OT: Coach K idea on acc future
- Thread starter Zeldas Open Roof
- Start date
Something needs to happen with basketball. I posted on here that the ACC should require a minimum coaching salary of $4 million and nobody agreed but something drastic has to happen. You cant allow BC and GT to suck forever. I was reading where UC Davis had to agree to a minimum funding men's basketball funding level to join the Mountain West. Why cant the ACC tell member schools that there is a minimum coaching salary to incentivize schools to go after proven head coaches?
As for what Coach K said, you need UConn in the league. Kick BC out and add UConn. In this new era, BC cannot compete. And heck, sure, why not add Nova, SJU, Gtown, and Marquette. Not sure I'd add the others.
If it puts more $ into each schools pocket and it would boost excitement, then why not? It would be nice to get ND football to commit to playing 1 more ACC game as part of this deal as well and great to get back to MSG for the conference championship.
I would do 3 divisions. Old Big East with Pitt, ND, BC, Georgetown, Cuse, UConn, SH, st John’s, Nova, Providence, an Old AcC/midatlantic with UNC, Miami, FSU, Clemson, Duke, wake, Xavier, DePaul, ncstate, GT, Lville, etc, and expand more west with a Midwest/west division of Gonzaga, St Mary’s, sdst, creighton, SMu, cal, Stanford, Wash state, Oregon state, etc. Play all division opponents once and 4-5 from each other division for 18-20 conference games.
With the addition of Stanford, I dont understand why ND isnt playing 6 ACC games now. They have always played 5 + Stanford anyway. They've played Stanford every year since 1988 besides 1995, 1996, and the covid year. The ACC should put their teams in 6 geographical groups that the ACC rotates every year.
Northeast
BC
Syr
Pitt
VA and Wake
UVa
VT
Wake
Research Triangle
Duke
UNC
NC St
Florida and Blue Blood
Clem
FSU
Miami
Large metro
GT
SMU
Lou
Cali
Stanford
Cal
This would help with scheduling and traveling purposes. You might as well include Olympic Sports into the equation as well.
Wash St, Oregon St, SMC, Creighton, DePaul???? Yuck! No way. Lets not get carried away. Perhaps the play is UConn, Nova, Gtown, SJU, maybe Marquette and getting MSG.
It’s a good idea, and one I’ve advocated for for a while. The ACC’s best future simply isn’t in trying to be “SEC and Big Ten Football, But Worse.” That’s not a game that we’re going to win.
We already have Notre Dame as a non-football school. The ACC is best positioned to be able to be the league that monopolizes the northeast, and the route to do it is basketball. The ACC should add UConn - they should have done it a while ago. I loathe Bret Yormark’s whole…energy, but there’s a reason why he wants the Big 12 to add UConn, and he’s right. The ACC should add Villanova, Georgetown, and St. John’s as non-football schools. Maybe even Providence or Xavier. Get the ACC Network into these big markets like Philly and DC - sure, they’re currently *available* in those markets, but make it *relevant* in those markets and give people reasons to watch. Reaffirm your foothold in NYC and add UConn and St. John’s to already having Syracuse. Strongly consider doubling down on New England with Providence and adding Cincinnati and Ohio more broadly with Xavier. Look into Memphis.
Work with ESPN to handle the extra wintertime inventory - the football inventory won’t change, obviously. Sublet a package of high-profile games to TNT and CBS. Give us conference games that are UNC/Georgetown, Duke/Villanova, Pitt/UConn, and Syracuse/St. John’s. It will work.
We already have Notre Dame as a non-football school. The ACC is best positioned to be able to be the league that monopolizes the northeast, and the route to do it is basketball. The ACC should add UConn - they should have done it a while ago. I loathe Bret Yormark’s whole…energy, but there’s a reason why he wants the Big 12 to add UConn, and he’s right. The ACC should add Villanova, Georgetown, and St. John’s as non-football schools. Maybe even Providence or Xavier. Get the ACC Network into these big markets like Philly and DC - sure, they’re currently *available* in those markets, but make it *relevant* in those markets and give people reasons to watch. Reaffirm your foothold in NYC and add UConn and St. John’s to already having Syracuse. Strongly consider doubling down on New England with Providence and adding Cincinnati and Ohio more broadly with Xavier. Look into Memphis.
Work with ESPN to handle the extra wintertime inventory - the football inventory won’t change, obviously. Sublet a package of high-profile games to TNT and CBS. Give us conference games that are UNC/Georgetown, Duke/Villanova, Pitt/UConn, and Syracuse/St. John’s. It will work.
Here's how I would rank the teams in terms of $$$$ to ACC/ESPN:
1. UConn
2. Nova
3. Gtown
4. SJU
5. Marquette
6. SHU
7. Xavier
8. Butler
9. Creighton
10. Providence
11. DePaul
Creighton has no market. Rhode Island is too saturated. DePaul is a lost cause.
There’s a lot of desirable content and those big matchups would get the juices flowing again.
To be fair, TV ratings for regular season college basketball is pretty low so I'm not sure this generates more revenue though it would improve the quality of the league I think.
I think men’s basketball makes its proverbial TV money on the relatively low number of elite matchups. The rest seems like it’s basically sold in bulk for advertising. By this logic, even if you’re able to increase the number of desirable matchups by a half dozen or so (which would basically be Duke and UNC each playing teams like UConn, Villanova, and maybe Georgetown once or twice a year, plus maybe a few others), I think you’d increase the value sufficient to justify those schools’ inclusion in the conference on a non-football partial share. Plus, you’re obviously adding big markets to the active footprint in a way that they’re only tangentially in now.
I also think that ESPN is leaving money on the table by not simulcasting the ACC’s biggest games on ABC. Duke/Carolina has been an ESPN staple for as long as I can remember, but shouldn’t that really be a Saturday night broadcast on ABC?
That's all true but I still doubt adding all those teams is worth any more than $1 million or so extra per year for a school like Pitt.
I think if you can meaningfully increase the level of quality for basketball in the league, then it’s worth doing even if it doesn’t increase the size of everyone’s pie shares. As long as it doesn’t decrease it, then it’s worth doing IMO. And we know that it won’t decrease the level of football’s quality because those schools wouldn’t be coming to play football, with the potential exception of UConn.
Hell, even if it adds $1M a year, that’s 5% closer to the annual revenue sharing payment than ACC schools would have been without the additions. Any increase, even small, is a bonus when you’re increasing the level of quality.
Yes. It would have to be a pure "quality of bball league play." The ACC cannot compete with SEC Basketball due to money but this adds some programs like UConn, Marquette, and maybe Nova and if Gtown gets fixed, who can compete with the SEC
The money is not in basketball. Why cant you all understand that? All this would do is make the ACC better in basketball. Its not going to garner big TV contracts. The ACC has been No 1 in basketball before and it did nothing for the schools. The ACC first needs to focus on the getting football teams up to par.
Coach K is only thinking of Duke. He was one of the last of the old guard that was part of ACC basketball. All of those coaches hates that basketball has taken a back seat to football. Pitt fell in a hole when it decided to put all its resources in basketball. Now they have a big mountain to climb, like a lot of other teams. Get the damn football team up first.
If you could make the same amount of money, maybe slightly more AND improve AND maybe get MSG, wouldn't it be worth it?
I don't know. Maybe the money isn't there at the moment. But over the last 40 years, NBA has probably grown the most out of all pro leagues. College basketball should find a way to also capitalize. They probably need to steal the NCAA tournament from the NCAA, because there is huge money in that--but it goes to fund the NCAA all its other initiatives, it does not go directly to the conferences. I would hate to see it, but if P5 were smart, they would create their own postseason tourney away from the NCAA so they could keep the money.
Here’s the issue with that: the ACC is not going to be able to make a football-first move that will result in a television contract that will match the Big Ten or SEC. How would they go about doing that? Is the ACC going to poach Penn State or something? Are they going to ask for Notre Dame to take a haircut to join the ACC in football for the benefit of the non-ND schools in the league? What’s the viable solution to get the ACC there? It doesn’t exist.
Jim Phillips’ whole deal when he got here was to make schools spend more money on football. Pitt spends $20M more on football than it did the year before Phillips got here. We have one of the largest football budgets in the ACC, and a football budget that would be solidly in the middle part of the Big Ten. Nearly every other ACC school has also increased their football expenditures significantly. Where has that additional investment gotten the league? What makes anybody think that spending more on football will yield a different result, or result in more money flowing to the ACC? And, relevant to this discussion, what does that have to do with adding schools in non-football sports?
The way to strengthen the league is to make the league stronger. Make the league better and more competitive. Sure, it would be great if UConn or Villanova also had world class FBS-level football programs. But they don’t, so it doesn’t change anything there. The only thing that it does is raise the quality for the other sports, with nobody losing any money along with it.
Wait so now Pitt has one of the highest football budgets in the ACC? All that is ever ranted on these boards is how low Pitt budget is. Now the story has changed?
This is why most of you posters are irrelevant. Pitt cant win. You all changed your words to fit whatever new post is started about Pitt.
I promise that I have never, ever, ever claimed that Pitt is currently low budget. Pitt has not been low budget for nearly a decade now - it really started to turn around when Lyke got here. I’m typically in the threads that you’re talking about trying to tell people that Pitt spends way more on football and basketball than people realize.
The reason why it's not is because while Duke/Carolina basketball gets what is considered a really high number of viewers for ESPN, it gets what would be a really low number of viewers for ABC. They can make more money, a lot more money, by showing something else.
Which is why they do.
Saint Mary's would whip our asses. And they would have more often than not since Dixon II started.
We already had DePaul in the Big East days.
I'll take anything that gets me back to MSG for the tournament. I went 5 years in a row during the glory years, and happily sat through just about every single session, not just the ones that included Pitt. I talked with Bill Hilgrove once and he said something like it's the best sporting event in the world.
SMC is a coach, not a program. And they have 27 fans. And are in a duplicate market. They wouldn't be on a list of 100 schools to add.
They would be top 5 ACC right now. And they'd beat Pitt handily. Is Pitt a program and not a coach? Could Pitt challenge Gonzaga anytime in the past how many years?
Don't care about markets, blah blah blah, whatever. Want winners.
You dont add a tiny Catholic school in a duplicate market, who play in a 3500 seat arena just because they have an elite 62 year old coach, who may not be coaching there much longer. They will never be heard from again when he leaves. Here's a thought for the ACC. Hire Randy Bennett away. He makes $1 million/year despite being a Top 10 coach. Would he move cross country for $4 million/year? If his wife doesnt work, $1 million/year in NorCal is just middle class but he seems happy as he could probably name his job.
So yea, SMC isnt even in the Top 100 of potential additions like I said.
I'm not 100% serious about adding them, but you're completely ignoring how they're better than just about every ACC team year in and year out.
Also, syracuse was a coach, not a program. Virginia was a coach, not a program. Pitt was 2 intermingled coaches, not a program, etc etc etc. Outside of Duke who is more than their coach?
The gaels have been very good for a long time. They aren't going anywhere.
The problem with a merger is that it doesn't seem like it would significantly increase revenue for anyone. And there is too much dead weight in the Big East for a full merger. Conference strength is cyclical and the ACC just lost a ton of Hall of Fame level coaching over the past several years. That's part of the problem so you have to be careful when making permanent decisions not to over react. Sure, another part of the problem is larger mega-athletic department schools throwing NIL around and the SEC and B10 have more of those programs. But it isn't just about the latter.
Now could the ACC pick off the bigger name BE members? Maybe. There are moderately credible rumors going back over a year that there have been discussions with Georgetown and Villanova for basketball only membership. Maybe UConn is in those discussions as well, but their football ads nothing. None of those rumors, credibile or not, means that it will happen. It has to make sense financially.
i agree, logistically you are making a pie twice as big but slicing it twice as much so at best, each slice remains the same size..
i just found it curious that even Coach K, the biggest ACC homer on the planet, is acknowledging how bad the acc is in both sports.
He's said some weird stuff before. But for sure, this year, it may be the worst conference Pitt has ever belonged to. It is really, shockingly poor this year.
Is he being used to test a trial balloon by the Philips? Probably not.
You dont add a team just because they have a good coach. SMC will never be heard from again when he retires.
Agree on UVa but they are already in the league. Syracuse made a Kenny Payne-type hire. They will correct.
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