“This is a particularly challenging time in intercollegiate athletics, given the chess moves that are being made,” Luck said. “I’m not sure, even as the dust settles, there will be a permanent solution to conference realignment. We need to make sure to protect, as best we can, West Virginia athletics and build onto what is already a great foundation.”
Those were the words spoken by Oliver Luck the day that he was named the Athletic Director at WVU.
It was clear from that moment up until the day that WVU was invited to the Big 12 that Luck was trying to provide WVU a better conference home.
Then why not the ACC? They seem to be a better geographic fit than the Big 12. The ACC was still interested in expansion since they invited Syracuse and Pitt in September of this year. The ACC also has more of our traditional rivals in VPI, Maryland, etc. It just made sense.
We’ll never know the real reasons, but rumors were that the ACC just wasn’t interested in us. Huh? So they were more interested in the raucous crowds that turn out for Pitt games? Um, yeah. Or more interested in the 43-77 combined record of the Syracuse football team over the past 10 seasons?
WVU has 3 BCS wins. The entire ACC conference has 2 BCS wins. TWO! Yet, WVU was unwanted.
The ACC had a chance to add to their total this season when the conference champion, the Clemson Tigers, played the good guys in the Orange Bowl. Well we all know how that one turned out. Kind of embarrassing, don’t you think ACC?
Ok, so maybe the ACC was more interested in adding basketball schools. Well, guess what? We provide that as well – we were just in the Final Four in 2010! We have a history of winning, just look up the numbers.
But if the ACC was really interested in adding schools for basketball reasons well they should know that just doesn’t work…does it John Marinatto?
Perhaps it was markets that the ACC wanted. Well, they went for markets the first time around when adding Boston College. BC sucks at all sports – you think anybody in Boston gives a crap about the ACC and is tuning in for games? VPI, which the ACC was politically forced to take, was the best expansion move they made.
Who wouldn’t want to add a school with this on their resume: ’06 Sugar Bowl win, ’08 Fiesta Bowl win, ’10 Final Four & ’12 Orange Bowl win. Not many programs can claim that amount of success over the last few years. WVU can.
ACC – what were you thinking?
Ern is the generalist of the group. He contributes original content, posts links to news articles, tracks all the developments in Morgantown, keeps his pulse on the Mountaineer fan nation, etc... he does it all. 
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Let’s educate any and all who read this article. It is about markets and the kicker is that it doesn’t matter if people tune into the games or not. As I live in Columbus let’s use the Big 10 as the example with the understanding that the ACC will be doing the exact same thing.
The Big 10 formed it’s own TV network. After a brief fight regarding payment/cost it was settled that the network would be added to the cable and Sat providers at a dollar increase per box. This was then done in all Big 10 markets. That’s a buck per box from every subscriber’s box even if you didn’t want the channel or ever watch it. This is before any ad revenue. The Big 10 doesn’t care if you’re not watching Northwestern vs Minn. wrestling. Those ads are sold lower and are a loss leader. They’ll make it back on the “premium” games. In short the state of WV (even with western PA) can not generate enough sets/$$$ to force a cable company to pick up the network.
And this is what the ACC was thinking.
The move to the Big-12 as a 10 team conference seems to be less than ideal for WVU geographically, and it is. Should the Big-12 move to 12 teams, or more, that geography could make much more sense depending on the teams that are added by the Big-12.
There is a lot of chatter on the internet about BYU joining the Big-12 at some point. The refusal of BYU to play any sports events on Sunday is a huge stumbling block for their addition to the Big-12. While football may not be that big of an issue, basketball, both mens and womens, and other sports are an issue with Fox and their tv contract with the Big-12. There are reports that ESPN is working with the Big-12 on a new exclusive tv contract that would allow BYU to enter back into the discusion for the Big-12.
Louisville is mentioned as much as BYU for possible future membership of the Big-12. If/When the Big-12 moves to 12 teams and assuming that Louisville is one of those next two, geography starts to fall into place. An East and West division could be formed with Kansas, Kansas St., Iowa St., Louisville, WVU, and either Texas or Oklahoma as the sixth member. Suddenly, the geography is not nearly as problematic in a 6-team division. If member number 12 becomes Cincy, it makes even more geographic sense. Plus, it could allow WVU to have either Oklahoma, or Texas on its yearly home schedule.
The thought being that neither Texas or Oklahoma would want to be in the same division. Much like Ohio State and Michigan in the Big Ten. Based on the overall membership of the Big-12 an 8-team conference schedule is much more attractive than an 8-team ACC conference schedule, even with an increase in travel. Though adding Florida St., and/or Miami from the ACC would be a significant trip.
A trip to Boston College is 500 miles, a trip to Lawrence, Kansas, is 800 miles. Both would have to be chartered flights, 300 additional miles in the air is not that significant.
Based on the ACC’s performance in football, the Big-12 is a much better fit for the long term. By adding Louisville and WVU, Big-12 basketball would become very prominent too. I have to believe that Oliver Luck has more information than the rest of us on the future of the Big-12 and has applied that knowledge for the long term.
Who says that it was not Luck that said thanks but no thanks to the ACC behind closed doors.
I am sure it is about he dollars as already stated. I also think the ACC just did not want us. They did not want anyone to compete with the powers that be (or were suppose to be) FSU, VT, now Clemson. They did not want another potential player who could dominate. They dont want Beamer smacking his players in the face on national TV becasue they are getting trounced by WVU, we have out played Maryland the last 5-6 years, always seemed to pull out wins over BC, even when they were better, etc. Geographically it would have been MUCH MUCH better. No use crying over spilt milk now………
I didn’t really emphasize this in the article very well, but is it worth the constant criticism of being “the worst conference” to to cash in on more TV sets? And I have no doubt that once the Big East dissolves the ACC will own that moniker.
Personally, I think in the long run it makes more sense to me to have a better product vs. having the better markets. Take the SEC, for example. They don’t exactly have the best markets (Oxford, MS, Starkville, MS, Tuscaloosa, AL, Fayetteville, AR, etc.) yet they have the biggest TV contract.
Which leads me back to my original question. If the SEC is the model that conferences should live up to then wouldn’t it make more sense to improve the product on the field, vs. choosing the best markets?
some cart and horse stuff here too. the facilities arms war has to be funded and that’s where the TV sets come in. better program lead to more money, more money leads to better program. the haves and the have nots.
I agree with you Ern, but even the SEC didn’t follow their own model. When expanding, they opted for markets w/ Missouri and Tex A&M. There’s no guarantee that any team is going to be successful coming into a new conference while the market is basically guaranteed. Even with our BCS track record, there has to be some doubts to wether any BE team will be as successful against a tougher (only slightly, but they see it as significantly I’m sure) conference schedule. I recall that education standards was one of the things mentioned as well. I expect that among a couple of university presidents, that was an issue.
I expect that one thing the ACC was thinking though, was that they could grab the Garden away for the conference basketball tournament in March at some point. If the BE implodes as a football conf and Louisville, Cinc., UConn and Rutgers have to find other conferences, the Garden could be up for grabs for a major conference in hoops.
Yeah – and that is what made the SEC’s moves so mind-boggling to me. Everyone gets so obsessed with TV sets, but the SEC got the big payday by winning…and winning a lot. Yet they veered off of that path and added…Missouri? I can see A&M being a value add aside from the market even though they’ve been down somewhat, but Missouri offers absolutely nothing other than the market. They will get destroyed in the SEC…which just waters down the SEC product. I don’t know…I don’t get it.
Beating the horse a bit but the SEC has large amounts of subscribers in all Southern markets. Primarily because its a college sports monopoly in the South. The revenue they generate by network subscribers is 3 to 1 of the ACCs. Take Atlanta. HUGE Bulldogs base and yet Tech is right there. They’ve locked up every subscriber in the state of TN, Miss, Lousiana, Arkansas and Alabama as well as a lion’s share of Florida and that’s competeing against 2 in-state ACC schools. The SEC expanded not for the betterment of A&M and Missouri They wanted into those subsribers pockets.
If you want to talk about pay-days look at the Big12 aka “Texas deal”. Then you’ll know why A&M and Mizzou offered up their TV subscribers as bait. If the SEC can establish one third of the contracts to genereate dollars in those new markets it’s all just icing on the cake.
All of the comments have been about TV revenue, but no one has brought up WVU’s academics. While I don’t believe that was the determining factor, it certainly didn’t help. The ACC would never take WVU based on it’s academic stature. I remember there was support from several SEC schools for WVU, but Vanderbilt – the SEC’s “smart school” – was blocking the momentum due to academics.
All that book talk is just that… IF it really mattered schools would be dismissed from conferences when academics fall off. Academics is offered as a sidebar talking point. Syracuse just dropped their AAU status as did Nebraska.. Neither the Big 10 or ACC cared about that. In fact the academics was such a huge issue around thee parts about inclusion into the Big 10. Nebraska is now the only school in the Big 10 not to have AAU status. It may be important but by no means is it a deal breaker.