(07-03-2018 02:50 PM)Statefan Wrote: Something else I don't get about the money is why anyone thinks the ACC SHOULD make as money per school as the SEC or B10.
B10 schools are on average 2.5 times the size of ACC schools. That means an alumni based between 400-550K. Carolina only has an alumni base of about 280,000. There are some 6 million B10 alums compared to just 2.8 million ACC alums. Those are also eyeballs and wallets. [...] Plus the SEC never deemphasized football as the ACC did between 1962 and the mid 1970's.[...]
People feel P5 programs
should be in a comparable tier with revenues because, obviously, that's life as it is lived now. When you want to compete, you don't let anyone put you a lap down right at the gate.
I agree that as fans we often get unduly preoccupied with money. Help your alma mater as best you can, and after that money is the AD's worry. Fans want wins. When ACC schools bring home national titles as they do, we do well to enjoy it. Let the ADs sweat the spreadsheets.
You add a valid observation, though: The track where the race happens is not shaped simply by life as it is lived now, but by life in the past.
Higher education on the US east coast, especially in the original 13 colonies, developed differently than it did later with expansion west of Appalachia. Much on this coast pre-dates the agricultural land-grant era. Greater cultural roles were taken early on by small liberal arts schools and by private and church-affiliated schools. Campuses tend to be smaller and more numerous than out west, with student enrolments to match.
Imagine a Vanderbilt with the governmental and popular clout of the University of Tennessee system. That's something like what Rutgers has had to contend with in sharing a state with Princeton or what Connecticut has faced by sharing a state with Yale. Texas has Rice. The Atlantic coast is home to at least three entire leagues of Rices.
Add a few other wrinkles thrown into the mix by history to this point—which diversions became 'revenue sports' and why, how technology and popular taste continue to evolve. The result is an ACC that led the nation in revenues in 1990 needing to close some ground on its closest P5 neighbours in 2020.
ACC athletes continue to earn title rings. Meanwhile, times continue to change. American football won't always be the big money beast that it is now. Cable delivery has already fallen from the perch it held in 2012. On we go.
Great conferences build for the long haul. Overall the ACC seems to be doing things the right way.
