LOL.
Now you’re just fucking with ’em.
Category Archives: ACC Football
Play Clemson every year?
At Georgia Tech, you get to do that!
No doubt Coach 404 is thrilled with the news.
Filed under ACC Football, Georgia Tech Football
Threatened and concerned
Honestly, I could only think of one thing when I read this:
The ACC had a record revenue year in fiscal year 2021. Still, the league could find itself falling farther behind the SEC and Big Ten in the future as media rights deals come on the horizon — and Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich talked about that.
Radakovich saw the ACC grow during his time at Clemson before arriving at Miami this offseason. In fiscal year 2021, the ACC brought in $578.3 million, which was an $82 million increase from the previous fiscal year. But the SEC led the way with $833 million in revenue and the Big Ten was next at $679.8 million. On top of that, the Big Ten is reportedly on the verge of a massive media rights deal worth nearly $1 billion, which would likely increase that number even more.
That was all part of the question to Radakovich on the ESPN College Football Podcast, and he shared an honest answer with hosts Adam Rittenberg and David Hale.
“Yes, from an answer perspective. Yes. … We’re concerned,” Radakovich said. “It could be a threat. This is why we have commissioners and people in our home office in Greensboro, to be able to help work on that. The athletic directors talk about it all the time. ‘What can we do to help further our cause?’ There are contracts in place, there are rights agreements in place that are there and those contracts have been made. It’s going to be different.
“But I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation to see how we can impact that and possibly change it because if you just take the soliloquy that you just mentioned, we’re going to be a little bit behind the eight-ball as it relates to dollars. How you make that up, that reverts back to each individual campus and decisions that are made on each one of our campuses. We’ll continue to see how that works, but it’s certainly an everyday issue for Commissioner [Jim] Phillips and our staff in Greensboro.”
“Hello? SEC? How soon can you get us out of this conference?”
Filed under ACC Football
From the Power 5 to the Super 2
If true, the implications arising from this chart are staggering, to say the least.
If you’re more of a numbers person, here’s how that looks:
I don’t care how clever the folks in the Alliance think they are, there’s nothing they can come up with to overcome that sort of revenue disparity. In fact, based on that, I question whether the Big Ten will remain on board with the Alliance’s goals. (Judging from that chart and the anticipated revenue bump in 2026, though, they were right to freak out over Oklahoma and Texas jumping ship.) The SEC’s revenues are projected to double between now and the end of the decade. Greg Sankey would have been a complete idiot to reject the Sooners’ and Longhorns’ request to join his conference.
And it’s not just about football, either. The linked article in the NVGT piece notes how SEC schools are starting to employ the same financial approach they’ve taken in football to men’s basketball.
Now, factor in player compensation and you realize that’s an arms race three of those conferences simply can’t maintain. Those of you bemoaning the death of college football as we’ve known it ain’t seen nothing yet.
That’s some Alliance you’ve got there.
There’s one little bit in this ESPN puff piece about the tap dance the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 are putting on together that gave me a chuckle:
If there is one certainty in collegiate athletics, it’s that change is always occurring, including conference realignment. All three conferences understand that, as each has added teams over the past decade. At least in the short term, the Alliance agreement discourages them from poaching each other. But the leagues didn’t sign a contract.
“If that’s what it takes to get something considerable done, then we’ve lost our way,” Phillips said in August.
In the long term, will the “gentlemen’s agreement” touted when the Alliance was formed actually hold up once another wave of realignment begins?
After what happened to trigger the formation of their “Alliance”, these three can’t even come to a binding arrangement not to raid each other? Yeah, rock solid, that is.
Filed under ACC Football, Big Ten Football, Pac-12 Football
Spitefully yours
I posted a few days ago about how the collapse (temporary, I know) of the CFP expansion talks was born out of a cut off their nose to spite their face attitude. Andy Staples ($$) takes that spite to a whole new level with this:
What I hadn’t considered was that the SEC, after spending the past year supporting a format that would have given other leagues some of what they wanted/needed, might simply stop worrying about the other leagues altogether. Sankey seems mad enough to do that.
A 12-team CFP may benefit the SEC more than a four-team CFP. But what might benefit the SEC even more?
Not a College Football Playoff. An SEC playoff.
Andy’s not suggesting that Sankey and his conference turn their backs on the rest of college football completely. Nah, there are still regular season games to play and if the other kids play nice and want to produce a champion to take on the SEC’s champ, that would probably be cool, too. Especially when you consider the math.
The difference between that title game and the title game of the 12-team Playoff the leagues just passed on implementing?
The SEC keeps half the money.
The thing is, and with all due respect to Staples, that’s not the ultimate fuck you move Sankey could pull. That would be to convince the Big Ten to blow off the Alliance and join the SEC as a second super league that produces a national title game between them and only between them. In the aftermath, I can only imagine the sputtering to come from the Pac-12 and the ACC as USC jumps ship to join the Big Ten and Clemson hops over to the SEC.
Spite, like revenge, is a dish best served cold. And profitably.
An Alliance, if you can keep it
Nice while it lasted, fellas.
Filed under ACC Football, Big Ten Football, Pac-12 Football
How the mighty hath fallen.
Evidently, Florida and FSU have agreed to move their game, once one of college football’s crown jewels that needed no fake juice to get attention, to a Friday night.
The Florida State-Florida football game has long been played on Saturdays following Thanksgiving.
That tradition, however, has been tweaked for 2022.
The two state rivals will play this season on Friday, Nov. 25, at Doak Campbell Stadium, the Democrat has learned…
“Hosting Florida in primetime on the Friday during the Thanksgiving holiday allows us to showcase this great rivalry and our community on a day that has historically drawn huge television viewership, ” FSU Vice President and Director of Athletics Michael Alford said in a statement Monday night.
“It also gives us the opportunity to lock in a night game, which allows fans to make plans well in advance and avoids the potential of the six-day network television option on kickoff time.”
I mean, what’s a little tradition when you can avoid the six-day option, amirite? Or pride, for that matter? Black Friday, indeed.
Can’t wait to hear Spurrier’s reaction to the news.
Filed under ACC Football, Gators, Gators...
Divisions, divisive
I just have to laugh at Andy Staples’ cheerleading ($$) for the likelihood that the P5 over the next few years will ditch divisional play all in the name of coming up with a better delivery system for expanded playoffs — not because of his pitch, but because of where he winds up with it:
Eventually, realignment got the rule changed. The Big 12, reduced to 10 teams, wanted to reinstate its championship game midway through the last decade. The ACC had been playing in two divisions since 2005, but only the most hardcore fans could correctly identify which teams were in which division. So those leagues teamed up to ask for a change that loosened the requirements.
That’s how you get a No. 1 vs. No. 2 Big 12 championship game.
At the time, the Big 12 was playing the ideal conference format, a nine-game, round robin schedule. Every conference team played every other conference team! Why did they need a championship game?
Don’t answer that. It’s a rhetorical question.
By the way, David Hale made a point about scrapping divisional play I hadn’t considered.
I could imagine some pushback from coaches if some conferences go divisionless, while others don’t, but I would also imagine that will fade away as the P5 takes a uniform approach. Probably by the time the next CFP TV contract is being negotiated. Because, money… oh, shit. I just answered my rhetorical question.
Filed under ACC Football, Big 12 Football, Big Ten Football, Pac-12 Football, SEC Football
Four more years!
Hey, now. Christmas comes early in 2022!
I feel something of the death row inmate who gets a last-minute reprieve from the governor.
Thanks, Jim! Oh — take your time hashing out those more pressing issues. Sounds like they could take the better part of a decade to solve.
Filed under ACC Football, BCS/Playoffs
Get The Picture 
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