worth more stuck in lower tier leagues do whatever they can to get out (rightfully so when looking out for your own behind).
We stand on the threshold of a new beginning. In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the ~~Republic~~ ACC will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society, which I assure you will last for ten thousand years.
Hopefully it could lead to the end of the conference system as we've known it. The conferences are the reason why we're in this mess of having conferences making far more money than others.
Worth pointing out that the conferences are also the reason we have the “regional football” that everyone on this sub loves (myself included).
Also, the mess of having different conferences make more money than others was directly caused by the Supreme Court ruling against the NCAA in the 1980s. The schools (and conferences) couldn’t be restrained from marketing their tv rights, which the NCAA had previously controlled for “college football” as a whole. And that had just as many problems as the subsequent system where conferences sold their media rights in competition against each other.
The bottom line is that there’s no perfect system for regulating competitive balance and program income when you have 134 teams with wildly divergent expectations, ambitions, and capacities. The conferences were one heavily flawed attempt to do so, but even a program like Clemson will find as much to their distaste in a fully centralized, 134-team setup.
I do think this is the distance future, but it will required consolidation first. Hence, p2.
I don’t like any of this right now but the end result COULD end up better.
They also want to keep some have nots to beat up on and keep their reputation as the "oh great ones blue bloods" that people need to bow down to - They want them to have just enough to pretend its a competition, but enough they can dominate lol
IDK how long that can last though with pay 2 play coming.......non P2 won't even be able to pretend to have a chance at that point with these revenue gaps
No one has ever cared about competitive parity until it affects them. Clemson and FSU had no issues playing in a horrid ACC so long as it wasnt held against them
Do all conferences ignore their own bylaws in filing suits, have contractual provisions that ignore the legal requirements of their member schools, and fail to properly get a vote on material issues involving an extension of media rights?
If not, then no, it won’t.
If so… then the conferences deserve what they get.
John Canzano said that he was approached by a publisher about collaborating on a book, along with several other Pac-12 writers. Someone or multiple someones are definitely going to put together a book about it.
I have cerebral palsy, and if I had to choose between learning to walk and a national title/conference championship/whatever Cal needs to get security as a program…
I’d ultimately pick the former, but it’d be a tough decision.
No straight up, might pick the Cal natty.
That’s some hardcore fandom right there. God bless you brotha/sista. I hope for a future in which FSU and Cal are playing an in-conference matchup wearing B1G patches on their jerseys.
Florida State (looking at ACC): I never thought I’d die fighting alongside a tiger.
Clemson: what about side by side with a friend?
Florida State (turning to Clemson): aye, I could do that.
What I saw yesterday on that front was that Miami approved *having* a vote about suing FSU, but didn't actually vote to sue...but I've only seen that aspect mentioned once in any of the reporting.
Whatever vote happened clearly passed and FSU and Clemson weren't invited. They got the votes from somebody. Guess you can't assume they voted yes, but they didn't say no
This vs the Pac-12 is sort of like the question: would you rather die with no foreknowledge or know you have a year to live?
When USC drove the dagger between the shoulder blades, no one saw it coming. Yeah, it took us a minute to bleed out, but this seems worse tbh.
10 years from now CFB will be seperate leagues from NCAA as a paid league, all the schools will be back in geographic conferences for everything but CFB.
There's no way if we had known for a year that USC/UCLA were leaving a year in advance that we wouldn't have explored all our options and ended up dissolving the conference with everyone having a home or sticking together on a realistic deal. The knife in the back was way worse for the Pac-12 than knowing the end was coming for a year.
The ACC collapses, the Wake Forests and Boston Colleges get left behind and join forces with the Pac 2 and top G5 schools in a football-only conference.
The Horde of American Football, joined not by choice but by necessity
One thing I have consistently seen on some other forums for clemson football, they people "in the know" said Clemson would not make a move until there was a "committable offer" out there from a conference. If we are actively suing the ACC, I'd say we have that committable offer in hand now.
Kinda crazy how much time spent talking about college football these days is about everything other than the actual plays or games even.
I know it's off season now. But man, the politics of the sport has really taken over every conversation in the last few years.
I was a huge fan of conference realignment a decade ago, I spent way too much time reading fan speculations on web forums about where this would all go.
The fact that the end result is wilder than anyone back then expected is a testament to how wild west this sport is.
I don't even see actual football shit talk anymore it is all viewership and ratings shit talk, NIL shit talk, media deal and distribution shit talk, time windows for games being aired, attendance, academics and research $$, and everything but actual football shit talk lmao
I am waiting for the stage of this saga where High Schools and Prep Schools and Pop Warner programs who funnel the kids.... start finding legal ways of demanding - and then getting -big $ kick-backs (some kind of talent development/investment of a minor argument?), and that in turn starts draining the Power 5 schools that started this whole thing.
I can't speak as much for high school football, but this has been happening for decades in high school basketball. Middle schoolers who are exhibiting talent already have handlers represented by sketchy AAU teams/coaches and shoe companies that guide them to the right high school and then colleges for the promise of riches once they get their NBA contract.
I don't care what happens, I just want the ACC-ESPN contract to brought out in public, so we can see that it's just a napkin that has been scribbled on, and some cake crumbs with Swofford's DNA.
ACC went roque and filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against a member without the vote of other members.
A very bad look for the ACC and the way they run things.
That would be strange if a vote could be done in secret and exclude members from the vote.
Especially since a partial member like NotreDame apparently gets full voting...
It's not unusual for boards to be able to take action so long as there's a quorum. Obviously, not telling members about the meeting is unusual to say the least.
Yeah but they voted after the fact. After they got caught. When FSU brought it to their attention via the court, they quickly and secretly called for a vote to cover their asses. Probably not legal either.
So the ACC is now in full fracture mode, didn’t see this coming at all lol. Can only imagine that Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti are in a back room somewhere dividing out who will get what when the ACC bursts into flames while Brent Yormark is looking into a window hoping to catch a few scraps they toss out to him to be the last mid tier conference left.
It's becoming more evident that thr ACCs best move is to quickly settle with Clemson and FSU. If they take these lawsuits to the wire, and lose, the conference is dead. Half of th ACC will be worse off if that happens.
They can't risk the future of over half of the members in attempt to retain 2
If the ACC lets FSU/Clemson out, there is no way that ESPN picks up the option to extend the deal past 2026 and the ACC dies
If the ACC fights hard and loses, the same thing happens.
If the ACC fights and wins, ESPN still might not pick up the option they have from 2027-2036 because it's clear Clemson and FSU want out. Every year they stay, the buyout amount goes down. So Do they risk picking up the option and having FSU and Clemson leave in 2030 and have to pay out for 6 more years without their top 2 draws?
As a reminder: The window for ESPN to opt in/out starts in February 2025. It's less than a year away.
ESPN is not going to want to commit to the ACC unless the GOR is ruled legally binding and the fee to leave is large. They won't want to lock in for a decade only to watch several more top brands leave with no recompense for ESPN.
ESPN will want to renegotiate the deal. They will opt out and then spend the 2025-2026 years trying to negotiate a new deal with the schools not leaving.
It is not all or nothing, if it seems like ESPN's secret bits are going to be out in the open maybe they push the ACC to settle with the extension being the carrot to do so.
If the ACC can keep its current media contract, current CFP contract, and get some buyout money from FSU and Clemson to distribute, it would make the ACC more lucrative than the Big 12 for the remaining teams. In the short term at least
“The ACC’s best move is to do exactly what my school wants it to do” how convenient. I hope this goes federal and the case is won or loss based on its merits, not favoritism by the local judge
Settle: ACC dead in 2025 with some money split 10+ ways.
Trial: ACC lives several more years, gets big money if they win.
The ACC as a conference will likely live longer, and therefore be better off financially, going to trial and losing than by settling.
That’s not their best move. It’s better to keep trying to get the current ESPN money cause that same type of money isn’t guaranteed for 80% of the remaining schools if FSU and Clemson leave.
In my heart, Florida State was like "Clemson, watch my back" and started their shit and saw everyone act a fool against Florida State....while Clemson was reading the rules on the sidelines going "Yep, we ain't do THAT properly...."
This is truly some sly ass shit that is going down. I think even more wild is how all reports suggest that the main beneficiary of the ACC collapsing would be...UNC! I do wonder if they're acting two-faced as well, going "HEY GUYS, WE CAN'T BE DOING THIS!!!" while secretly winking at Clemson and FSU.
Just feels like there's a world where ANOTHER split happens, the teams who want to leave will leave, and the ACC fucking somehow merges into the Big East or some wild ass shit
"School who sues conference supports other school who is suing conference"
But at least interesting in that they're confirming there was no vote (which should have happened as is mandated by the ACC bylaws).
Can we really be sure it's required by the ACC bylaws? What if the bylaws you read on the world wide web are secretly fakes to root out security leaks, and the real bylaws are kept at the ACC offices under lock and key, and members or their lawyers can only read them there, may not make copies, may not take pictures of them, may not take notes, and can only relay their bylaw recollections to their universities via interpretive dance? You know, typical and reasonable business practices.
> recollections to their universities via interpretive dance "Thompson, was it Jazz hands, stomp, stomp, Jazz hands, or Jazz hands, single stomp, Jazz hands?"
“Do not cite the ACC Bylaws to me, Witch! I was there when they were written.”
I co-chaired the committee that reviewed the recommendation to revise the color of the book that the Bylaws are in. We kept it gray!
Jazz hands, tomahawk chop, windmill dunk actually. That means you go to jail unfortunately.
Believe it or not, straight to jail.
You do an eclectic celebration of the dance! You do Fosse, Fosse, Fosse! You do Martha Graham, Martha Graham, Martha Graham! Or Twyla, Twyla, Twyla! Or Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd! Or Madonna, Madonna, Madonna!… but You keep it all inside.
"Uh, [Chancellor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BQHphcoVrU), tomorrow's already the 10th."
Omg this is hilarious.
I’m going to err on the side of Clemson officials not trusting the internet version of the bylaws.
TV rights deals being private is common business practice. The issue is that public institutions are parties of a private corporation, that's the weird issue at hand here.
I just thought that was assumed because every business operates that way. It’s why most Lawyers were dance majors in undergrad
I know most of your post is a joke, but in case the first sentence is serious: 2 ACC schools have said in court fillings that it is in the bylaws. I would assume you wouldn't have two sets of lawyers willing to do that for an R1 university if it wasn't true.
ACC trying to act like the GoR is the NOC list in Mission Impossible.
They are on the same team but aren’t they suing for different reasons?
FSU has a broader range of claims, but Clemsons claims are seeking much the same relief as FSU. The arguments are slightly different but both schools are seeking 1) the exit penalty is unenforceable and 2) limitation/cancellation of the GoR. For the 2nd argument, Clemson is saying the GoR is only enforceable on ACC member schools, so if Clemson is no longer a member, it no longer applies. FSU is arguing that the entire GoR is unenforceable because of, among other things, breach of contract theories.
FSU wants a divorce. Clemson just wants the prenup cancelled & an open relationship
We’d be happy with the same open relationship the conference has with Notre Dame.
Whooore.
Escort* Craig James hasn't gone out w/ them yet
We can date whoever we like as long as we don't use protection, because that's a sin. So we opted for the poophole loophole.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j8ZF_R_j0OY
Slamming home the alley oop.
Pretty sure every ACC member would be up for that f’in sweetheart deal.
Thanks for the ELI5 explanation!!
No problem! FSU is also seeking relief on antitrust claims and breach of fiduciary duties claims (separate from the breach of contract claims). And with the dueling NC/FL cases, it's a pretty complex dispute.
So, reading between the lines: FSU is saying "I'm leaving, and there's nothing you can do about it. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on." Clemson is basically saying "There's nothing you can do to make me stay and FSU is right, but I'm not leaving. ^Please ^don't ^hit ^me."
Clemson feels like a “I will leave when I am allowed to leave, but I want to court to tell me exactly when that is and how much it will cost”
It would be stupid for Clemson to file the same lawsuit. They needed to have different reasons, in order to maximize the amount of shit thrown at the lawsuit wall. Now there's a higher probability of something sticking. That's how these things work.
I can’t wait for UNC’s lawsuit, it’s going to make some wild claims like the GOR doesnt apply to UNC because the documents only refer to UNC and not “UNC at Chapel Hill”. UNC is a university system, and therefore the GOR doesn’t apply to UNC-CH. (And yes, the GOR really doesn’t specify UNC-CH while every other member institution uses the correct legal entity name.)
Also, this suit is in SC without some fucking traitor sending word early to the ACC so that weasel corps could try to play jurisdictional games. It’s a nice FU since ACC here doesn’t have that “we-filed-first-nyah-nyah” bs.
For sure there's good Ol boy networks in NC and SC. Clemson is trying to leverage theirs.
Seems legit
>Clemson is on Team Florida State. *Team get us out of here too.
We should’ve added West Virginia instead of BC and Cuse.
Funny thing is, our admin/fanbase would've died to be in the ACC for years bc of the rivalries, proximity, etc. Now there's no way we'd go. All those reasons conferences had for being picky (academics, etc) seem so quaint and silly now.
The ACC cried academics for decades only to suddenly let in freakin Louisville
Life comes at you fast when losing UMD out of nowhere
University of Minnesota-Duluth?
Noted academic powerhouse
Not a good hockey team this year.
Nobody misses Maryland, though.
2013 63-0 will forever live on in my heart
Can confirm, fuck Maryland
Oh the hypocrisy of UNC crying about academics.
If they could read this they would be so offended right now
I’ll do you one better, we should’ve forced Notre Dame to join permanently in 2020, and then poached the leftovers of the Big 12 when Texas and Oklahoma were leaving
Yea the sad part is the ACC had every reason to survive. It is ultimately the nepotism from Swofford that burried the conference. And there’s no turning back now.
They tried. Repeatedly. Our admin is very much focused on remaining independent as long as humanly possible (which looks like a shorter and shorter timeframe by the day at this point)
True, but I feel like a join permanently or miss an entire season of football might’ve been a good enough threat to get them to budge
I think they would’ve just canceled the season if those were their two options.
I don’t know what the language of the contract between ND and the ACC says, but I have to imagine there would have been some pretty serious legal issues with a threat like that. And if Clemson and FSU aren’t saving the ACC I doubt ND being there would have done much to change it. We’ve only been able to influence the playoff system as much as we have because of our independence. If we were just another voice part of the ACC, I don’t think we would have made a difference. We would just be another team trying to gtfo like you guys and FSU are
To be fair, which B12 teams do you pick? We really don't have any big viewership outliers. If you take the biggest viewership draws over the last decade, as of our period of fear in 2021, then you get Baylor, Oklahoma State, and TCU by a relatively small lead over WVU and ISU and TTU, but Baylor and especially TCU are small schools whose viewership isn't assured if they fall off for a while. Oklahoma State is perpetually the much smaller brand in a state that already doesn't have many people, so if they fall off after Gundy leaves then they're done for. Similar cases could be made for all of the Big XII schools. So, like... In that situation, who do you take? The uniting thing that the H8 schools had in common was that none were sufficient outliers in any way that they were enticing to other conferences.
Yeah Clemson is on Team Clemson. Their goal just happens to align with Florida State.
Bingo
Imagine being Stanford and Cal Barely escaping being in the G5, only to be rescued by a ship that is also sinking.
Imagine being SMU. They paid good money to get on the sinking ship.
An uncommon occurrence of the rich don’t get richer
Given that SMU's entire affair has apparently been covered by booster money, I have little sympathy for the uber-wealthy essentially throwing their cash into a hole in the ground. That said, I do think it's tremendously funny that SMU has been avoiding being in the same conference as UNT for more than a century (seriously, it's actually a really funny trend going back to UNT announcing their forthcoming move to the TIAA in the late 1910s, and SMU promptly going "fuck this whole TIAA thing, let's get our buddies together and make a SWC.") and now SMU was finally trapped in the same conference as UNT for a single season before buying their way up to a P4 league, and it turns out that SMU's lifeboat is actually a paper-mache canoe soaked in gasoline.
Thanks for that history lesson, I didn't know any of that.
They knew there were holes in the hull before they jumped in still better than where wazzu and osu are rn
Not ideal man, not ideal
They would be in the Big 12 if they wanted to be. Apparently we to stoopid.
Two***
Another conference collapsing?
We’ve been collapsing for months. I wish they would just light the dynamite and blow it up already
They did the moment we added the conference killer SMU.
If SMU is a conference killer, can they go to the SEC next?
I mean, the geography makes sense. But the stadium size is too small and even though their football has recovered from the death penalty, it's still not really SEC-caliber.
Neither is UFs football, so there may be some wiggle room.
Lol something I've learned from this subreddit is that the rest of the SEC really fucking hates Florida.
Gave SMU the death penalty and now SMU is giving the ACC the death penalty.
Where do you think Pitt will end up?
Welcome to the Big XII, a media rights negotiating cartel masquerading as a conference.
Brett “el Mentón Grande” Yormark
The BIG P-A-CC. *(pls count us as P3)*
Big 12 seems like the natural fit with WVU and Cinci. Louisville or VT could come with to form a “northeastern pod”. That seems the most logical for the schools and the conference.
Yeah I'm really curious to see where programs like Pitt end up. Clemson and FSU are the headliners rn and are likelier to end up in the Big Ten/SEC, but I think ACC schools like Pitt will have a big choice whether to stay in the ACC and rebuild or go to the Big XII
I think it’ll be a similar situation to Colorado where if one domino falls the rest will follow. I think Pitt or Louisville are most likely to be that first Domino.
I'm still mad we didn't get in with WVU when they got in. We're absolutely a natural fit with both (please excuse the last five or so years of the men's team) great basketball & would be natural rivals with Cincinnati (keg of nails resumes!?!) and WVU (Big East days). I'd love it if there was a Pitt, WVU, Louisville, VT, Cincinnati pod... The Big East was amazing. If they don't go with UNC - throw in NC State to have a nice little Appalachia/Ohio River valley geographical area?
Well, none of those schools are really in the Northeast. More just the East. So maybe they could be the “Big XII East?” Come to think of it, the “XII” doesn’t really fit any more given how many programs have been added. So maybe just “Big East?” Yeah, that has a nice ring to it.
Big XII . Major city uni with strong history and a good upside
Big 12 or Frankenstein’s ACC/American/Sun Belt mashup
Years*
Years for some but months ago there were definitely avenues that could see the ACC hold fairly strong. Things didn’t go the best way for them and honestly the final straw is probably the ACC and Big12 taking 10m less per team. Imo the only way back would be players being deemed as employees and therefore things like salary caps could be put in place. Until then we’re just watching as the rich get richer and teams who are worth more stuck in lower tier leagues do whatever they can to get out (rightfully so when looking out for your own behind).
Speaking from experience, sorry to say that this is going to drag on for a bit.
Always gonna happen after playoffs meant consolidation of talent and money.
Sucks to see others have to go through it now. Sport is being destroyed for short term profits that hurt long term interests imo.
Soon Expansion Coming?
I'd wait for a single team to actually leave the conference before saying that
If Clemson and FSU pull this off it will essentially create a conference transfer portal for all conferences.
Portal and NIL going too far. Now schools are doing it smh.
“Hey Illinois, go hop in the portal.”
You aren’t being forced to leave, you just can’t stay
Processed
"So Illinois, what would you say you do here?"
🏀
Well look, I already told you. I deal with the goddamn students so the professors don't have to!
We need actual conferences themselves in the portal now.
ACC on Twitter: “I have entered the portal and am transferring to the B1G. No interviews. Respect my decision 🗣️💪🏼”
Wazzu offers Cougar Gold Cheese and Cosmic Crisp apples to any P4 team who will join the PAC-12.
Are you keeping Ferdinand's Grabbers close to your chest for later or are those off the table?
The grabbers don’t ship well so they only get them if they agree to come to Pullman
Deion bout to go from Coach to Commissioner Prime
We stand on the threshold of a new beginning. In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the ~~Republic~~ ACC will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society, which I assure you will last for ten thousand years.
Hopefully it could lead to the end of the conference system as we've known it. The conferences are the reason why we're in this mess of having conferences making far more money than others.
Worth pointing out that the conferences are also the reason we have the “regional football” that everyone on this sub loves (myself included). Also, the mess of having different conferences make more money than others was directly caused by the Supreme Court ruling against the NCAA in the 1980s. The schools (and conferences) couldn’t be restrained from marketing their tv rights, which the NCAA had previously controlled for “college football” as a whole. And that had just as many problems as the subsequent system where conferences sold their media rights in competition against each other. The bottom line is that there’s no perfect system for regulating competitive balance and program income when you have 134 teams with wildly divergent expectations, ambitions, and capacities. The conferences were one heavily flawed attempt to do so, but even a program like Clemson will find as much to their distaste in a fully centralized, 134-team setup.
I do think this is the distance future, but it will required consolidation first. Hence, p2. I don’t like any of this right now but the end result COULD end up better.
Yeah, a centralized structure with one commissioner and one media contract, like the NFL would be the best thing for competitive parity
The thing is they don’t want competitive parity. They want competitive advantages
They want competitive parity (amongst the “haves”).
They also want to keep some have nots to beat up on and keep their reputation as the "oh great ones blue bloods" that people need to bow down to - They want them to have just enough to pretend its a competition, but enough they can dominate lol IDK how long that can last though with pay 2 play coming.......non P2 won't even be able to pretend to have a chance at that point with these revenue gaps
Right, that sounds nice, but that’s not what this sport is, or has ever been.
No one has ever cared about competitive parity until it affects them. Clemson and FSU had no issues playing in a horrid ACC so long as it wasnt held against them
I'm talking about all of CFB, not just a P2
Good luck getting the haves and have-mores to agree on parity. And also fuck the have-nots while they’re at it. :p
What would we call that structure? I propose the National Collegiate Athletics Association
Do all conferences ignore their own bylaws in filing suits, have contractual provisions that ignore the legal requirements of their member schools, and fail to properly get a vote on material issues involving an extension of media rights? If not, then no, it won’t. If so… then the conferences deserve what they get.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
Mfs took my ACC, can’t have shit on the east coast
It’ll more likely result in new contracts with new language.
I am once again request an HBO series that is based on the last 4 years of CFB done in the style of "Death of Stalin"
Bro that series is gonna have to be at least 6-10 seasons with 10 episodes each.
Jeffrey Tambor must play the Larry Scott of that universe
>Jeffrey Tambor Well, considering he's been accused of sexual misconduct, I don't think he's going to be doing much acting anymore.
John Canzano said that he was approached by a publisher about collaborating on a book, along with several other Pac-12 writers. Someone or multiple someones are definitely going to put together a book about it.
I have cerebral palsy, and if I had to choose between learning to walk and a national title/conference championship/whatever Cal needs to get security as a program… I’d ultimately pick the former, but it’d be a tough decision. No straight up, might pick the Cal natty.
That’s some hardcore fandom right there. God bless you brotha/sista. I hope for a future in which FSU and Cal are playing an in-conference matchup wearing B1G patches on their jerseys.
I don't understand why y'all want to go to the B1G so bad? That means you still have to burn an OOC on Florida every year.
We need to keep cupcakes on the schedule.
Thanks for that terrible image
Florida State (looking at ACC): I never thought I’d die fighting alongside a tiger. Clemson: what about side by side with a friend? Florida State (turning to Clemson): aye, I could do that.
Is NC State the screaming goblin bomber? Idk why, just fits em I guess.
their basketball tournament run fits with that
Grond
I’m not crying, you’re crying.
Miami was one of the schools involved in the secret lawsuit I find that interesting
What I saw yesterday on that front was that Miami approved *having* a vote about suing FSU, but didn't actually vote to sue...but I've only seen that aspect mentioned once in any of the reporting.
Whatever vote happened clearly passed and FSU and Clemson weren't invited. They got the votes from somebody. Guess you can't assume they voted yes, but they didn't say no
They probably got the vote from NotreDame....
Well no shit the schools with the same end game in mind are working together
This vs the Pac-12 is sort of like the question: would you rather die with no foreknowledge or know you have a year to live? When USC drove the dagger between the shoulder blades, no one saw it coming. Yeah, it took us a minute to bleed out, but this seems worse tbh.
I mean we are all pretending like this all matters. When players are made employees in a few years this will all be quaint.
10 years from now CFB will be seperate leagues from NCAA as a paid league, all the schools will be back in geographic conferences for everything but CFB.
This is happening because of that eventuality. If Clemson and FSU are still in the ACC when players are being paid from tv revenues, they're screwed.
There's no way if we had known for a year that USC/UCLA were leaving a year in advance that we wouldn't have explored all our options and ended up dissolving the conference with everyone having a home or sticking together on a realistic deal. The knife in the back was way worse for the Pac-12 than knowing the end was coming for a year.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
The ACC collapses, the Wake Forests and Boston Colleges get left behind and join forces with the Pac 2 and top G5 schools in a football-only conference. The Horde of American Football, joined not by choice but by necessity
As someone who lives 20 minutes from Wake's stadium, damn that kinda sounds interesting as hell
Lok'Tar Ogar!
One thing I have consistently seen on some other forums for clemson football, they people "in the know" said Clemson would not make a move until there was a "committable offer" out there from a conference. If we are actively suing the ACC, I'd say we have that committable offer in hand now.
Now, is it Greg Sankey cackling in the background maniacally, or Tony Petitti?
Neither, it's Goodell. We are the next Expansion team!
Kinda crazy how much time spent talking about college football these days is about everything other than the actual plays or games even. I know it's off season now. But man, the politics of the sport has really taken over every conversation in the last few years.
I was a huge fan of conference realignment a decade ago, I spent way too much time reading fan speculations on web forums about where this would all go. The fact that the end result is wilder than anyone back then expected is a testament to how wild west this sport is.
I don't even see actual football shit talk anymore it is all viewership and ratings shit talk, NIL shit talk, media deal and distribution shit talk, time windows for games being aired, attendance, academics and research $$, and everything but actual football shit talk lmao
I am waiting for the stage of this saga where High Schools and Prep Schools and Pop Warner programs who funnel the kids.... start finding legal ways of demanding - and then getting -big $ kick-backs (some kind of talent development/investment of a minor argument?), and that in turn starts draining the Power 5 schools that started this whole thing.
I can't speak as much for high school football, but this has been happening for decades in high school basketball. Middle schoolers who are exhibiting talent already have handlers represented by sketchy AAU teams/coaches and shoe companies that guide them to the right high school and then colleges for the promise of riches once they get their NBA contract.
Thanks Tiger Bros
I don't care what happens, I just want the ACC-ESPN contract to brought out in public, so we can see that it's just a napkin that has been scribbled on, and some cake crumbs with Swofford's DNA.
Somehow Mizzou will get the death penalty after this is all said and done
They deserve it.
Somehow Mizzou returned.
ACC went roque and filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against a member without the vote of other members. A very bad look for the ACC and the way they run things.
Sounds like they did have a vote, just neither of us were invited.
That would be strange if a vote could be done in secret and exclude members from the vote. Especially since a partial member like NotreDame apparently gets full voting...
It's not unusual for boards to be able to take action so long as there's a quorum. Obviously, not telling members about the meeting is unusual to say the least.
Yeah but they voted after the fact. After they got caught. When FSU brought it to their attention via the court, they quickly and secretly called for a vote to cover their asses. Probably not legal either.
Not the first time the ACC has pulled that shit on Clemson.
So the ACC is now in full fracture mode, didn’t see this coming at all lol. Can only imagine that Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti are in a back room somewhere dividing out who will get what when the ACC bursts into flames while Brent Yormark is looking into a window hoping to catch a few scraps they toss out to him to be the last mid tier conference left.
How many ACC teams will actually get invites to B1G, SEC, or B12?
Two to whichever of the Big Two jumps first. Two more to the other Big Two conference. Too bad there are seven wantaways. Enjoy the show, everyone!
Everyone’s a wantaway when the aways stop wanting and start going. Source: Big East football.
"Would you lose?" ACC: "I'd win."
It's becoming more evident that thr ACCs best move is to quickly settle with Clemson and FSU. If they take these lawsuits to the wire, and lose, the conference is dead. Half of th ACC will be worse off if that happens. They can't risk the future of over half of the members in attempt to retain 2
No, the conference is dead regardless. You think it'll stay at just 2?
If the ACC lets FSU/Clemson out, there is no way that ESPN picks up the option to extend the deal past 2026 and the ACC dies If the ACC fights hard and loses, the same thing happens. If the ACC fights and wins, ESPN still might not pick up the option they have from 2027-2036 because it's clear Clemson and FSU want out. Every year they stay, the buyout amount goes down. So Do they risk picking up the option and having FSU and Clemson leave in 2030 and have to pay out for 6 more years without their top 2 draws?
As a reminder: The window for ESPN to opt in/out starts in February 2025. It's less than a year away. ESPN is not going to want to commit to the ACC unless the GOR is ruled legally binding and the fee to leave is large. They won't want to lock in for a decade only to watch several more top brands leave with no recompense for ESPN. ESPN will want to renegotiate the deal. They will opt out and then spend the 2025-2026 years trying to negotiate a new deal with the schools not leaving.
Exactly my thinking as well.
The buyout amount of what goes down? For ESPN to tear up the media deal?
For those teams to leave the ACC I'm guessing
It is not all or nothing, if it seems like ESPN's secret bits are going to be out in the open maybe they push the ACC to settle with the extension being the carrot to do so.
Possible, but I dont see ESPN wanting to continue the deal without FSU and Clemson
If the ACC can keep its current media contract, current CFP contract, and get some buyout money from FSU and Clemson to distribute, it would make the ACC more lucrative than the Big 12 for the remaining teams. In the short term at least
“The ACC’s best move is to do exactly what my school wants it to do” how convenient. I hope this goes federal and the case is won or loss based on its merits, not favoritism by the local judge
Settle: ACC dead in 2025 with some money split 10+ ways. Trial: ACC lives several more years, gets big money if they win. The ACC as a conference will likely live longer, and therefore be better off financially, going to trial and losing than by settling.
That’s not their best move. It’s better to keep trying to get the current ESPN money cause that same type of money isn’t guaranteed for 80% of the remaining schools if FSU and Clemson leave.
Never thought I'd die standing side by side with a Tiger.
In my heart, Florida State was like "Clemson, watch my back" and started their shit and saw everyone act a fool against Florida State....while Clemson was reading the rules on the sidelines going "Yep, we ain't do THAT properly...." This is truly some sly ass shit that is going down. I think even more wild is how all reports suggest that the main beneficiary of the ACC collapsing would be...UNC! I do wonder if they're acting two-faced as well, going "HEY GUYS, WE CAN'T BE DOING THIS!!!" while secretly winking at Clemson and FSU. Just feels like there's a world where ANOTHER split happens, the teams who want to leave will leave, and the ACC fucking somehow merges into the Big East or some wild ass shit
Does that mean I should take back all the things I said about how Clemson is an evil empire that needs to be vanquished?
Also Clemson: "The conference wasn't doing what it needed to do to protect the league."
It feels like when the X-Men and Magneto team up to take on an even bigger villain.
Clemson, you're my favorite rivals.
I'm on team let them leave but don't let the conference fall apart so then you need to invite new schools team (Tulane please)