Notre Dame, Even Without Football, Is a No Brainer for the ACC

As the game of musical chairs in conference realignment is back in full swing, I think both Notre Dame and the ACC can help each other tremendously by affiliation alone, much less full-blown membership.

If you are ACC Commissioner Jack Swofford, you are in a unique position to offer Notre Dame what they want and get so much more in return than the present opportunities out there for the ACC.

UConn and Rutgers add no real value to the ACC in terms of prestige in either football or academics. The ACC will now have their "footprint" all over the Northeast, with Syracuse and Pittsburgh joining Boston College up north.

West Virginia and Louisville also do not add enough academically to the ACC and probably are destined for a far better fit in the re-evolving Big 12.

Conference expansion from the revenue side is all about football, no matter how much UConn fans will argue about it. There is no question that UConn has one of the top five most passionate basketball fan bases in America, but their football program is just too young right now to help a conference leverage up their football television rights deal with the networks, notably ESPN-ABC.

Notre Dame, on the other hand, could give the ACC a huge boost by becoming a member in all sports other than football. They could also sweeten the deal by committing to play 3-4 games per year versus ACC teams.

Plus, I believe Swofford could convince Notre Dame to accept a $25 million penalty provision if they decided to join another conference for football besides the ACC.

Think about the upside for both entities.

1. The ACC basically locks in Notre Dame for full membership if they go that route, and thereby keeps other members from contemplating leaving the conference for the SEC

2. The ACC lands a top-20 academic undergraduate institution with a long history and tradition, while maintaining similar values as Duke, Virginia, Boston College and Wake Forest.

Notre Dame didn't have many peer institutions in the Big East  and certainly not any new ones on the Big East's horizon of CUSA recruits (UCF, East Carolina et al).

3. The ACC now has a footprint in the Midwest and nationally since Notre Dame has NBC and any attempt at forming a true ACC Network would be strengthened by Notre Dame's appeal to cable operators outside the current ACC regions.

The Big Ten was desperate to add Notre Dame since it would have catapulted the Big Ten Network to 80-90 percent of all U.S. cable operators and not the current 47 percent. 

4. The ACC would have a six-school lacrosse league that features all top-10 programs (Notre Dame, Syracuse, UNC, Virginia, Maryland and Duke).

5. ACC basketball could have a 15-team, 18-game league schedule with great rivalries carried over from the Big East. Three divisions of five teams each playing each other home and home, and playing each of the other 10 teams once.

It could look like this:

ACC North - Notre Dame, Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech

ACC Central - Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Duke, NC State

ACC South - Wake Forest, Clemson, Florida St, Miami, Georgia Tech

6. With Notre Dame playing two ACC road games in football every year, schools like Boston College, Wake Forest and NC State could compel fans to purchase the entire season in order to see Notre Dame play in Chestnut Hill, Winston Salem or Raleigh.

Wake Forest is doing exactly that this year with season ticket holders, and BC has traditionally done that with Notre Dame in the past years when the Irish came east.

7. The very real possibility exists that maybe Texas will go in this same direction if they see how smooth the process could be for integrating the Longhorn Network into ACC territory. Notre Dame and Texas have the power to call their own shots.

We'll talk more about Texas next week and what is best for their program in the future.