During the last two weeks in May, I observed a couple of articles/columns in the Charlotte Observer and The State (Columbia, SC) newspapers speculating on potential ACC expansion. I was traveling and it was difficult to post the links here. If someone really wants the details, inquiring into the recent college sports archives from the sources may be a possibility.
Opinion ranged from the ACC doing nothing and hold as is, to another suggestion that the ACC take WVU, Cincy, and L'ville if the B10 takes schools such as Rutgers, Syracuse, and Pitt. Opinion on the value of BC as the lone northeast addition was mixed.
There is little worry in ACC territory that the conference will lose any schools to the B10 or later to the SEC. The focus was the merits of remaining at the current 12 vs adding a couple or so.
With a new TV arrangement, ACC schools may feel more at ease.
I think it all depends on what happens with the BE. If the fb schools get raided deeply in the BE and BE fb breaks apart, I could see the ACC taking a couple of prime ones. I think the B10 will take at least one BE schools (probably Rutgers), but BE fb somehow survives for awhile longer. Then again, all could be shocked.

SEC '03, I was hot on the idea of everybody expanding when the Big Ten first announed this, but then I was stumped by the TV contracts.

As you mentioned, the ACC has a new TV contract. Why would they add any new members when that would require splitting the money more ways, thereby reducing everyone's individual share?

Agree, Friarfan. I don't see any conference that has negotiated a new TV contract would seek to expand to feed more mouths without the assured revenue from the contract to also increase. Of course, am not aware there would be any clauses to address this factor. Certainly, a contract would specify the minimum number of schools. Since expansion may require a couple or more years to fully incorporate new members for all sports, it would appear the focus would be on the next negotiated contract. The BTN does not have to worry about this since the conference and it's affiliates own the network. ESPN and others are indeed a different matter.
The PAC10/Big12 negotiations for future TV contract should be interesting since the PAC10 is studying expansion and the Big12 is wanting to know now who is really committed and who is wanting to go.

On the subject matter of ACC expansion: article by Ken Tysiac of Charlotte Observer - 5/21/2010

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/0 ... nsion.html

Here is the earlier Tom Sorensen opinion article from 5/18/2010 Charlotte Observer

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/0 ... right.html

Blog speak on above articles--
That Gamecock bowl loss last year to UCONN had stirred some comments.......

http://www.fitsnews.com/2010/05/19/more ... eculation/

Another blog with take on Sorenson article (Expansion Mania 2010 (scroll down):

http://ontheb-rink.com/blog/?cat=3


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Note here: So. Carolina, the former charter ACC member, is not leaving the SEC.

So today's "informed sources" rumor is that the Pac-10 will invite Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado to merge with the Pac-10 creating a superconference of two divisions (Ariz and Ariz St join the Big 12 schools in the Eastern division) with the intention of creating a new cable network that stretches (in market terms) from Houston to Seattle. The only thing that I don't understand about it logically is "Why not take Utah and nail down Salt Lake City and leave Texas Tech behind with Baylor?"

Regardless, that could force the SEC to go only one place to get 16 teams. The southern foursome of the ACC that are already in the SEC footprint.

Assuming the Big Televen worst case (for the ACC) goes to 16 with 4 Eastern teams from the AAU-member pool available (Syracuse, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Maryland - and why would Maryland not join the Big 10 if the the southern football powers are clearly going to bolt the ACC?), then the ACC is left with only Boston College, the two Virginia schools and the four North Carolina schools and nowhere to go for members other than UConn and (gulp, Tier 3-) West Virginia, for a 9-member league with no football anchor.

It looks like the ACC may not have gone far enough in the 2003 expansion. Never a visionary, always preferring collegiality and tradition to bold moves, the ACC may now be faced with irrelevancy. In retrospect, a merger of the Big East football schools, an idea proposed by the 5 who sued, may have been the only wise thing to have done at the time. That would have been 17 teams, one too many, so maybe they would have left out UConn (not yet playing football) or West Virginia (for academic shortcomings).

If the SEC were smart, and they are, they would expand their footprint, build the league's reputation in all sports and increase TV revenues, by wooing North Carolina, Duke, Virginia and only one from Va Tech, NCSU, Clemson, Ga Tech, FSU and Miami, thereby adding the fast-growing and absolutely contiguous states of Virginia and North Carolina and reaching all the way to the Washington, DC TV market. Or maybe they take West Virginia, for whom they seem to have some strange fascination, as the fourth, making the footprint look downright sensible. And maybe, just maybe, Carolina and Duke see the writing in their checkbooks and abandon the conference they have dominated for over 50 years. Why sit back and let Clemson, Ga Tech, FSU and Miami, the last 3 relative newcomers to the ACC, reap the benefits of all their hard work? If the league is going to collapse, let the lower 4 take the hit.

Of course, this all assumes that the Texas schools merge with the Pac 10 schools.

Suddenly, the ACC appears to be the most threatened conference. The Big East survives as a basketball-only league and only strands Louisville, Cincy and S Florida who were lucky to be in an AQ league anyway and could quickly readjust to Conference USA or the like. The Big 12 only strands Iowa State, Baylor, the Kansas schools and possibly Nebraska (all of whom would then join forces in the MWC, probably ensuring that the MWC gets AQ status).

Given the conventional wisdom, the ACC is left as a 9-team football-playing basketball league (again) with UNC, NCSU, Duke, Wake, UVa, Va Tech, West Virginia (beggars can't be academic snobs!), Connecticut and Boston College.

Or, alternatively, this ACC: Miami, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Wake Forest, NC State, Virginia Tech, West Virginia and Louisville (the academic snobs have left the conference), Connecticut and Boston College. Say the Big 10 takes Nebraska with Missouri and only 3 Eastern teams, that means Syracuse or Pittsburgh is probably here too for a 12-team league. That league has a much stronger claim to be an AQ league and still looks pretty sweet in basketball.

Now finally, here's the thing. This very scenario may just be what keeps the current ACC together. Are you listening John Swofford? Are you listening Holden Thorp? Are you listening Richard Brodhead? (Psst. You may still have all the bargaining chips. Again.)

It's too bad the scenarios couldn't play out perfectly. For instance, something like the Big Ten expanding to 16 with 3 Big 12 schools, Pitt and Notre Dame. Then IF the ACC were to follow that path, they'd have an easy solution: UConn, Rutgers, Syracuse, WVU.

ACC North: BC, UConn, Syracuse, Rutgers, Maryland, WVU, VA Tech, UVA
ACC South: Duke, UNC, NC State, Wake, Clemson, GA Tech, FSU, Miami


It's a nice and neatly structured conference with more markets and less travel. It's not bad when you're longest roasd trip in division would be Boston to Virginia.


In theory, something similar could happen if the SEC ever did expand with 2 ACC teams. It wouldnt' be a stretch to replace FSU and GA Tech with Uconn and Syracuse, while including Rutgers and WVU to expand to 14.


I love the new ACC TV contract. But I do think that it would be a huge help for them to consider 14 to protect themselves. Look at the SEC: if they expanded with Texas and A&M, they'd STOP a Pac-10 eastern push or a Big Ten southern push.

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Fanhouse article discussing new ACC tv deal and it's possible impact on future ACC realignment.Link at http://ncaabasketball.fanhouse.com/2010 ... ds-for-now

I was just thinking about something. The Pac-10, if they go with a full zipper plan, would have two permanent cross-division rivalries and two rotating games to maintain their nine game conference schedule.

If the NCAA were to approve a 13th regular season game (excluding trips to Hawaii) for schools in conferences playing against nine conference opponents each year, the ACC could potentially add a ninth game to the conference schedule as well - a second permanent cross-division rivalry.

I'm going to divide the conference into three sections of four schools, for reference:

A: Boston College, Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Tech
B: Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Wake Forest
C: Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami

In each section, one of the permanent cross-division rivalries is in bold, while the other is not.

So, here are the possible new cross-division games to augment the current ones:
Boston College-Virginia
Clemson-Miami
Duke-North Carolina State
Florida State-Georgia Tech
Maryland-Virginia Tech
North Carolina-Wake Forest

All of these are based off which schools are geographically closer to each other - a similar plan I thought up for the Pac-10.

The ACC would only allow this if the NCAA allowed them to continue to play four non-conference games each year (unless a school is also playing at Hawaii, which would allow it up to five). This would allow the NC schools to continue to all play each other every year.

This isn't really related to realignment/expansion, but I thought this was a great idea.

It is a good idea, pf9, but the NCAA isn't about to allow a 13th game. Why not do it within a 12 game schedule? Same for the SEC. Then all the 5 major conferences might play 9 league games.

Agree with the point. Between the start of the season, last week in the month of August for some, into early December, there are just so many weeks available, and even 12 is tight for some schools per scheduling. Factor in, some schools want an off-week for a break, healing, and re-grouping, plus certain sought OOC games pose difficulty scheduling or pre-set as end-of-regular-season rivalries. Then those conference championship games are scheduled, and the bowl season commences shortly thereafter. The FCS schools, who receive playoff-bids can go on for 13 or more games, which ends in a championship game between the remaining two, but are not concerned with bowl activity and in actuality, fewer are involved as the season stretches, and the logistics of having smaller crowds and using competitor host sites helps.

AJC blog article with comments from ACC Commish who says that although the league has looked at 14 and 16 school models they are currently happy at 12.Link at http://blogs.ajc.com/georgia-tech-sport ... ech_sports

SEC blog article suggesting that any Big Ten raid of ACC schools may lead to the SEC also trying to pickoff ACC teams.Link at http://www.mrsec.com/2010/07/ready-for- ... nsion-talk

I had been told that one of the models looked at for 16 was a proactive move to help prevent a Big Ten move into the northeast. The ACC would have brought it Syracuse, Rutgers, Uconn and Pitt to secure the region. It hasn't been discussed too much, but if the money was in the same ballpark, Syracuse might have some interest in this ACC arrangement as it would have united them with BC, the conference would have a basketball focus, and it would be a more appealing footprint.

On paper, those thoughts are correct:
North: BC, Uconn, Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt, Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Tech
South: Duke, UNC, NC State, Wake, Clemson, GA Tech, Miami, FSU

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