BC and the ACC

This was going to go in my "Sports Shorts" post, but it turned out to be not so short.

It's old news now that Boston College is joining the ACC, but pretty much anyone talking about it is talking about how great it will be for the ACC's reputation in basketball. It'll also allow ACC schools to make a ton of cash through a league championship football game.

Now, I'm no college sports expert, and I only started following NCAA sports in the fall of 1999 when I started grad school at Wake Forest, but the ACC expansion doesn't sit well for me for a few reasons. First of all, since when did any of the schools in the ACC really need more money? Of course everyone will take it if they can get it, but I haven't heard of any of the ACC athletic departments being strapped for cash. Endowments are hardly a way to measure the wealth of an athletic program, but when a school the size of Wake Forest (roughly 3,800 undergrads, 6,100 total) which is the second smallest school in Div I has an endowment of over $900,000, I don't think they need to shake up the ACC to make more money. The aCC has got to be one of the richest conferences in college sports, aside from the Ivy League folks. According to the Digest of Education Statistics for 2002, ACC schools rank 18, 24, 39, 58, 61, and 84 in the nation in terms of endowments, with FSU and NC State not cracking the top 120 because they're state schools (I don't have an excuse for Clemson, who also failed to make the top 120). Wake is fourth of the ACC schools. with Duke topping out at $3.2 billion dollars. Add to that the well known alumni who give back to their schools, like Tim Duncan, Arnold Palmer, Michael Jordan, Vince Carter, etc, and you know the ACC isn't hurting financially. So I don't buy the money argument. Everyone wants more, but they certainly aren't doing this out of financial necessity. Second, I'm worried that the only sport that was really seriously looked at when they thought about the impact of 3 new schools in the ACC was football. The ACC is a basketball conference, and to a lesser extent, a baseball, golf, soccer and field hockey conference, with basketball being the only major money maker of those sports. The beauty of the ACC basketball schedule used to be a home-and-home series for everyone. That's going to be impossible now, because a 22 game conference schedule is pretty much impossible. The result is the loss of a level playing field in the conference, and the loss of a real regular season champion, because odds are 6 teams aren't going to have to go through the hell that is known as playing at Cameron Indoor. On top of that, the ACC is known as one of, if not the toughest conference in NCAA basketball. FSU and Clemson usually aren't so hot, and GT has their good and bad years, but wins against Virginia, Maryland, NC State, Wake Forest, UNC and Duke are usually huge wins for any school. Nevermind having to play all of them in one season. Now we'll have Miami (who are sometimes good, sometimes horrid) VT and Boston College watering things down. Suddenly the ACC has 6 good basketball schools and 6 that are so-so at best. Here come the easy wins and the lost NCAA tourney spots.

Other disadvantages? A once goegraphically tight conference now sprawls from Miami all the way north to Boston. That's going to be hell for travel budgets, not to mention student time away from class and campus. Plus the ACC logo is going to need to be changed. The old map no longer applies.

Basically, I like tradition (even though the current incarnation of the ACC isn't that old) and I like smaller conferences. They make for better competition and better rivalries, even though my Demon Deacons really don't have a natural ACC rival since they're tucked away in western NC by themselves.

The one thing I like about the neww ACC? With Boston Collge joining the fray, I should be able to see more ACC basketball games on TV up here in Ottawa, though by the time BC joins I could be living elsewhere anyway.

There is a lawsuit of course, but the ACC isn't too concerned according to the ACC commisioner.

Comments

[MarkLee]

Great post - I appreciate your insight. I am, for the most part, on your team about basketball. One consolation may be the fact that the new alignment will make the basketball tournament really mean something, instead of being the after-the-fact NCAA tournament hope for second-tier schools.
On the football front, which, love it or hate it, is the big money maker and therefore the prime concern: the ACC needs to compete with the likes of the Big 12 and the SEC, and that just isn't happening under the current setup. Will it be harder for the non-Florida teams to win the conference? Absolutely. But this will guarantee that whoever emerges from the ACC will be taken seriously on a national level.

[Jeff]

I wish they'd leave Miami out, if only for football reasons. I'd rather not have FSU lose to Miami and be out of contention for a Nat'l title AND an ACC title. And I don't like split conferences.