Could the SEC bolt for UNC and Duke?
As we know, the SEC is no stranger to expanding its reach.
South Carolina and Arkansas came aboard in 1991.
Missouri and Texas A&M came aboard in 2012.
But could Duke and UNC come along and be part of SEC country, giving them not only dominance in football, but also – dear God – basketball?
Why do we ask this question? Tonight, we were at a charity function and got talking to someone still involved with Duke who told us: “It wasn’t so long ago that we and UNC were talking to the SEC about moving there”. He also remarked that Florida State would go to the Big XII, but wasn’t so sure about Clemson’s ambitions.
With the way the ACC is imploding, this would work for everybody.
Duke and UNC would have a natural home in SEC country (after all, they are more ‘Southeastern’ than either of the SEC’s new-found members), they have strong financial backing for all their sports, and – of course, the SEC would suddenly be a massive, massive deal in basketball terms. And UNC (we’ll forget about should-be-Division-I-AA Duke football because it’s been irrelevant since Spurrier, and we strongly believe that head coach David Cutcliffe should be in a better job somewhere else)
Can you imagine what that would bring to an already powerhouse conference? Mike Silve and the rest of the SEC guys would welcome them both with open arms.
There – of course – would be some change in the SEC conferences (as both of these guys would go into the East), forcing Mizzou to play in the SEC West. This might not go down too well with Tigers fans, but it would work out nicely from not only a football level, but also a basketball one too.
And the TV revenues – especially for the SEC Network – would be absolutely gigantic.
Your thoughts please!
lolno
Why not?
I blogged about this last season before adding Texas A&M and Missouri. I’ve copied and pasted a few of my thoughts below.
In the modern age of conference expansion, you expand solely for TV eyeballs. As the current ACC TV contract extension with ESPN shows, money is in football, not basketball. You can search for a comment made by a Clemson trustee. He basically said 80% of the contract money is due to football, the remaining 20% is due to men’s hoops, and none is a result of the additional Olympic sports ESPN will televise.
Schools eliminated because they’re already within the SEC footprint: Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson. Two reasons: 1) Florida, Georgia and South Carolina are the powerhouse schools in these states and 2) adding these schools don’t bring more eyeballs to TV sets.
School located too far north: Boston College, Pittsburgh, Syracuse.
Schools with athletics programs that aren’t good enough: Maryland and Virginia.
School that is too small: Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons undergraduate population is ~7,000 students. That is 60% of the enrollment of the SEC’s smallest school (Vanderbilt, ~12,000 students).
This leaves four schools to choose from: North Carolina, North Carolina State, Duke and Virginia Tech.
Should the Big Ten expand to 16 teams, they’re going for solid academic schools. That’s UNC and Duke from the remaining four. The other two will be Virginia and Notre Dame. Yeah, Notre Dame will be forced into a conference. The reasoning is simple: Any team leaving the ACC would result in multiple teams leaving the ACC. Losing 3-4 to the Big 12 leads to losing 3-4 to the Big Ten leads to losing 2 to the SEC. Goodbye, ACC.
North Carolina State is an original member of the ACC. If UNC gets an offer from the Big Ten, they’re gone. That eliminates the state politics of splitting schools as an issue. They’re not much for competition, but bring two things: 1) in a 16-team SEC, they’d have the 5th-largest student body and 2) the growing North Carolina TV market. The Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte TV markets, when combined, would be the 10th-largest in the country at 2.28 million. If you added the Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem market, it would be the 4th-largest in the country.
Virginia Tech is one of the newest members of the ACC. Their football program doesn’t make things easier for the other SEC members, but the Washington, D.C. TV market would be a great addition, at 8th-largest in the country.
What are the TV market size rankings (DMA) of the current SEC schools?
SEC East
8 – Atlanta
29 – Nashville
59 – Knoxville
63 – Lexington
78 – Columbia, SC
160 – Gainesville
SEC West
40 – Birmingham
56 – Little Rock
94 – Baton Rouge
127 – Columbus, GA
133 – Starkville & Oxford, MS
Bet most of you are surprised to learn the University of Florida is in the smallest TV market of all the SEC schools.
What has been added?
Texas A&M. College Station sits in the middle of the triangle forming Houston, Austin and Waco, bringing in TV households that comprise the country’s 10th-, 47th- and 88th-ranked TV markets. They also bring in the 36th-ranked market (San Antonio).
Missouri. They bring in TV households from Missouri, including the 21st- and 31st-ranked (St. Louis and Kansas City) TV markets.