Any legs to this ACC thing?

I wouldn't be totally against it if I'm being honest. At least we may actually be able to compete for conference championships in football. I know we didn't do it then that much, but now that we've had decades in the SEC, we're more of a known commodity now.

Maybe they're trying to change that.

Depends on where you think we are going ...

Over a century ago we had

Super Conferences
Injury
Student Athlete
Paying Players
Gambling
Media Rights (granted it was radio then)
etc.


Things were getting so out of hand the POTUS and Congress had to step in and we got the NCAA (Vanderbilt was a leader and interesting documents in their archives if you are on campus). 2 Division (B1G and SEC) with longer meaningless seasons and lots of playoffs.

This can go 2 ways

#1 College sports, especially the ones making the most money, will become semi pro feeders for the NFL and NBA and lose interest of their fans (donors) and distances to travel for rank and file fans to attend events.

#2 We will return to a century ago when local / regional rivalries and actual academics hold sway and the price of the average fan drops greatly and renews their passion and interest.

Hopefully it is #2 and not #1 as both Cocks and Cats had Top 25 attendance numbers in the nation when neither was good on the gridiron.

quote:

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Companies and rich people want to be there for the event. The casual fan is almost just as happy now at home

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Therein lies the rub

Take college baseball

Not the fastest paced or most exciting, it drew loyalty from the on site event and the passing of interpersonal moments from one generation to another. You went with maybe your grandfather and all the people sitting around you were like you in they were average people who showed up good or bad because, aside from the game on the field, you had a true community of local people in the stands to witness the event.

To this day nothing feels like the World Series on TV if I am not serving hot dogs, Cracker Jacks, and ice cream or the game on the TV falls flat. Live events enable all 5 senses while TV just focus on sight and sound. TV also gives you their view in a commercially oriented format while a live game means conversing with long time fans around you with no product to hawk.

The more they pander to the big money now, the more they kill off the next generation of devoted fans that sustain you through both the good times and bad. I for one was much happier to have the Cocks in the SEC than the Taters as my youth has a common DNA with coming even when you are not winning. This is why I think you have 2 options as one encourages excess at the top and the other implies an implosion to restart at the bottom and build again.