IT’S TIME: Why Miami should leave the ACC and go to the AAC

Lmao the only reason UCF hasn’t completely left us in their dust the last 10 years is playing in the G5

This is a death nail.
 
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Miami is a private school in need of outside revenue streams.

adidas pays the University of Miami an assload of money. You know who else pays a huge amount; the ACC with their shared rev deal—even bigger with the new ACC Network.

Money talks—and UM needs cash. Going to the AAC would be a huge blow financially. Period, end of story.
How come we aren't the power house that we should be if we got all this boat load of money coming in? We should be able to get any recruit we want.
 
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Real Question: What advantages has there been for us since joining the ACC?

What disadvantages have there been? Perceived unfair refs? We had Big 12 refs in the opener and the same complaints were made. There's nothing but disadvantages in the AAC.
 
What disadvantages have there been? Perceived unfair refs? We had Big 12 refs in the opener and the same complaints were made. There's nothing but disadvantages in the AAC.

If anything, joining the ACC has made our program’s admin lazy, imo. Furthermore, we’ve been nothing but gross underachievers since being in this conference. The “perceived unfair refs” are not a perception, it’s a reality.
 
If anything, joining the ACC has made our program’s admin lazy, imo. Furthermore, we’ve been nothing but gross underachievers since being in this conference. The “perceived unfair refs” are not a perception, it’s a reality.

We hired Coker four years before joining the ACC.
 
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We hired Coker four years before joining the ACC.

True, and allowing student athletes to persuade that decision was a domino effect. However, Coker did go to back to back National Titles and only lost 3 games in his first 3 seasons. So at the time, it looked like a good hire. Imo, hiring Randy was truly the lazy hire b/c he was apart of a regime that became deemed unfit and it wasn’t a real coaching search. At least w Coker, Barry Alvarez was being considered who built up Wisc and had 2 BCS bowl wins in the last 3 yrs before being offered the job.
 
Firstly, let me say that I was a Managing Consultant for Fortune 500 companies in the past but I always took a different approach to considering whether a project was profitable or not. My time in the entertainment industry taught me that every successful project should tell an impactful story and I applied this knowledge to consulting. So I would always prepare a clear, concise, one-page treatment to any MC project just like a producer would; the difference being that I would present a spreadsheet instead of a synopsis of the script. No matter what, I would always let the numbers tell the story.

Thus I present several reasons as to why Miami should move to the AAC:

Miami is not a cultural fit for the ACC.
  • The ACC is primarily a wannabe Ivy League conglomerate that emphasizes basketball.
  • They only tolerate Miami for access to a primary market.
Miami is also an outlier geographically.
  • The bulk of the ACC is located in or near the Carolinas.
The ACC does not want to be represented by a school like Miami.
  • Therefore we will always get treated unfairly
  • Whether it’s biased officiating or out right racism which is documentable.
The ACC does not promote Miami, the most recognized brand in college football.
  • The ACCN is a clear example of of where the marketing priorities of the ACC lie, and it’s not UM.
The locations of ACC are not in ideal marketing locations.
  • The only rapidly growing areas outside of Miami are the research triangle and Tallahassee.
  • Both of these areas are negligible due to school loyalty and the meaningful population that impacts growth being transient students.
Miami is the largest metropolitan area and only primary market in the ACC but has no leverage.
  • The conference alignment is not set up correctly and the championship game is in Charlotte.
  • Neither of these are favorable for Miami.
The ACC only has 1 consistently ranked playoff team (Clemson) and is just as weak as the AAC.
  • The ACC is weaker now than its ever been on every level.
  • The national perception of the ACC is just as bad or worse than the ACC.
We have no built in rival in the ACC. Why are we traveling to Pitt or Duke on rivalry week?
  • The ACC didn’t provide any advantages in football or basketball.
The marketing value of cities in the ACC is far less than the AAC.

On the contrary:

The AAC misses Miami, the former Big East appreciated and celebrated Miami.
  • Miami instantly legitimizes the AAC as a Power conference.
  • UCF is consistently ranked and needs another high profile opponent.
Miami is a much better cultural fit in AAC.
  • The AAC has has much better metropolitan locations.
  • If you look at the states that produce the most NFL talent.
  • The AAC provides a much better recruiting advantage and marketing exposure.
  • Tampa, Orlando, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, DMV, Philly, Ohio, Memphis, Ohio & Connecticut.
The AAC presents new marketing and greater opportunities for networks and sponsors.
  • Conference realignment could have UM playing in Florida or warm climates most of the season.
  • AAC locations would increase fan support due to ease of accessibility and desirable locations.
Because of weaker teams in the AAC, UM could schedule more high profile out of conference games.
  • AAC have several primary markets in cities that are thriving and growing.
  • We have built in rivals in the AAC.
  • We could possibly play FSU, UF, UCF, USF, FIU, FAU & FAMU In one season. True state champs.
We could add an up and coming Georgia State team and retain the ATL/GA market.
  • Adding Miami would make the AAC better than the ACC in football and closer in basketball.
We need our own conference.

It’s time - if you have UM connections, please submit this for real analysis. Thank you.
It’s always all about The U

View attachment 97063

I understand and respect your opinion. However, other UM sports would suffer from this switch therefore, I don't see us doing this.
On another note, I do see the opportunity for the ACC to solidify themselves by replacing Pitt with UCF and Boston College with Notre Dame.
 
In a given year, there is only 1 ACC game that is actually worth getting excited about. Miami vs Florida State. You tell me what's wrong with that picture. 15 years in this conference and only 1 game a year worth getting excited about. It's plain and simple. There just isn't anything exciting about going up to Charlottesville, VA and slugging it out with the Cavaliers in a 14-17 game that you should easily win. I can't say I even blame the players for being lethargic in these games. It's just not satisfying to beat these teams. On the flip side, for a lot of these ACC teams, the Miami game is their super bowl. We need to get out. I don't think I even care where we go. Just get out of this "conference".
 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The PAC-12 is too much of a BLUE STATE conference. SO WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, don't discourage the fear. I need to be entertained.

Bottom line, Miami was screwed as soon as everyone had to be in a conference and those conferences exploded to 13 or 14 teams. Nothing was a cultural fit. Nothing was a geographic fit.

It was basically take the money and hope to get lucky.

We haven't been lucky, as I expected. I posted on Rivals that joining the ACC felt like a return to pre-Schnellenberger. During the '70s I always knew we'd pull upsets and also be ripe for unexpected embarrassing defeats. The recent Canes teams are above that level overall but the dynamic is similar. We joined a pesky conference and didn't seem to have any clue of the risks involved or that the pesky nature would play out time and again.

Florida State won a national championship this decade. Yet there are repeated assertions in the thread that Florida State is not relevant. That spotlights the correct appraisal in this thread that everyone tends to get stuck here and now while lacking vision. I have plenty of situational vision. It does not include those AAC programs becoming nationally meaningful in college football. The conference bracketing changes from era to era but not the big league football programs. Boise State wasn't going to sustain into that group any more than UCF will. It can happen with a Gonzaga in college basketball far more logically than in football. There really isn't a good example. Clemson isn't anything new. I remember them winning a national title when I was in college. That was always major conference. Upstart Miami might be the best example of all. We used to play home games on Friday night not because the networks wanted it but because we were desperate for some standalone attention.

I always hoped Miami could remain independent.

Really the only changes in college football hierarchy have been downward, like Ivy League schools dropping out along with the service academies, specifically Army and Navy

Population realities don't dictate recruiting. Elite kids in those cities won't be watching the local team play Miami in your AAC scenario. They will still be watching the SEC and listening to the talking heads lavish the SEC. Plus other major conferences. Miami would be like the politician who doesn't qualify for the debate.

I appreciate outside the box. This one doesn't work. But if there is another conference shakeup among major southeastern or eastern schools then Miami should listen. I would love to be in an 8 team conference with 7 conference games and 5 electives.
 
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You make valid points and I’m not surprised this post came up again. I too liked being independent the most but there wasn’t a way to really benefit financially compared to joining a conference until now. There’s 2 major disruptions that could help this scenario:
1. Streaming TV is a game changer
2. College athletes ability to get paid from their likeness

Miami could use market data to get a TV deal that could we be comparable if not better than the ACC. We could also go Independent and be the first team to get an exclusive deal with YouTubeTV where they broadcast all of our games on regular YT for free. Have our own network on YTTV as well.

We also need to outsource all of marketing, administration and accounting for player contracts for their likeness to outside agencies who know how to market athletes nationally. If our best players signed agent deals with Drew Rosenhaus for example, they could earn a lot more money and have a much more impactful brand than whatever the school could provide. The agents could also openly back player lead camps where every player on the team could earn additional money in the off season.

We need to bounce.
 
Streaming TV changes everything. Now is the time to be pioneers. If Miami is looking for an opportunity to become a name brand again, being the first to sign a deal with Amazon Prime or Netflix would be huge. In any case it's impossible until around 2027 because of the grant of rights to the ACC. It might be conceivable to reach a settlement with the ACC to leave early- 2024 or 2025 -(and the streaming network picks up the forfeit revenue), especially since the ACC never got the ROI from Miami that it thought it would.
 
As we prepare to play Duke, on rivalry week, in Decembe, at Duke, in front of 66 people, coming off a loss to... (Gulp) FIU?
Can you at least entertain the idea of the AAC being better for Miami?
it’s already a better conference top to bottom.
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Streaming TV changes everything. Now is the time to be pioneers. If Miami is looking for an opportunity to become a name brand again, being the first to sign a deal with Amazon Prime or Netflix would be huge. In any case it's impossible until around 2027 because of the grant of rights to the ACC. It might be conceivable to reach a settlement with the ACC to leave early- 2024 or 2025 -(and the streaming network picks up the forfeit revenue), especially since the ACC never got the ROI from Miami that it thought it would.
Sign me up...
 
F*ck that Miami should leave ACC and drop down to FCS or Division III. Get back to a level playing field then maybe Miami can be great again
 
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