Why SMU? They do have the academic that is attractive to some ACC members and they are in the Dallas market, but that puts the ACC at 17 (15 when Clemson and FSU bolt.) and why (quoting from SI.com)
Also why, per SI.com would SMU "forego their share of the media distribution portion of that pot for multiple years and essentially come into the league earning only from non-media rights distributions such as bowl distribution payouts, College Football Playoff distributions and NCAA tournament units. " That’s a lot of coin to pass on. Or is it a wash to them because they are in the American conference so zero is about the same as their current zero?
SMU thinks that this may be their last good chance to be a power conference team after giving their program the death penalty 3 decades ago. They apparently have an alumni base that is so rabid for football, that they will cover the cost of maintaining the program (potentially $100 million or more over 7 years) if it gets them a seat at the big kids table and the potential for many more millions later on. The American just ain’t that and is only getting worse with the defections of Houston and Cincinnati. I think that SMU is reading the tea leaves that college football is only going to continue to eat itself, and they’ve got one last chance to be the one eating rather than the (eventually) eaten if they can get in a major conference. That’s one expensive gamble, but it is football in Texas, so the priorities are different.
The SWC, which broke apart when Texas, TAMU, Texas Tech and Baylor joined Big 8 to form the Big 12, was in many ways a power conference and SMU got to play with rival TCU as well as “major” Texas schools during that league’s run from 1915 to 1996. They were cast adrift, and have watched rival TCU work their way back not only into a power conference but into a national title contender last year.
Long story short, SMU wants back “in” and doesn’t see why if TCU can do it, they cant.
When it comes to the state of Texas, never underestimate how far they’ll go, or how much they’re willing to spend on football.
The "Friday Night Lights’ mentality permeates…it is real, whether it should be or not.
All of the latest reporting seems to indicate that ACC membership is moving forward, with Stanford/Cal taking only 30% of a membership share for the first few years and SMU taking 0% for up to 7 years. That reportedly nets the ACC, as a whole, something like $70 million extra (b/c the ACC’s deal allows them to expand with ESPN automatically giving the same distribution for every added school) to distribute among the remaining members to win them over on the plan. The reports are that Florida State and Clemson, especially, want a Gonzaga-style incentivized payout structure for success. Therefore, they are probably looking to take the majority of the pot forgone by Cal/Stanford/SMU for their continued allegiance.
The reports have also been pretty consistent lately in stating that “all sports” would go to the ACC. So my pipe dream of getting Stanford basketball and soccer to the WCC likely will go down being just that. Good luck to the Bears and Cardinal figuring out how to send their volleyball teams across the country every week.
The ACC presidents meet tonight to possibly bring the saga (and what’s left of hope for western-based major conference) to an ignominious close.
The Cardinal and Bears did it: ACC for all sports. They will enter taking only 30% of the media payout at first, which entails something like a $20 million haircut from what those departments were currently relying on. SMU is taking nothing for 9 years. Because Texas and football.
After each other and SMU (Dallas), the next closest opponent to either school is Louisville in KY.
Contrary to the expectations of most, NC State flipping from No to Yes did not lead to a unanimous vote. UNC, Clemson, and FSU still voted no. That suggests that the ACC is still very much in line to break apart at the earliest opportunity.
We will see what this does to Cal and Stanford. My guess is that it is more life support than it is salvation. The WCC, if it ever had a shot at adding one or either for non-football sports, will have to look elsewhere.
So much for that…was fun to imagine them joining the WCC.
While the travel for non-football/basketball seems untenable to us and maybe gave us some hope of them landing in the WCC it’s worth noting that I can’t think of a single power conference school in the country that has their varsity sports split between conferences. Probably some concern from Stanford and Cal that splitting conferences would delegitimize their athletic programs as a whole from the power conference perspective.
Though this drama was spurred mostly by football media rights $, there is some synergy and benefit for both the ACC and Stanford/Cal in having the other sports in the ACC. Stanford volleyball, baseball, soccer are consistently top 20 and have won national championships and their Olympic and country club sports are top notch. And the ACC is fairly strong in baseball, soccer and other sports. Yes the travel will be brutal but I imagine the league will make accommodations and they’ll figure it out. ie- baseball could do back-to-back road series and just stay on the East Coast for the week and attend classes remotely to cut down on back/forth travel and maybe only have to do 2 or 3 East Coast trips in a season.
Turning to the WCC…do we add Seattle U to get back to 10 teams? Best option in my opinion…Jesuit, former WCC school, large metro area, basketball has been competitive of late.
And I know someone is going to bring up GCU…that’s a hard ‘No’ from me…don’t care what they’re building or the strength of their basketball team.
Seattle U is the most logical, and I’m sure the Presidents would all be pretty aligned on it. As I understand it, Gonzaga is the major impediment to Seattle U and probably the reason that they haven’t been added to the conference over the past decade. If the WCC required some minimum level of basketball investment, maybe that would mollify the Zags, but I doubt it. More members just means more sharing for them, and they would be pretty reticent to give any exposure to another WA-based team.
I also don’t like GCU. Look elsewhere. Then the usual suspects of Denver and Cal Baptist. The pool of private, Western schools that don’t sponsor football is just so shallow. Hawaii could be interesting. Public, but with a big following and currently languishing in the Big West (football is in the MWC). But they’re not likely such an upgrade to merit the considerable extra travel expense.
My crazy, not-gonna-happen pick would be University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. They’re way, way out there and wouldn’t make any sense logistically. But that’s an up and coming basketball program at a school that perfectly fits the WCC profile with pretty good local support. A real coup would be to get them and SLU as travel partners/Midwest footholds. If Cal can go to the ACC, anything can happen now. Well, almost anything.
I’ve spent a lot of time pondering, but I think the final answer is that there is no (realistic!) candidate that adds much value.
I take the train every morning from the University of Denver station, so I would love to see it selfishly. And while they seem to compete hard in a number of sports - hockey, skiing, men’s soccer, gymnastics - at the national championship level, basketball just doesn’t seem to work at DU.
I don’t think Seattle U adds much. GU brings us the Seattle market, SU seems like Portland where they are totally outclassed and irrelevant in their big city market, surrounded by pro teams and very popular P5 college programs. And Seattle U is even further off the radar (at least Portland has been in the WCC for the last half century, compared to SU’s recent hoops history) in an even more crowded market with more pro sports and a P5 university a mere few miles away (which is not the case in Portland).
Its easy to get caught up in the realignment madness, but I wonder if a small hoops conference really needs to? The Ivy league is, strangely, probably our best comparison point in terms of stability, philosophy and not changing when the rest of the world does.
Is the theory that as conferences grow, there will be less room for non-conf games and we need more members to fill our schedules?
I just don’t think a WCC + DU + St Thomas + Seattle U is all that much better, if it’s better at all, than the current WCC.
Agreed. There is no logical addition that makes the conference better. I already don’t like it that all teams don’t play each other twice, we’ve lost travel partners, etc.
I still don’t think that GU will ultimately like being the tiny tail wagging on the dog that is college football. But their constant longing eyes for anywhere else than the conference where they reached two national title games is more than tedious.
Just leave already. We will keep the NCAA units from GU’s most successful era (thank you!) while they go sob when the football schools use GU’s lack of any leverage to cut their slice smaller and smaller and the best programs continue to jump for the SEC and Big 10 whenever their moment arrives.
Yormark also seems out of his mind to want to potentially add another school that has no football and is 500+ miles away from its closest opponent at the same time that he restructures the conference without its two biggest football brands (TX and OK) and eight newcomers in two years.
I’m with you Patty…just leave already. I really don’t care if it negatively impacts the stature of the WCC (in hoops). GU leaving makes it slightly more likely someone other SMC gets an NCAA bid. I think many forget or haven’t been around long enough to know that the WCC had multiple NCAA bids on several occasions prior to GU’s rise (ie- SCU’s NCAA bids with Nash in '95 and '96 were at-large bids when the Broncos won the league but faltered in the WCC tourney…and there are other examples), plus plenty of NIT bids. A GU departure doesn’t automatically doom us to dropping to Big West / Big Sky territory though many will claim so.
My only concern would be re: overall conference stability, maintaining a reasonable and sustainable size and not experiencing any additional turnover beyond GU’s departure. You stand pat with 8 or you grow a little by adding Seattle U and maybe one other (Denver or Cal Baptist…please no GCU).
This article throws some cold water on the realignment talk. Something I didn’t realize: Gonzaga’s own hired consultants value GU basketball–if it were in a power conference–at less than half of the Big 12’s annual payout ($15 mil vs $31 mil) to its members. So the Zags would really have to come at a big discount and pray that Yormark’s plan to separate football and basketball media rights (in 2031, mind you) proves fruitful.