Cal and Stanford voted into ACC

[irichluck21]

What ACC expansion means for the league and the college football landscape

After weeks of speculation, Cal, Stanford and SMU are joining the ACC. It's the latest move in the ongoing realignment saga that now has the ACC spanning from coast to coast. What does it mean for the new teams, the league and College Football Playoff?

www.espn.com

SMU also joins ACC.

That leaves Oregon State and Washington State without a home.

 

[cuuf]

Looks like the music is stopping and those two schools are without a chair. This will be a long term impact on the athlete program for those two schools In the next 3-5 years you may see them dropping programs.

 

[irichluck21]

Looks like the music is stopping and those two schools are without a chair. This will be a long term impact on the athlete program for those two schools In the next 3-5 years you may see them dropping programs.

The only option for survival is to merge with Mountain West and use the Pac 12 moniker and attempt to use the history of the conference to continue as a Power 5, albeit a very weak Power 5.

I don’t see Washington State or Oregon State able to function independently.

 

[cuuf]

For sure, but the Mountain West is not a P5 conference and media revenues are going to be drastically lower. It will lessen the immediate shock of having to cover a 10-20 million shortfall but unless the landscape shifts to their benefit in the next 5 years I can see Olympic sports getting cut including the gymnastics program (probably unlikely but within realm of possibility)

 

[irichluck21]

Unlikely to cut gymnastics as Mountain West just agreed to sponsor a conference championship starting this year.

 

[cuuf]

Remember this is about $$ not whether a conference can fit gymnastics. Football and basketball are the only revenue generating sports for athletic departments. All mainly based on media rights. So without that Power 5 conference level media $ the athletic department is going to be looking at significant shortfalls. The SEC distributed $50 million to each member, the Big 10 $58 million. These numbers are going to increase for SEC and Big 10 in the next year. The Pac-12 only distributed $37 million so that’s already a 20 million difference. In comparison, the Mountain west distributed $4 million per member. So that’s a huge hole in the athletic department budget.

 

[irichluck21]

Right. But despite having enough gymnastics teams to create their own conference and championships, Mountain West continued to not sponsor it as a sport.
That changed for this year, so I highly doubt that MWC would discontinue gymnastics so soon. Even if the conference discontinued the conference, these teams already were in independent gymnastics conferences, MRGC (now defunct) and MPSF.

Oregon State discontinuing gymnastics is also unlikely as it is a sport with strong results and has ties to an Olympian for two more years along with an Olympic coach (who knows for how long).

 

[blake]

I’m glad we’ll get one ACC Champs with the 4 current teams before it becomes the Stanford/Cal show. Not that I’m complaining, I love both those teams, but I think the current ACC teams will make for an exciting conference showdown.

 

[cuuf]

Ya, that’s why I say 5 years from now. I agree, highly unlike OSU cuts gymnastics, but the odds of it happening inches up more compared to this point last year when the Pac 12 seemed all good. Regardless unless OSU or Mountain West figures out how to get power 5 type money, the OSU athletic department is going to have to re-evaluate how they spend money, from the footbball program to the Olympic sports.

 

[Beamer]

Are Cal and Stanford now the only gymnastics schools in the ACC? I’ve never heard of an ACC conference championship meet for gymnastics.
And if there are only two teams, they wouldn’t hold a conference meet, would they?

 

[irichluck21]

Are Cal and Stanford now the only gymnastics schools in the ACC? I’ve never heard of an ACC conference championship meet for gymnastics.
And if there are only two teams, they wouldn’t hold a conference meet, would they?

ACC restarts as a conference this year because Clemson debuts.
Conference championships are only sponsored with 4 teams or more.
Clemson joins NC State, North Carolina, and Pitt.

There was one ACC gymnastics championships held in 1984 with NC State, Maryland, North Carolina, and Duke. NC State won the first and last (up to this year) team title.
In 1985 Duke folded its gymnastics program, so ACC as a gymnastics conference was no longer until it was resurrected 40 years later!

 

[RedBirdie]

Cal is just going to destroy the rest of the ACC.

 

[pyroslok]

Go Bears!

 

[arabiandoublefront]

I think this is all ridiculous. Even pro team conferences are regionally based. If we’re going to have only four power college conferences maybe they should all be realigned.

 

[cuuf]

My prediction is that it is going to happen within the next 10 years as soon as the next round of media contracts come up.

 

[OnoNoKomachi]

It’s going to end with the “Power” football teams splitting off from the NCAA and forming their own mini NFL - it’s basically already filling the role that minor league baseball fills for MLB.

 

[irichluck21]

With NIL, players can be paid in various ways for this

 

[blake]

Anyone with legal experience know what the odds of WSU/OSU winning this are? The article says UCLA/USC/UC Boulder were all blocked from voting once they announced their intent to leave the conference. It doesn’t mention if any of the outgoing schools are opposing this move.

I think Jayathi Murphy makes some good points especially about welfare of student athletes.

Oregon State, Washington State sue over future of Pac-12 league

Two remaining members of the historic conference say they, not their departing peers, should decide its future. And where are the adults in the room, Oregon State’s leader asks.

www.insidehighered.com