On September 1, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) announced the conference was expanding by taking in two teams from the collapsing Pacific Athletic Conference, the PAC -12, and one from the American Athletic Conference.
ACC Commissioner, Jim Phillips, his staff, college presidents, chancellors, and athletic directors in the conference who voted to expand must be proud of their work. The original ACC that was founded in 1953 with eight teams will now be an eighteen team league.
Geographically, this latest move shows how boneheaded the thinking has become by conference and university leaders. The new members—California, Southern Methodist University(SMU), and Stanford are nowhere near the new Atlantic Coast Conference headquarters in Charlotte.
Lookout Charlotte with these new members, Commissioner Jim Phillips will probably start lobbying to move the headquarters to a more central Midwest location like Chicago. After all Chicago has two major airports as opposed to one in Charlotte. An airport with more flight connections to larger cities was cited as one of the reasons the conference moved its offices from Greensboro.
My guess is the only people who are truly happy about this expansion are the travel agents who work to schedule airline flights for these teams. Their eyes must be spinning with dollar signs.
And speaking of money, this expansion is not about common sense or loyalty. This conference survival move is all about money—nothing else.
Several media outlets reported that former political heavy hitters were involved in the lobbying for Stanford and SMU.
America’s 43rd President, George W. Bush, lobbied on behalf of SMU, and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, pushed for Stanford.
If Mr. Bush and Miss Rice can strongly advocate for two universities to be admitted into an athletic conference, what keeps them from speaking out about the current state of their Republican Party? Do they care more about college athletics than the condition of America?
From “sea to shining sea” America is fraught with challenges.
I wonder how vehemently college presidents in the ACC fight to sustain research in their schools where students and professors are working to find cures for cancer, housing shortages, food deserts, and under served communities?
How much of the predicted revenue gains from this expansion deal actually trickle back into classrooms and research labs? If these revenue gains only serve to enhance and balance the financial books of athletic departments, then the ACC presidents who voted in favor of the expansion should be ashamed.
If Commissioner Phillips and his clever team so desperately wanted to expand the conference, did they think about trading Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Boston College for the return of two founding ACC members South Carolina and Maryland, and attempting to lure Vanderbilt from the South Eastern Conference?
Geographically, those teams are a better fit. Oops, I forgot, this expansion is only about money, not making travel less cumbersome for student athletes and less expensive for the conference.
Growing up in Burlington, North Carolina, I remember my parents grocery shopping at the A&P. That was the short name for the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. I hope leaders for the ACC don’t consider changing the name of the conference to the A&P-18.
According to the Wall Street Journal at one time, A&P was an American icon. For years, both the ACC and the PAC-12 were icons in American college athletics with their teams excelling and winning championships. In 2010 and 2015, the once mighty A&P filed for bankruptcy. If this latest ACC expansion fails in its projected revenue gains could the conference falter like the A&P?
When I was a kid, ACC basketball and football captured me. I loved listening to the play by play on a transistor radio or watching a televised game on a Saturday afternoon. Those were moments etched in my old heart forever in a less complicated world.
Today, the fear of missing out makes the impatient hearts of commissioners, presidents, chancellors, and athletic directors think differently about money.
Why trust your common sense when money drives your thinking?
Maybe Agatha Christie said it best: “Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.”
This moronic money move has confirmed my lack of trust in the ACC leaders.
might be baloney 