ACC Votes to Accept Louisville

[WiJoe]

Cincinnati has a hard time drawing in football (which makes the world go 'around [barf]), but I would MUCH rather have the Bearcats in the ACC than the " 'ville". Cincinnati is a much better city, and the school is, too - slightly - as are some of the numbers that apparently don't matter.


http://www.accsports.com/blogs/david...ay-morning.php

[uh_no]

Then let's start calling it something else. Historic ACC records, alliances, etc. are meaningless now. The ACC is dead, long live the ???

Big East Coast Conference.

[Mal]

Because Duke fans enjoy being snotty and ignoring every measure of institutional quality except undergraduate admission rejection rate. It's incredibly petty.

That's a little strong, no? If, as alums of a great university, we prefer our student athletes to be affiliated with a conference mostly containing other academic institutions of strong reputation, we're incredibly petty and snobs? There may be some psychoanalyzing to be done on why we think it reflects well on Duke that Duke has been in arguably the conference with the strongest academic institutions overall, but many people think it does. And people aren't down on Louisville as an academic institution based solely on its undergrad admissions rate. That rate is reflective of other things. Louisville is, simply put, not even in the academic zip code of the current "weaker" ACC schools, like Clemson, NC State and FSU, all of which produce significantly more leading and relevant scholarship than does the University of Louisville. To say this does not mean it is worthless and doesn't fulfill an important set of goals, and isn't intended to denigrate those universities that aren't UVa, Duke or UNC. But facts are facts, and Louisville is not even playing the same game academically. Half its students don't graduate; its endowment is like a tenth of ours; over 3/4 of its students are from in-state.

[kingboozer]

I'm happy with this move, UL will bring good programs in the top 2 sports and hopefully (fingers crossed) stabilize the league for the time being. As a basketball fan, the thought of having 3 Hall of Fame coaches in the league is amazing, and Pitino is simply a matter of time before he gets in. As far as this not being my grandad's ACC, in his own words, that ship sailed when South Carolina left and Georgia Tech and FSU came in.

[TruBlu]

The link is to an unavailable video.

Sorry about that. Correct link is:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhOPWDSVNeM

Mods, please edit my original post.

[killerleft]

One thing I have noticed is the almost-unanimous pride and happiness that Louisville folks are showing at being the newest member of the ACC. This is really big for them. That's refreshing, and good enough for me. Let the Terps go and rail at another conference about not being appreciated (and you can count on that!).

Maybe it was harder to see until it happened, but Louisville appears to be a great addition to the athletic side of the ACC. Since the ACC is an organization of member schools competing for championships in different sports, I have no trouble with them being only marginally better than UNC as an academic institution.

[Class of '94]

Personally, I wanted the ACC to make a bolder move and get Uconn and Louisville now to counteract any further moves by the BIG and BIG 12. In hindsight, if we had picked Rutgers earlier, we probably would've blocked the BIG's move for MD and their encroachment onto the east coast. That said, I get why Rutgers wasn't picked earlier; and if I had to pick between Louisville and UConn, I would've chosen UConn to cement the ACC's presence in the NYC market. In addition, UConn is a better fit academically and geographically. However, I understand why Louisville was chosen and of the two, Louisville is stronger in the two sports that bring in the most revenue for schools.

I'm encouraged for the stability of the league by the unity the ACC presidents have shown in holding MD to the exit fee and selecting Louisville. More importantly, I love the reports that are coming out about the schools agreeing to let the others know if and when they are approached by other conferences (hopefully, they'll honor that agreement); and I like the news (courtesy of re-tweets from accsports) that the ACC is looking into the possibility of starting a sports channel in conjunction with espn, along with some other possibilities. Whether or not this comes to fruition remains to be seen; but at least they're looking into new revenue streams.

I am down about the ACC losing the supposed DC/Baltimore market with the loss of MD; and I was intrigued by the idea of adding Navy to get those markets and footprint back; but I get now is most likely not the time. However, I think Navy (along with Uconn) might be a good pick-up as a full member 16th or 17th school to potentially get that market back I'm not keen on a hybrid of Georgetown and Navy if Georgetown doesn't develop a DIV 1 football school because part of the Big East problems imo was having non-football playing schools with football playing schools. I think the ACC needs to choose schools with DIV 1 football and basketball programs.

[OldSchool]

Big East Coast Conference.

Here's an idea, we divide the new Big East Coast Conference into two divisions:

Division One:
Virginia
Wake
Duke
UNC
State
Clemson
Ga Tech

Division Two:
Boston College
Syracuse
Pitt
Louisville
Va Tech
FSU
Miami

We could even call Division One "the ACC" and Division Two "the Big East". Wait a minute - is that my granddad's ACC?

The more things change...

[captmojo]

Notre Dame plus the Navy/G'town hybrid would be much better.

I can see Georgetown's addition. With Notre Dame out in football play, this would at least keep the participants on an even numbered basis.

But taking Navy and not Army...

[oldnavy]

Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville, Notre Dame, BC, Miami, FSU. This is not the ACC I knew as a young man. But I'll adapt.

As long as I can still yell GO TO HELL carolina! GO TO HELL! and it means something, I'm happy!

Tell it brother... I remember when I could name all the coaches and most if not all of the starting 5 for the basketball teams in the ACC, now I cant even name all the teams. Welcome to the family UofL.

[Olympic Fan]

Just one poin about TV markets ... I know that overall Louisville is a smaller market than Washington, D.C., -- and that matters when it comes to football money.

But by at least one measure, Louisville is THE BEST basketball market in the country and has been every single year that ESPN has done the survey.
Here's the ESPN survey of the top basketball markets for 2011-12:

Top 25 Markets for 2011-12

No. 1 Louisville: 4.5 rating
No. 2 Greensboro: 3.5 rating
No. 3 Kansas City: 2.8 rating
No. 4 Columbus: 2.7 rating
Raleigh-Durham 2.7 rating
No. 6 Charlotte: 2.3 rating
No. 7 Cincinnati: 2.1 rating
No. 8 Dayton: 2.0 rating
No. 9 Indianapolis: 1.8 rating
Knoxville: 1.8 rating
No. 11 Memphis: 1.6 rating
Nashville: 1.6 rating
No. 13 Greenville: 1.5 rating
No. 14 Cleveland: 1.4 rating
Birmingham: 1.4 rating
Las Vegas: 1.4 rating
No. 17 Norfolk: 1.2 rating
Hartford: 1.2 rating
St. Louis: 1.2 rating
No. 20 Fort Myers: 1.1 rating
Atlanta: 1.1 rating
Richmond: 1.1 rating
No. 23 Pittsburgh: 1.0 rating
Detroit: 1.0 rating
Oklahoma City: 1.0 rating
Jacksonville: 1.0 rating
Tulsa: 1.0 rating

Interesting that the ACC now has four of the top six basketball markets in the country ... of course, this essentially measures basketball passion, not raw viewing numbers (not sure what the rating for the New York or LA market are, but even and 0.2 or something, that might be more raw numbers than a 4.5 in Louisville).

Still, interesting ...

[kingboozer]

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-foo...big-ten-pac-12

Duke and UNC seen as crown jewels? Been chased by the SEC for 3 years now? I'm on the fence if anything like this could happen, basketball would be fine but our football would be a serious challenge.

[rthomas]

One thing I have noticed is the almost-unanimous pride and happiness that Louisville folks are showing at being the newest member of the ACC. This is really big for them. That's refreshing, and good enough for me. Let the Terps go and rail at another conference about not being appreciated (and you can count on that!).

Maybe it was harder to see until it happened, but Louisville appears to be a great addition to the athletic side of the ACC. Since the ACC is an organization of member schools competing for championships in different sports, I have no trouble with them being only marginally better than UNC as an academic institution.

Rats have the biggest smile when they jump off the sinking ship!!!

[FerryFor50]

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-foo...big-ten-pac-12

Duke and UNC seen as crown jewels? Been chased by the SEC for 3 years now? I'm on the fence if anything like this could happen, basketball would be fine but our football would be a serious challenge.

Overlooked from that article:

4. Expectations are everywhere

Just when you thought it was safe to apply for a job, NC State athletic director Debbie Yow publicly explained her expectations for the next coach in Raleigh.

She’s looking for—wait for it—a coach who can bring in “Alabama-type talent.”

Yeah, Deb. You and every other AD outside Tuscaloosa.

[johnb]

Excellent realignment maps, from deadspin:

http://deadspin.com/5963928/the-big-...alignment-maps

[TexHawk]

Just one poin about TV markets ... I know that overall Louisville is a smaller market than Washington, D.C., -- and that matters when it comes to football money.

But by at least one measure, Louisville is THE BEST basketball market in the country and has been every single year that ESPN has done the survey.

Probably because more than half are Kentucky fans.

[burnspbesq]

I like it. Excellent programs in football, men and women's basketball. Their baseball and soccer teams will be challenging for ACC championships. The women bring a lacrosse team, so that replaces Maryland's. (Although I don't see a men's team.) I'm sure they will well compliment the conference in their other non-revenue sports as well.

I said over at CollegeCrosse.com that if adding men's lax wasn't part of the deal for Louisvillie, I'm burning John Swofford in effigy in my back yard. The crosstown rivalry between UL and Bellarmine would be something to see.

[Dukeblue91]

Probably because more than half are Kentucky fans.

Yeah but you have to agree it is quite funny that UK and their fans now have to content with the ACC in their backyard.
I mean short of Duke moving to Kentucky how much better can it get

[senkiri]

I'm happy with this move, UL will bring good programs in the top 2 sports and hopefully (fingers crossed) stabilize the league for the time being. As a basketball fan, the thought of having 3 Hall of Fame coaches in the league is amazing, and Pitino is simply a matter of time before he gets in. As far as this not being my grandad's ACC, in his own words, that ship sailed when South Carolina left and Georgia Tech and FSU came in.

I agree that Louisville was the best school that could be added, but am hesitant to think that it stabilizes the league. Until the ACC adopts a grant of media rights (which the Big10, Big12 and Pac12 all have and the SEC is strong enough not to need), all of our schools are sitting ducks the second another conference -- especially the Big10 or SEC -- makes a move. Talk and statements of solidarity and support for the conference from ACC presidents are meaningless next to that. If the ACC had a grant of rights, no school would be leaving and everyone (including other conference commissioners) would know that.

The current configuration of 3 14-team leagues, 1 12-team league and 1 10-team league (which adds up to the magical 64 teams we would have in a 4 league world of 16 teams each) could definitely stabilize. But the ACC becoming "raid-proof" is the only way to get that stabilization for the current configuration -- and the grant of rights seems like the only way to do that. Since the ACC schools are going to be making roughly comparable money to the Big12 once Notre Dame's admission is accounted for in the media contract ($18M compared with $20M), it seems highly unlikely that a current ACC school would leave for the Big12 for similar money and increased travel costs, unless the league was collapsing. So the conferences that could destabilize the ACC are the Big10 and SEC. The latter seems content and is almost done negotiating its media contracts under its current composition. The Big10 however seems to be trying to get to 16 teams and thus 16 markets before its media contract is renegotiated in the next 3-5 years. With their money, even the ACC's full $50M buyout seems surmountable (although less so if Maryland is forced to pay the full amount instead of negotiating it down).

The ACC seems to be in the precarious position the Big12 was in not long ago. The Pac12 was a constant threat to raid them, with the quartet of Texas, TT, OU and OSU nearly leaving several times. Only with the league staring into that abyss (and of course Texas deciding there was more money if it could keep the Longhorn Network which it could only do in the Big12) did they all agree to the grant of rights. Now there is no talk of the Big12 collapsing. Seems like it might be a tough sell to some of the ACC schools, especially FSU, to agree to a grant of rights for the lowest amount per school of any of the big 5 conferences. So Swofford needs to find some creative new revenue stream on top of the current deal, be it an ACC Network or something else, to dangle as a carrot to get the grant of rights.

As an aside, I still don't understand why the ACC Network seems to be disregarded as not feasible. I get that football drives these things, but the BTN shows a few crappy football games each week during football season and has minimal other programming the rest of the year and is hugely profitable. An ACC Network would have a plethora of hugely successful Olympic sports programming to show year-round and I would imagine would be in decently high demand from Virginia (including Northern VA which gets the DC market) to Georgia/Florida. Seems like if the actual product is worthwhile -- and a network that showed ACC soccer, lacrosse & tennis games and some ACC golf seems like a more compelling product than the currently mediocre stuff offered by the BTN -- there should be at least some new revenue in it.

[A-Tex Devil]

This was really the ACC's only move other than standing pat. UConn is a non-starter and the non-football Big East schools turn the ACC into the Big East more than it already is. I still hate the ND non-football add. They are laughing to the bank in South Bend.

That said, anyone that thinks this is an upgrade over Maryland are kidding themselves. The only thing Louisville has on Maryland is facilities. I'd still rather have had Maryland stay than let them leave and add Louisville.