Conference Network and ACC Expansion: Part Two

If you have not already, see Part One .

Though an ACC network would have certain advantages over the BTN (diversity and quality of live sports shown), it is unlikely that the ACC can launch a network unless it expands.

Fox owns 49 percent of the BTN, and somebody with deep pockets would have to invest the same way to get an ACC network up and running.

Two things a potential investor will mark as liabilities are  the ACC having too many small schools, four of them private, and the fact that the ACC is not a home conference in enough states with enough TV sets.

If the ACC wants a network to showcase its many excellent non-revenue sports, men's and women's, as well as to televise more football and men's basketball, it will have to expand.

That means that the recent push by the Big Ten and the Pac to create super-sized BCS leagues has plowed the field. The expectation at the end of what the Big Ten planned lie four BCS leagues of 16 members each is now so widespread that even Frank DeFord jokes about it as an inevitability that we simply have to get used to.

Here is DeFord's take on Notre Dame, "For now, the lingering question is when Notre Dame will finally realize that 'independent' has come to mean 'irrelevant' and get on board with somebody. Otherwise, the Irish can proudly continue to claim to be the only team in the world operating alone in the 21st Century—besides the Harlem Globetrotters."

As I emphasized parabolically and straightforwardly , the Big Ten is attempting to force Notre Dame to join. Eventually, either ND will succumb to the force or ND will join the ACC.

There are clear revenue sport reasons that ND would be better off in the ACC than the Big Ten. ACC basketball is one, and ND playing Miami and BC annually as football conference foes is another. ND refusing to be browbeaten by Michigan and Ohio State is the most important.

But non-revenue sports, especially if there is an ACC network, would be almost equally important.

Like the ACC, ND wants its non-revenue sports to succeed and be recognized for their successes. ND baseball would be much better off in the ACC than the Big Ten, as would ND lacrosse and soccer. As an ACC member, ND hockey would be paired with BC.

If ND were in the ACC, an ACC network would be at least as profitable as the BTN. 

Even if ND joins the ACC, it will need to add at least one more school. Without ND, the ACC may need to add four Big East schools in order to be seen as the home conference in enough states with large populations to make an ACC network viable.

Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers, and UConn would do the trick. Each would bring something of value to the ACC in at least one revenue sport and at least one non-revenue sport.

That quartet added to the ACC would create a geographically logical ACC that would stretch down the entire East Coast.

A desire for a conference network to showcase non-revenue sports, as well as to secure more television coverage for football and basketball, will drive ACC expansion.