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FSU testing the waters?

TheOriginalCane said:
This is like an iceberg. The "sports reporters" only see the part that is above water. The vast majority of the object is below the surface of the water.

There's a lot going on right now, even if it's not reported on. Only when certain things happen very rapidly will some people realize the groundwork has been building for years.
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It was stated when Radakowski took the UM job that he and the Clemson AD were "joined at the hip" in planning an exit strategy from the ACC. So you have to believe that is one of his major priorities insofar as "time allocation" during his work week. He isn't a guy who wastes his time so I would expect that some solid foundation is being developed FOR an eventual (and timely) exit. A huge impact of the conference realignment will be the resulting PRIME TIME game scheduling of signicant games for the two major 'super conferences'. No more BC vs UM, but OSU vs UM or Tennessee vs UM. Will be an automatic boost to recruiting as elite recruits will prefer the "big league" programs. Will be interesting to watch it unfold and take shape.
 
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Canesrule230 said:
The ACC is likely cooked but I really would have liked to have seen an attempt by the conference to salvage itself by cutting dead weight and adding pieces that would provide attractive matchups and hence larger tv deals. In my mind it should have dropped BC, Duke, Syracuse, and WF and added at least Washington and Oregon.

You'd think a package of Clemson-Miami-FSU-Oregon-Washington-ND (as a partial member but ideally full) games along with the rest of the ACC pieces left would command a decent deal. Likely not as strong as the BIG or SEC deal but enough to keep it from dissolving.
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ACC is not just football. you take away those teams and the basketball side gets effected tremendously. At the time Syracuse and Pitt were added, they had great basketball programs.
 
GoCanes!! said:
ACC is not just football. you take away those teams and the basketball side gets effected tremendously. At the time Syracuse and Pitt were added, they had great basketball programs.
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The reality of today is football is the entire sundae except maybe basketball which is at best the cherry. Football brings in more revenue than the next 35 college sports combined. Football is also where the growth is, what the networks and other distribution platforms are all bidding for. The Big 12 has a monster basketball conference going, about as good as you can get these days, and they won't get half what the SEC/B1G will get. Duke has a monstrously successful and historical blue-blood basketball program, but it won't save them IMO. There is going to be some really ugly collateral damage from this massive conference realignment era.
 
This is a suuuuuuper complex situation that has both a legal dimension AND a business strategy dimension. There is no short summary that even scratches the surface of conveying the full contours of this monster situation. But I'm going to chime in with what I think is the most important thing to keep in mind for each of those two dimensions. (multiple years of me thinking on this topic)

The most important thing to keep in mind for the legal dimension: Every school can do whatever it wants with its broadcast rights, no matter what agreements may or may not exist giving those rights away. Any ACC institution could decide *today* that it no longer will allow its home sporting events to be broadcast by ESPN and instead would allow CBS, Fox, or even the ******* BBC to broadcast, and that would take effect immediately and ESPN/the ACC couldn't stop it. This doesn't mean there wouldn't be a lawsuit over it (there would) and it doesn't mean there wouldn't be financial repercussions, but who actually broadcasts home events is a choice within each institutions firm control.

The most important thing to keep in mind for the business strategy dimension: Doing nothing is never free, and in this case would be the costliest of all possible choices. The industry is radically and rapidly changing due to simultaneously occurring legal and technological innovations. The tech innovation alone is profound- see MLB/Bally Sports bankruptcy issue for example. College sports is that plus the sudden collapse of the NCAA amateur model due to seismic legal shifts. The history of well established brands standing pat in the face of rapidly changing market dynamics is that they almost always go extinct or close to it, and that usually happens faster than the people would have imagined.
 
Cryptical Envelopment said:
The reality of today is football is the entire sundae except maybe basketball which is at best the cherry. Football brings in more revenue than the next 35 college sports combined. Football is also where the growth is, what the networks and other distribution platforms are all bidding for. The Big 12 has a monster basketball conference going, about as good as you can get these days, and they won't get half what the SEC/B1G will get. Duke has a monstrously successful and historical blue-blood basketball program, but it won't save them IMO. There is going to be some really ugly collateral damage from this massive conference realignment era.
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I was listening to Alford's (FSU AD) message yesterday and he said they determine the value 80/20 football/basketball.
 
sdaly12 said:
i see BG1 taking Washington & Oregon, Big 12 scoops up the rest creating another super conference. Big 12 revenue deal just recently signed was impressive( 2.3B$).... Dwarfs ACC TV deal ,which is the worst in Power 5, clearly outside of Clemson, FSU, Miami ,ACC is a dead conference walking from a football perspective. FSU is just setting the battlefield to say good bye!
Radokovich now has to really earn the paycheck......
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The Big 12 and PAC 12 leftovers would not be a super conference. It would be the AAC on steroids.

I don’t think there would even be a single team in the conference capable of recruiting at a Top 15 level.
 
GoCanes!! said:
ACC is not just football. you take away those teams and the basketball side gets effected tremendously. At the time Syracuse and Pitt were added, they had great basketball programs.
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Yea but football revenue dwarfs basketball revenue. It’s why Duke may be locked out of a P2 conference unless UNC manages to get them a ticket with them.
 
I selfishly want Miami to join the SEC, that means more games (football, basketball, baseball) closer to me that I can actually attend. In fact if any Miami team was in my town, I would be there
 
Cryptical Envelopment said:
The reality of today is football is the entire sundae except maybe basketball which is at best the cherry. Football brings in more revenue than the next 35 college sports combined. Football is also where the growth is, what the networks and other distribution platforms are all bidding for. The Big 12 has a monster basketball conference going, about as good as you can get these days, and they won't get half what the SEC/B1G will get. Duke has a monstrously successful and historical blue-blood basketball program, but it won't save them IMO. There is going to be some really ugly collateral damage from this massive conference realignment era.
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Bingo. Perfect example from several years ago is that Maryland, a big time bball program with an average at best football program, left acc to join Big Ten…because of football revenue and tv rights.
 
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Wake_Cane said:
This is a suuuuuuper complex situation that has both a legal dimension AND a business strategy dimension. There is no short summary that even scratches the surface of conveying the full contours of this monster situation. But I'm going to chime in with what I think is the most important thing to keep in mind for each of those two dimensions. (multiple years of me thinking on this topic)

The most important thing to keep in mind for the legal dimension: Every school can do whatever it wants with its broadcast rights, no matter what agreements may or may not exist giving those rights away. Any ACC institution could decide *today* that it no longer will allow its home sporting events to be broadcast by ESPN and instead would allow CBS, Fox, or even the ******* BBC to broadcast, and that would take effect immediately and ESPN/the ACC couldn't stop it. This doesn't mean there wouldn't be a lawsuit over it (there would) and it doesn't mean there wouldn't be financial repercussions, but who actually broadcasts home events is a choice within each institutions firm control.

The most important thing to keep in mind for the business strategy dimension: Doing nothing is never free, and in this case would be the costliest of all possible choices. The industry is radically and rapidly changing due to simultaneously occurring legal and technological innovations. The tech innovation alone is profound- see MLB/Bally Sports bankruptcy issue for example. College sports is that plus the sudden collapse of the NCAA amateur model due to seismic legal shifts. The history of well established brands standing pat in the face of rapidly changing market dynamics is that they almost always go extinct or close to it, and that usually happens faster than the people would have imagined.
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This part is my biggest gripe with the ACC leadership in all of this. They stupidly got involved in this 20 year TV deal because they completely overemphasized the value, need, and demand for the ACCN. Concurrent to this, they get concerned about the SEC poaching teams and all agree to the Grant of Rights in an effort to keep the league together. But then at some point did not realize or connect the dots that if they all need to enter into a Grant of Rights agreement to stop the league from fraying, then the next logical step is realignment is moving forward, other teams will be poached, and that if there is a TV deal that needs renegotiating, the best resolution to that is to be the aggressor and add teams. I do not understand how they had the foresight to do the GoR but did not then have the thought to say they need to add. And I get what they would have added would not have been Texas, Oklahoma, USC or UCLA, but that was their only resolution to this problem.
 
Yoyo82 said:
I was listening to Alford's (FSU AD) message yesterday and he said they determine the value 80/20 football/basketball.
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There you go. I think that's generous with where football is going, alignment is forward thinking, but for the sake of argument...

What is the financial difference between a decent basketball program and an excellent basketball program?

Let's say the decent one (Clemson) generates 12% out of a maximum 20% peak basketball value (of an AD's overall media $), and a great one (Kansas) generates 17%.

And let's say that Kansas has a 35% value out of 80% for football and Clemson has a 70% value out of 80%.

There is a +5% media value delta for Kansas basketball over Clemson basketball.

There is a +35% media value delta for Clemson football over Kansas football.

Clemson: 82/100
Kansas: 42/100

Spitballing, but it illustrates the point. Football is it.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
I agree, and there's both a macro and a micro part of this.

On the micro level, I would point out that Beta Blake was GREAT at locking us into long-term contracts that were inflexible for adjusting to the rapidly changing world around us. ****, the one decent thing that Beta Blake did was get a "most favored nations" clause in the adidas contract, which he promptly ignored and did not ask to be enforced.

On the macro level, you have to question what was in the heads of the 15 ADs/Presidents who signed off on this. The ACC GOR is SIIIIIGGGGGNIFICANTLY longer than any other conference's GOR. My friend, you know this from your line of work, when drafting contracts and rights and whatnot, you look to "industry", you look to comparables, you look to what is reasonable in the marketplace. Who buys real estate and then says "you know what, on top of this very fair offer, I'm going to pay an extra million dollars, because I want to set a new record for the highest amount paid for a 1 bedroom efficiency"? For the ACC to go sooooooo far beyond everyone else's GORs was a collectively idiotic move that makes (and made) no sense at all.

And never forget...Beta Blake is STILL 1/15 of the ACC voting membership...
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I just responded to Wake about it but I don't understand how they had to the foresight to think we need a GoR but then did not say let's be aggressive to renegotiate a TV deal that had them falling behind. But in any case, I totally see how this happened. Everything in this conference is driven by the NC schools and prioritizing basketball, and the original members go in lockstep. Combine that with a weak Miami with inept leadership, FSU was on its downtrend with Jimbo about to leave because of weak leadership, and BC/Cuse/Pitt/VT not moving the needle.

I hate to say it, but to me the one who looks the worst in all of this is Radakovich. He was AD of a long-tenured member, whose athletic program was on top of the football world, and still went along with it. Granted, we do not know if USCe was blocking Clemson moving to the SEC or something else, but he is the one that I do not understand.

Whatever it is, these schools all signed a contract, and while I hope we can get out of it, it is not on the state to cover public schools' exits because they were stupid.
 
wspcane said:
I just responded to Wake about it but I don't understand how they had to the foresight to think we need a GoR but then did not say let's be aggressive to renegotiate a TV deal that had them falling behind. But in any case, I totally see how this happened. Everything in this conference is driven by the NC schools and prioritizing basketball, and the original members go in lockstep. Combine that with a weak Miami with inept leadership, FSU was on its downtrend with Jimbo about to leave because of weak leadership, and BC/Cuse/Pitt/VT not moving the needle.

I hate to say it, but to me the one who looks the worst in all of this is Radakovich. He was AD of a long-tenured member, whose athletic program was on top of the football world, and still went along with it. Granted, we do not know if USCe was blocking Clemson moving to the SEC or something else, but he is the one that I do not understand.

Whatever it is, these schools all signed a contract, and while I hope we can get out of it, it is not on the state to cover public schools' exits because they were stupid.
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I hear ya. I'd just say that Dan didn't seem to get Clemson involved in OTHER bad contracts.

I definitely think the ACC overestimated its ability to convince ND to join, and underestimated the willingness of the SEC and Big 12 to go super-big in size.
 
Ispyin said:
There aren’t because most of those other teams won’t add equal or greater pieces of the pie to a conference like big 12 in terms of revenue - unless they are willing to take less which they won’t or they would do it now in the acc
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What about as a whole? Are their 8 teams that add enough to the SEC/Big10, that it justifies breaking the deal.
Say the SEC gets FSU & Clemson... maybe Louisville, while the Big10 get UNC, Miami, Virginia, GT, Duke? Is the addition of UNC & Miami etc. enough of a TV boost to add Duke and thus break up the conference? Especially if adding Notre Dame.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
I hear ya. I'd just say that Dan didn't seem to get Clemson involved in OTHER bad contracts.

I definitely think the ACC overestimated its ability to convince ND to join, and underestimated the willingness of the SEC and Big 12 to go super-big in size.
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Dan has been great so far and was generally great at Clemson. It does seem like his best core competencies are fundraising and new buildings. Hopefully when the time comes, he excels at the hiring decisions too. I am speaking solely in the context of the GoR, but to be fair I do not know what other options he had or support he had.

They messed up on a few things - your two comments, the growing disparity between basketball and football revenues, the entire ACC Network (demand, rollout). Just an absolute disaster.
 
wspcane said:
Dan has been great so far and was generally great at Clemson. It does seem like his best core competencies are fundraising and new buildings. Hopefully when the time comes, he excels at the hiring decisions too. I am speaking solely in the context of the GoR, but to be fair I do not know what other options he had or support he had.

They messed up on a few things - your two comments, the growing disparity between basketball and football revenues, the entire ACC Network (demand, rollout). Just an absolute disaster.
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This. 1000%. You know how I feel about all of that. We were last to market (ACCN) and STILL didn't learn from everyone else...
 
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Everyone is trying to fit 8 teams into the SEC + BIG10 but the BIG 12s new TV contract changes things up. They are now set to surpass ACC in yearly payout per team which in turns, makes 3 viable conference landing spots for current ACC members.

It will now be much easier to find upgraded landing spots for the 8 ACC teams required to disband the conference. Louisville for example would be a nice fit in the BIG12 using Cincinnati as a travel partner. Virginia might also pair up well with West Virginia etc etc. Those are teams who previously had no nowhere to go.
 
wspcane said:
I just responded to Wake about it but I don't understand how they had to the foresight to think we need a GoR but then did not say let's be aggressive to renegotiate a TV deal that had them falling behind. But in any case, I totally see how this happened. Everything in this conference is driven by the NC schools and prioritizing basketball, and the original members go in lockstep. Combine that with a weak Miami with inept leadership, FSU was on its downtrend with Jimbo about to leave because of weak leadership, and BC/Cuse/Pitt/VT not moving the needle.

I hate to say it, but to me the one who looks the worst in all of this is Radakovich. He was AD of a long-tenured member, whose athletic program was on top of the football world, and still went along with it. Granted, we do not know if USCe was blocking Clemson moving to the SEC or something else, but he is the one that I do not understand.

Whatever it is, these schools all signed a contract, and while I hope we can get out of it, it is not on the state to cover public schools' exits because they were stupid.
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Bro we don't even know if Rad was for it. 14 universities with 14 school presidents and hundreds of BOT members with 14 AD's voted for this over a decade ago. This is a BOT/Presidential level decision with the ACC commissioner with input from AD and many others. He might have been the CATALYST for this for all we know, but he might have been very, very against it privately. Going after our current AD because he was an AD at another ACC school back when this was signed is reckless. We really don't know. One layer of a very complicated onion.
 
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