Nearing the end of the ACC Media Days info posts/dumps. Dave Teel is one of the best ACC beat writers out there. Just does more than simply cover VT and UVa. He covers the ACC. Teel should be on the reading list at least a couple times a week.
His notes following the Media Days are just loaded.
The drumbeat to NYC for the ACC Basketball Tournament continues:
“When you have the footprint we now have, and you have Syracuse, and then you have the relationship with the Yankees and the Pinstripe Bowl … there are natural tie-ins there,” Swofford said. “Obviously Fox wanted exposure, we wanted exposure, in the New York area. It’s worked out really well.”
Over breakfast Monday, Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage told me he expected decisions on future ACC basketball tournaments at October’s annual fall meetings or shortly thereafter. He and other U.Va. administrators have advocated a long look at New York, home to the Knicks’ Madison Square Garden Nets’ Barclays Center.
Both arenas are presently occupied for postseason, the Garden by the Big East, Barclays by the Newport News-based Atlantic 10. Terms of the Big East’s deal are uncertain, Swofford said, while the A-10 is contracted at Barclays for the next four seasons.
Both arenas figure to require a multi-year commitment from the ACC, which is set to stage its 2014 and ’15 tournaments in Greensboro. Swofford said such an agreement is possible, and while ACC coaches prefer the more hallowed Garden and nearby Times Square, he made clear Barclays in Brooklyn is very much in play.
“From everything we can gather talking to people in and around New York, Brooklyn generally speaking is very trendy, very hot and attractive right now,” Swofford said, “and only is projected to become more so, and part of that is related to Barclays Center.
“There’s a subway stop that empties right at the building itself. There are projected hotels and so forth to be built, restaurants.”
I mentioned to Swofford the positive vibe downtown venues such as Charlotte and Washington, D.C., provide, in direct contrast to Greensboro.
“That kind of situation is appealing,” he said. “You do see it in Charlotte with our football championship game or our basketball tournament. My favorite Final Four cities are the cities where you can walk. You check into the hotel and you walk to the arena, restaurants, whether it’s San Antonio, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Atlanta.”
At this point, about the only ACC people that want to keep the ACC Tournament in Greensboro are probably just the ADs and college presidents at schools in North Carolina. While the ACC Tournament has never gone more than a year away for Greensboro, that is definitely changing.
You look at the make-up of the conference now. You look at what fans want when they go to these events. They want them in a real city. Where they have hotel options, dinner options, other entertainment options after the games are done. There’s a reason the SEC has their tournament in Atlanta. Why the Big Ten goes to Chicago. The Pac-12 is in LA (and now looking at Vegas). These are huge population centers. Destinations in their own right. Tradition in Greensboro is nice, but the barn door was thrown open back in 2003 on ACC traditions when the conference raided the Big East for football.
Now, not at Media Days was Notre Dame. Since, you know, they aren’t in the football side. They just share bowl affiliations and play 5 games/year against the ACC teams. The deal with ND is annoying to some degree — especially for most members of the ACC who came from the Big East.
But it turns out that the ACC had a bit more leverage negotiating with the Irish than the Big East did.
Keep in mind, partial member Notre Dame will receive none of the ACC’s playoff money and only one-fifteenth of the league’s non-playoff revenue. And when the Irish qualify for any of the six playoff-level bowls, even that one-fifteenth share is void.
That non-playoff revenue is the pooled bowl money. Not the TV contract revenue from the football side. Not the ACC Championship game. The ACC is also changing their structure with bowl money and ticket sales.
First, the conference will designate more money to bowl-bound schools to cover travel expenses to the game.
Second, bowl ticket obligations will likely be centralized in the league office rather than handled by individual schools. That way, if any school(s) do not sell their allotment, the ACC will pay the remainder from the postseason pool.
Third, teams that win the ACC championship and/or qualify for the new college football playoff could receive significant bonuses from the revenue pool before the remainder is shared evenly among the membership.
Those first two components will be very important for Pitt. It may mean a reduced share (for most programs in the ACC) from bowl money. But it also means teams don’t risk losing money on going to bowls from the travel costs and ticket obligations being forced on just the school attending.
Also, I attended a few of the A-10 games in Barlays Center and they were very weakly attended. Even the championship was maybe 1/4 full. I’m sure they’d boot them for the ACC.
MSG won’t be evicted until the new MSG is ready
well it looks like Pitt won’t be playing (PSU or WVU) those years
If they can’t get MSG, don’t even bother.
Send the BigEast to Brooklyn ! lol
They deserve each other !
Little Jeremy better check his GPS unit, because Hooterville and Creepy Valley are NOT 160 miles apart. Closer to 190.
And it would seem the Hoopies are pretty much ‘owned’ by the Pedo’s.
I’m kinda surprised the Pedo’s would sign on for a road game in Morganhole, where they’ll get a warm reception I’m sure ! lol
We definitely want WVU frozen out of all relevant games in the atlantic midwest and PA… Vtech threw these guys a life line as well…. idiots.
At least this is not until 2020… by then WVU could be dead to PA football hopefully.
If these guys get frozen out of any games around here then no way they can keep recruiting here. they are going to have to go to the places where they actually play…. 1000 miles away and compete with everyone else recruiting those kids.
“Keep in mind, partial member Notre Dame will receive none of the ACC’s playoff money and only one-fifteenth of the league’s non-playoff revenue. And when the Irish qualify for any of the six playoff-level bowls, even that one-fifteenth share is void.
So the notion of Notre Dame as parasite is patently false. ”
Not to say, that our favorite blogger/writer has anything against Notre Dame……..or Catholics per say.
“Swofford’s last broadside at the NCAA was over the interminable investigation into Miami’s Nevin Shapiro scandal.
“One thing I’ve tried to impress on the NCAA leadership: When you’ve got a school under investigation for a two-to-three year period of time, in a public way, it’s just damaging in so many different ways,” Swofford said. “It’s as if the longevity of it becomes a penalty itself. I’m all for tough sanctions when things are proven. I have no problem with that. But we’ve got to be better than having two- or three-year investigations that could have been addressed in a much shorter period of time.
“If you look at what Miami has self-imposed, I can’t remember an institution taking themselves out of two straight bowl games, one of which included an ACC championship game that could have (resulted in) a BCS game. I think they’ve dealt with it strongly. … Institutionally they had to put up with this investigation that’s been flawed and has taken way too long. … However it’s resolved, it needs closure.” ”
Quite coincidentally, (lol) Swofford’s own alma mater (UNC) has also been under NCAA probe for several years I believe, so in effect he’s also taking a shot at the NCAA for that.
I would think the Big 5 would like nothing more than have the NCAA and their sanctions (hello Ped State, 2nd or 3rd biggest budget in NCAA football), ……out of their hair.
So more of this stuff that interferes with making money can be swept ….under the rug.
I prefer what PITT is apparently doing, quit recruiting the thug element. That solves a whole lot of problems. Seems like nobody whether in Academia or the Gov’t wants to take a look at the root of the problem.
HTP !
VeV !
I think someone posted the Atlantic Division was far superior to Pitt’s division (the Coastal).
Nope !
So under our AD’s leadership, we have only four games against Penn State, zero games against WVU, and Notre Dame every three years. It’s difficult to believe his admirers who talk about how hard he works.
Perhaps the baseball looking thing at the center of Heinz Field will actually be a football this season or maybe the ditto-head panther. How much could that possibly cost? I know, I know, he is too busy trying to decide if he’ll allow script uniforms for just one game.
And his buddy Nordenberg inflicted him on us for five more years. Cheers.
Do they do no reporting anymore? Or is the PR department at Pitt so tight that there is only what they give out?
I realize it is only July, but it seems like there is always more info on WVU and PSU.
No film on the QB, the OL is all shuffled around, the running game is brand new with Bennett and Crockett in there. The defense is a little easier to get a handle on but then, wait a second, the guy in charge is new and who knows the change ups he is going to impose on a group of veteran defensive players that he has had a year to get familiar already, who can then play to their strengths.
If Chryst has some unimaginable factor that he can inject into the spirit of this team, such as the yet to be seen killer instinct that has been sorely lacking from this program for years, then we might just be able to hang with these guys from FSU.
Pitt is not just under the radar preseason, they’re frickin OFF the radar! Expectations are so low that I could easily see FSU being flat coming into Heinz Field expecting an easy opening win.
It sure would be a great way to begin the season by shocking the world with an unexpected performance by the Panthers against such a formidable foe. It will be interesting watching how this team jells in fall camp. What a breath of fresh air it would be to actually see a surprising performance rather than the “same old Pitt”. Can Chryst & Co. shock the world?????????
How many of you would have put money on YSU in last season’s opener prior to the game? That’s college football. We’ll see if Chryst can build a fire under this club soon enough.
I know we are in a better leagur but you would at least think we should be on the lower tier of the upper half … 4th to 6th.
1. Beautiful dark blue, surronded by vegas gold, outlined in white, showing that we belong with the ACC conference and we are part of something.
or
2. Some dusty old white chalk ACC logo that is half way gone after the 1st quarter and no one even knows what those blotches at the 20’s are.
I know which one I’m betting on.
I see Atlantic 10 moving out or pushed out so to say. Remember, they were in the old convention center in Atlantic City prior to Brooklyn. They can move to Philly or DC.
Big East moves to Brooklyn arena.
ACC moves to Madison Square Garden.