Now athletic directors want to destroy the conference just to get ahold of a little more money.
The ACC has always been a conference of excellent academic universities situated in the mid-Atlantic region. The schools are natural rivals who, for the greatest part, have played by the highest standards of the rules and good sportsmanship.
But the athletic directors want to add three schools that would stretch the conference way out of its natural geographic area — from Boston to Miami. The expansion would also tarnish the conference’s mostly clean reputation by taking in the University of Miami — with its hefty record of NCAA violations.
Natural rivalries would be diluted in favor of contests about which no one could possibly care. (I bet most of us can’t wait to see Georgia Tech play Boston College and Syracuse take on Clemson. Maybe we could fan up some old Civil War emotion to make those games interesting.)
But there’s big money involved, so get ready.
If the ACC can expand to 12 teams, then it can have two divisions for football and the winners of the two could meet in a championship game. That would probably draw a $9 million TV contract.
So every one of the schools in the new 12-team league would get another half-to-three-quarter million bucks for the athletics directors to spend. But you have to wonder if that money will help the bottom line after Carolina is sending its volleyball team to Boston and Syracuse for a share of a $15 gate, and State is sending its tennis team to Miami and Boston for even less revenue.
This is a bad deal for the taxpayers, too.
Consider this. That championship game probably won’t be played often in North Carolina. We¹ll probably lose the ACC Basketball Tournament, and all of the revenue it creates. That’s because with 12 teams carving up the seats, there won’t be enough for all the honchos who now get into the tourney. So they’ll hold it in Atlanta where there’s a 50,000-seat venue.
If they don’t move it to Atlanta, and hold it in Greensboro, there’ll be fewer State and Carolina fans there to be wooed by university officials for donations. The tournament is a big fundraising event. More money will flow to the athletics departments, but how much less will be raised for the academic missions of the schools.
And for fans, the worst part will be that the natural rivals won’t play each other as often. Maybe only once, not twice, in basketball. Maybe not every year in football.
But North Carolina basketball fans will get to see the Eagles of Boston College who, by the way, don¹t give a set of rosary beads about beating anyone but Notre Dame.
This is a lousy deal for North Carolina sports fans, for the universities, and even for the northern schools. But money is involved so it sounds like a done deal.
Paul O’Connor is a Raleigh columnist for the Capitol Press association and an editorial writer for The Winston-Salem Journal. Contact him via e-mail at ocolumn@mindspring.com.
