Yeah, this one is going to be a bad mixture of factors, and will likely prove out some of our basic predictions on "avenues for exit".
First, to be clear, there are two possible extreme ends of the "outcome" spectrum, and a lot of possibilities in between. One extreme is to go "scorched earth" and to have 8 or more schools vote to dissolve the ACC. The other extreme is that everyone is nice and polite and the ACC lets everyone leave who wants to leave, and takes enough additional schools to replace them, and there are no GOR implicaations, and everyone who leaves happily pays their exit fees.
Personally, I'd love to see the latter outcome. I don't want to see yet another conference collapse if it doesn't need to happen that way. But my realistic side says that we are probably closer to the first outcome because certain schools will not want to compromise, thus schools that want to leave have to "hold hostage" the concept of expansion as a bargaining chip.
Having said that...
It's tricky...
I am sure that some schools are trying to convey cooperativeness on the expansion issue as a way to continue to figure out a pathway that takes them out of the ACC, without being subject to spurious claims of collusion and bad-faith bargaining. Fine. Whatever. And on an academic basis, Stanford-Cal would be amazing additions.
But we can't ignore the math. Either in what has led us to this point (widening revenue gap between the ACC and the Big 10/SEC) and what can happen when you add more "Together 4ever" voices to a voting bloc.
The brutal reality is that NONE of these steps are going to bring the ACC $75M per school. NONE of these steps are going to force ESPN to do something that ESPN doesn't want to do.
Therefore, no matter what pie-in-the-sky and stars-in-the-eyes that seem to come from this illusory "Era of Good Feelings" where nobody has given notice and it LOOKS LIKE other schools actually want to sign on to our disastrous GOR and GOR extension to 2036, the truth is that there are still some schools lookig for the door.
I've made it clear, I am anti-Frenk. And if Frenk overrules Rad and casts a Miami vote in favor of inviting Stanford-Cal WITHOUT EXTRACTING SIGNIFICANT CONCESSIONS THAT WOULD ALLOW MIAMI TO EXIT THE ACC AND JOIN THE BIG 10 WITHOUT OPPOSITION AND AT MINIMAL COST, then I am going to do everything I can as an alum to see that Frenk is removed as UM President as soon as possible.
If Beta Blake and BC (and Syracuse and Duke and Wake and everyone else) want to have a still-existing conference once we leave, that's fine, but it's going take some compromise.
A vote to "expand" the ACC before we solve all our other problems is both stupid and self-sabotage. So, sure, it seems like something that is JUUUUST dumb enough for ACC Presidents to actually do.
"Destined for Failure". That should be the name of the ACC *** tape and/or the subtitle on the retrospective history of the conference once known as the ACC.
