Conference Realignment

I would love to know how people who get paid to analyze value think of Duke. If Scheyer can keep building on what K built; King can keep building on what King and her predecessors built; and Diaz can continue building on what Cutcliffe built, I would think that Duke brings a ton of value to the table — especially when paired with UNC.
all of this is why Nina King is working furiously (and she is) to maximize Duke's attractiveness since no one can be certain how this is going to play out.
 
I know what you mean, but I did LOL at this sentence, because I started thinking about the schools that are more or less in the middle of very splattered conferences.

I'm imagining a Facebook Terrible Maps of the geographic centers of the conferences and which school is the closest thereto. Is ours Louisville now?
Ha! Fun exercise in absurdity. Might actually be SMU. Just quickly looking at a map, a straight line from Boston to Berkeley defining the northern edge of the conference (not including Notre Dame) pretty much goes through Kansas City, which would put the geographic center somewhere in Oklahoma, maybe? Hardly "Atlantic Coast" in any event.

Big Ten's not exactly Midwest anymore, either. I'd eyeball its geographic center as somewhere within 150 miles of Lincoln, which sort of makes sense, but a generation ago it would have been Chicago and made a heckuva lot more sense.

SEC definitely wins this contest, obviously. I'd guesstimate Ole Miss as the center.
 
ya, ya, I know, but look at the football figures. ALL of the current realignment drama is driven by the SEC and B1G TV contracts and the lesser ACC and Big 12 contracts....basketball is DEFINITELY a secondary consideration.
However, I do agree it's worth something and I'm sure Nina knows this and will leverage its worth IF we have to go conference hunting (which I doubt in the near term).
I ran Marketing for a publicly traded company at one point. I did a lot of digital media buys, but also some radio and tv buys. It's been a while, but my recollection is that there may have been a slight premium for unique viewers, but almost all the value was attributed to total viewers/impressions.

When it comes time for Duke to cement its place in the ACC or move to a new conference, this football/basketball viewership suggests to me we should be in a position of strength, not weakness, in negotiating that next conference deal.
 
all of this is why Nina King is working furiously (and she is) to maximize Duke's attractiveness since no one can be certain how this is going to play out.
Absolutely. The University is taking these things seriously and have invested in continuity of leadership and growth.

I think it is a wise move and hope to see it continue — and continue successfully.
 
Not sure if this got posted anywhere on the board. Check out these viewership numbers. Explain to me why this doesn't make us one of the most valuable college sports properties in the country.

View attachment 18473
Couple things. And trust me, I hope I’m wrong on some of these, would love for MBB to have more value (selfishly as it helps us)

First, something seems really off in the data based on the rankings they’re shown. How is the delta between #1-4 so small (~30mm or ~10%), but then there’s a massive gap to #5 (~78mm or ~30%)? Are we missing something in the data?

Second, all else equal from a pure viewership minutes perspective (e.g., 100min of football time vs 100min of basketball time), football is significantly more valuable due to the number of commercials and monetization opportunities. Virtually every time there is a change of possession, injury, or timeout there is a commercial break. These occur way more frequently than basketball, where there is a media break only every four minutes (so 4x a half). Additionally, football is slower allows for more replays and other areas to monetize (think Allstate field goals, Dos Equies go-for-two, or just regular sponsoring of a tough hit / play of the half).

Third, the football product itself has more monetization opportunities due to the length of the game itself. CFB is 3+ hours a pop, whereas MBB is closer to 1.5-2hr. Therefore a football impression is likely going to have another 50% more commercial time per event, all else equal.

There are probably a couple other factors out there that I’m missing (for instance, I wonder what relative viewership levels are for name-brands vs. generic filler teams for each sport; there might be a higher floor for MBB as the games are on weekdays where there is less content to compete against). But I think in general, the headwinds noted above in the second and third items are issues that drive down MBB value (unfortunately for us as a top MBB brand)
 
I ran Marketing for a publicly traded company at one point. I did a lot of digital media buys, but also some radio and tv buys. It's been a while, but my recollection is that there may have been a slight premium for unique viewers, but almost all the value was attributed to total viewers/impressions.

When it comes time for Duke to cement its place in the ACC or move to a new conference, this football/basketball viewership suggests to me we should be in a position of strength, not weakness, in negotiating that next conference deal.
Nina's major concern has to be the threat of being left in the cold if the ACC implodes (which I don't think will happen). Yes, our hoops profile and academic profile would be helpful in trying to get into the Big Ten for example, but the whole TV contract/FSU/Clemson festouche is most definitely about football.....not hoops revenue and not hoops viewership. Hoops viewership does not help our football number.
 
worth a bump to note that as the football playoffs begin to take shape, the ACC has more ranked teams than the Big Ten, which has always been extremely top heavy....The Athletic takes not of this.
 
I know what you mean, but I did LOL at this sentence, because I started thinking about the schools that are more or less in the middle of very splattered conferences.

I'm imagining a Facebook Terrible Maps of the geographic centers of the conferences and which school is the closest thereto. Is ours Louisville now?

Ha! Fun exercise in absurdity. Might actually be SMU. Just quickly looking at a map, a straight line from Boston to Berkeley defining the northern edge of the conference (not including Notre Dame) pretty much goes through Kansas City, which would put the geographic center somewhere in Oklahoma, maybe? Hardly "Atlantic Coast" in any event.

I used this nifty tool to approximate an answer to the above question. It limits you at 10 points to triangulate, so I couldn't just enter all 18(!?!?) ACC schools. I pared things down to the following 8 points because they feel like a pretty good generalization of where the conference lies now:
  • Chestnut Hill, MA (Boston College)--the conference's northernmost point
  • Syracuse, NY--a westward arm that I think establishes another important corner of the polygon
  • Louisville, KY--establishes another polygonal edge that more or less encompasses Pitt's location SSW of Syracuse
  • Greensboro, NC--a central location symbolizing the conference's historic heartland...of course no school located there, but there's the obvious cultural significance, and it's within 80 miles or so of all four NC universities
  • Atlanta, GA--a placemarker for both GA Tech and near(ish)by Clemson
  • Miami, FL--pushes the polygon southward and swings nearby to Tallahassee
  • Dallas, TX--an important new midpoint, location of SMU
  • Castro Valley, CA--halfway between Berkeley and Palo Alto, splits the Cal/Stanford difference
This all got me an exact geographic center of an unincorporated spot in Cheatham County, Tennessee, about 25 miles west of Nashville. To me this makes perfect sense and is exactly the kind of stupid answer I would have wanted to this stupid question.

I'd be interested in thoughts as to how I might adjust my inputs if anyone can think of a more accurate way to approximate our conference's heart, because this is the important work I'm doing today.
 
I used this nifty tool to approximate an answer to the above question. It limits you at 10 points to triangulate, so I couldn't just enter all 18(!?!?) ACC schools. I pared things down to the following 8 points because they feel like a pretty good generalization of where the conference lies now:
  • Chestnut Hill, MA (Boston College)--the conference's northernmost point
  • Syracuse, NY--a westward arm that I think establishes another important corner of the polygon
  • Louisville, KY--establishes another polygonal edge that more or less encompasses Pitt's location SSW of Syracuse
  • Greensboro, NC--a central location symbolizing the conference's historic heartland...of course no school located there, but there's the obvious cultural significance, and it's within 80 miles or so of all four NC universities
  • Atlanta, GA--a placemarker for both GA Tech and near(ish)by Clemson
  • Miami, FL--pushes the polygon southward and swings nearby to Tallahassee
  • Dallas, TX--an important new midpoint, location of SMU
  • Castro Valley, CA--halfway between Berkeley and Palo Alto, splits the Cal/Stanford difference
This all got me an exact geographic center of an unincorporated spot in Cheatham County, Tennessee, about 25 miles west of Nashville. To me this makes perfect sense and is exactly the kind of stupid answer I would have wanted to this stupid question.

I'd be interested in thoughts as to how I might adjust my inputs if anyone can think of a more accurate way to approximate our conference's heart, because this is the important work I'm doing today.

Queue the inane "Vanderbilt should obviously be in the ACC" posts.

(As if they would or should give up the SEC money teat)
 
An amusing update to the FSU lawsuit demanding to be released from the ACC:

After formal ACC exit notice, Florida State now says 'we never said we wanted to leave'

....and in another development, the SEC realized "oops, having too many of the big time programs losing to each other is not a great idea" as well. Ditto Big Ten.
 
Let's say the ACC doesn't implode but ACC MBB does implode. Perhaps I should say stays imploded since it seems to have imploded for this season. If this is a long term trend, does Duke's attachment to the ACC stay strong? If there's more money and better basketball and football competition elsewhere shouldn't we move if we have the chance? We've got the strongest brand in CBB and a rapidly improving brand in FB, Duke could easily be attractive to the SEC or B1G. Is sentiment enough to keep Duke in the ACC if we've got better options?
 
Let's say the ACC doesn't implode but ACC MBB does implode. Perhaps I should say stays imploded since it seems to have imploded for this season. If this is a long term trend, does Duke's attachment to the ACC stay strong? If there's more money and better basketball and football competition elsewhere shouldn't we move if we have the chance? We've got the strongest brand in CBB and a rapidly improving brand in FB, Duke could easily be attractive to the SEC or B1G. Is sentiment enough to keep Duke in the ACC if we've got better options?
Let's not go too far the other way. I'm not sure Duke could "easily" be attractive to the SEC or B1G, honestly ever.

Duke needs to be attractive enough to not be left out, if and when the next round happens. At the moment, after Elko and Manny Season 1, we are trending in that direction. We need to keep the splashes consistent (both in hoops and football, read: keep up) and also increase our football attendance, at least for the optics. That last part has proven very hard. But we are certainly doing what we need to do, at least for now.

- Chillin
 
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