College Football's New World Order
Domino Effect Of ACC Expansion Could Include Abandoning NCAA
By Tony DeFazio

In a May press conference, Big East president Mike Tranghese reacted to the ACC's invitation of Miami, Boston College, and Syracuse by calling their potential defections "the most disastrous blow to intercollegiate athletics in my lifetime."

Critics in the media suggested Tranghese overreacted, a feeling shared by many of his colleagues. His detractors chuckled as Tranghese spoke of the "irreparable harm" that would be caused to the Big East if the schools defected.

In the end, BC and Syracuse stayed, and only Virginia Tech joined Miami in the exodus, but Tranghese's gloom and doom predictions remained. The ACC rolled its eyes, and Tranghese's critics continued chuckling.

Former Southwest Conference commissioner Fred Jacoby is not among those laughing. Jacoby feels Tranghese's pain, having watched the same thing happen to his conference a decade ago. In 1992, despite Jacoby's best efforts, Arkansas left the Southwest Conference for the SEC, which started a domino effect that eventually led to the SWC's destruction. It's not his empathy for Tranghese that has Jacoby so straight-faced, however. Jacoby views the ACC expansion as a crucial development in what he thinks may ultimately lead Division 1-A football to secede from the NCAA and form a separate league.

All About The Money

Despite statements by Miami president Donna Shalala and ACC commissioner John Swofford to the contrary, ACC expansion was based primarily on finances. Their original plan to add three schools and increase ACC membership from nine to 12 teams would have accomplished three things (1) added three additional large TV markets, (2) added a revenue-heavy conference championship game, and (3) weakened the Big East to the point that their BCS bid would be taken away, thus leaving an ACC team free to battle for the remaining at-large bid. The ACC's failure to add the two northeastern schools leaves them in a financial bind. The only one of the three that the ACC may accomplish now is the removal of the Big East's BCS bid, and even that's not guaranteed.

The guiding principle behind any conference expansion is keeping the division of revenue the same whether its cut nine ways or 12, or in the ACC's case, 11. The nine ACC members each received a $9.7 million cut of the conference's commercial revenue last season. Two new members mean that $19.4 million in new revenue must be found to keep the slices of the pie the same size.

Jacoby doesn't think that is possible, not without the northeastern television market, a championship game, and two new members sharing in the pot.

"I'm not sure how many more revenue streams are available, they have bowl games, ticket sales, seat licenses, and television revenues," he explains. "Where is that money going to come from? I don't see any other form of revenue."

Without a championship game, the ACC appears to need increased television revenues to make an 11-team line-up financially viable. But TV rights fees have been shrinking, not growing.

Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel, whose university was ready to jump to the ACC as part of their original 12-team model, also doesn't see television revenue as the answer; not with so much college football already on TV.

"Like anything, saturation results in lower rights fees," Crouthamel says. "There are only so many rating points to go around. In addition, there is little, if any, competition in the TV marketplace with only one network/cable entity controlling nearly all the rights."

Chasing Playoff Dollars

If television revenue isn't the answer, where can NCAA Division 1-A football look for more revenue?

"Certainly, a playoff is the biggest prize that hasn't been developed to its fullest potential," offers Syracuse's Crouthamel.

Jacoby also sees a playoff as an obvious revenue source, in addition to its practical means of crowning a national champion.

"Either through the NCAA, which would be my preference, or through the BCS, an 8-team playoff would be the most logical move," he says. "Play the first round at campus sites. That way, only half the teams have to travel. Fans and alumni have two things, time and money. We just have to decide how to use them. Second round games could be played at campus sites or bowl sites. The final round has to be at a neutral site."

Jacoby's idea makes sense, but he admits, "No one has asked me."

ESPN college football analyst Beano Cook agrees that a playoff is a sensible answer, but not yet.

"They will have a playoff, but not anytime soon. It's at least 10 years away. The presidents are against it and the coaches are against it. But when they need they money, they'll do it," Cook says. Cook's point about coaches being against it is valid, who wants to have to win 15 or 16 games to accomplish what they can now in 12 or 13?

But since when have coaches' opinions mattered?

They certainly held no weight in the ACC's decision to expand. Miami's Larry Coker didn't see any reason to leave a conference in which he's won a national championship and never lost a game. Jim Boeheim called Syracuse's possible move "insane." Duke's Mike Krzyzewski wondered aloud about the ACC leadership not revealing the "hidden costs" of expansion. New North Carolina coach Roy Williams called the process a "fiasco" and said that it "made college athletics look bad."

These are four of the most successful, powerful coaches in the NCAA, and they clearly had no say. Money talks in today's NCAA, not coaches.

Abandoning The NCAA

The NCAA exercised stern control over the distribution of college football television money from 1952 to 1984, trying to ensure that the money was spread around evenly to all members. In 1984, Georgia and Oklahoma mounted a successful legal challenge against the NCAA leading to the deregulation of television coverage. Although the deregulation allowed more teams to get television exposure, some think it only served to widen the gap between the power schools and the lesser teams. The power programs, which can be loosely defined as the top 60 or so programs in the nation, or the BCS-affiliated schools, are growing increasingly tired of having to share money that they "earn." Leaving the NCAA would allow them to keep the money amongst themselves.

According to Jacoby, this is something that has been discussed since the deregulation.

"If it gets to that point, and I'm not sure it will, the top 60 will break off and either form a Division 4 and continue to play under NCAA rules," Jacoby says. "Or, they form their own division, separate from the NCAA, and they take their tournament and bowls with them, and the money they generate."

Although Cook does not think it will happen, he allows that it isn't far-fetched. "The bowls don't want the NCAA to have anything to do with the BCS because they want to keep the money for themselves. So it could happen."

Crouthamel believes that college football is such a different animal than the rest of college athletics that an eventual split may be inevitable.

"I'm inclined to think separation is likely because that way all the revenue can be retained within that group," he says. "The gap between the haves and have nots is increasing at an alarming rate. The question is, who will have enough guts to step forward with that initiative."