ACC makes it official

[Charleston Pony]

the ACC presidents agreed to invite Miami, Syracuse and B.C. to join, and now it's up the the Big East to try and come up with a package that will keep them. I just don't see how they can match the ACC's financial offer.

So much has been written about the possible domino effect and putting the various combinations together, how about this for a blockbuster deal that could rescue the Big East: the much talked about Big East Alliance is formed.

Football driven conference featuring Penn St (they are lured from the Big 10 so those guys can actually be 10 again), Pitt, W.Va, Va Tech, Rutgers, UConn, Temple (yes, they are retained because of bball success), Louisville & Cincy. Respectable football league and still a pretty good hoops league.

Their "partners" in the alliance: basketball driven league featuring St Johns, Villanova, Seton Hall, Providence, Georgetown, Notre Dame and new members DePaul, Marquette and either Xavier or St Josephs (too many Philly schools?). Notre Dame remains independent in football, so they don't have to share the wealth, but agrees to schedule 4 Big East football schools each year. They remove B.C. from their schedule and continue their USC, and Big 10 rivalries (Mich, Mich St & Purdue), leaving room for a game with either Navy/Air Force/Army (who becomes an indy when CUSA implodes) every year and enough flexibility to play some high profile teams as well.

The "alliance" has their own pre-season NIT type event where the 18 schools are matched up in conference cross-over games to kick off the season. Each school in the alliance agrees to play an additional 3 games against schools from the "other side" of the alliance every year. TV contracts are designed to generate as much revenue to be shared by the group as possible, with shares pro-rated based on the number of appearances each school makes on regional/national telecasts.

If I was the Big East commish, I'd be fighting hard to pull off something like this. This Big East football group might not retain an automatic BCS berth, but they would be the next strongest conference behind the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 10 and new ACC and would more than likely earn a BCS spot in the new 5 game series that's being discussed.

And of course, this all sets the table for the rest of us "also rans" to pair up as best we can.

[Water Pony]

Charleston:

I like your reasoning. The ND compromise helps make this work and Penn State would love to be a bigger fish in this pond. The Big Ten is brutal for them. Winning the conference once every 11 years years would be good performance for any team, except OSU and Michigan.

If I were Syracuse and BC, I wouldn't be so quick to join ACC if Penn State joined and ND had a somewhat tighter affiliation in FB. Win/Win.

The problem with the georgraphic spread of this new ACC is the pain for all sports except FB. Even FB would suffer from the limitation when fans can't travel that far.

I am quickly coming to a more rational approach for all conferences and sports, where geograhy plays a much bigger part. For us, it is critical to fill Ford and be able to travel to away games. I still like us in a Conf USA-West.

[OldPony]

Sounds like the reason all of the traditional conferences of years ago were set up in the first place bdfore TV revenue drove everything. One point re your statement though- We don't even "travel" to home games. That is one of the most serious problems for us.