Ever think of what would have become of Pitt Athletics had the ACC not agreed to add Pitt as a member? After seeing UConn, Louisville, Memphis and WVU scramble desperately to find P5 conference homes in the following years, it became clear a high stakes game of musical chairs was underway, and the schools left standing also stood to lose much in revenue, prestige, brand identity and college football relevance.
If not membered by the ACC would Pitt on its way to being seen in (2072) the way CMU is viewed today, where 99.9999999% of college football fans are unaware CMU was a national powerhouse in the 1930's, and ranked in the top 20 nine times, including #6 four times and 7th once?
Conference realignment is a fascinating story and if anyone has any interesting tales on how Pitt became an ACC member, I'd be very interested in hearing about it. It reminds me of the junk bond era of the mid 80's when leveraged buyouts drove mergers and acquisitions where expensive, but easy to access capital brought about a whole new paradigm.
In college athletics (notice I didn't mention NCAA
) it was E$PN that provides the capital that enables college presidents to fiscally enterprise their decision making on the structure and scope of their conferences and future members, much like a fortune 500 company would seek to expand its global market share. Perhaps the only difference between corporate decisions and colleges are conferences aren't siphoning off smaller and less affluent conference members............yet.
If not membered by the ACC would Pitt on its way to being seen in (2072) the way CMU is viewed today, where 99.9999999% of college football fans are unaware CMU was a national powerhouse in the 1930's, and ranked in the top 20 nine times, including #6 four times and 7th once?
Conference realignment is a fascinating story and if anyone has any interesting tales on how Pitt became an ACC member, I'd be very interested in hearing about it. It reminds me of the junk bond era of the mid 80's when leveraged buyouts drove mergers and acquisitions where expensive, but easy to access capital brought about a whole new paradigm.
In college athletics (notice I didn't mention NCAA
) it was E$PN that provides the capital that enables college presidents to fiscally enterprise their decision making on the structure and scope of their conferences and future members, much like a fortune 500 company would seek to expand its global market share. Perhaps the only difference between corporate decisions and colleges are conferences aren't siphoning off smaller and less affluent conference members............yet.
