(10-10-2018 12:12 PM)Poster Wrote:  You’re assuming that the ACC wanted to go to 16, which is a pretty big assumption. They didn’t even go to 14 until 2011. And that was mostly done to stabilize the league and prevent anybody from leaving for the SEC as A&M’s eastern partner. I don’t think the ACC had the slightest interest in expanding to 14 in the 00s, let alone 16.

Well interestingly some ACC officials did talk about eventually going beyond 12 back in 2003, but after stabilizing at 12 for 5-7 years first.

Had FSU and Miami been football powerhouses in the mid-to-late 00s like they were previously they may never have expanded beyond 12 this decade. A bad TV contract negotiated in 2010 (which was actually a good contract by the standards of the time and turned out only to be bad by subsequent TV contracts negotiated shortly after) put them behind the 8-ball to try and catch-up or become a major victim of the conference realignment chaos of 2011 and 2012.

It also helped that the Big East spurned the ESPN offer on the table which gave the WWL in sports an incentive for the ACC to weaken that league even further.

As we get further and further away from that chaotic time period though, it seems for the most part what was meant to be came about.

Cheers,
Neil