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Intensity softball pants1/7/2024 When I mention VT football to UT, Bama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, Ole Miss fans, I'm consistently met with a perplexed look like people just don't care to even entertain the fact that VT has a team.Īnd local sports radio is the same. But those are at the bottom of the SEC pecking order. Missouri and South Carolina (and Vandy), I'll give you. I'm just telling you that my experience in Nashville since 1993 (after growing up in C'burg/B'burg) has been very clear that VT isn't considered on-par with the majority of SEC programs. ) That said, I certainly respect your perspective and that our experiences may be different. Just a reminder that ATL has an ACC school in the city.not so much with Nashville. Im willing to bet a lot of those feelings are still present with SEC brass. When the SEC courted VT last time, nearly every administrator at SEC schools identified VT as their ideal expansion target. A cross country conference like the Big Ten is trying is going to be a nightmare in travel costs and will probably end up like a merged Pac 12/Big Ten anyhow. I really think the SEC wants to expand their footprint into VA and NC, and plus that would set up geographic pods very neatly. The SEC is big in rivalries and pageantry and I can see them really embracing and promoting the VT brand. I also think the SEC would be a far better cultural fit as well. There's a lot of self-boasting going on with the Big Ten that isn't exactly warranted IMO. That is very disingenuous and I feel like in the B1G we would be in yet another smug league with institutions who will continue this lie that somehow athletics conferences have anything to do with academics.Īnybody check the school rankings of the SEC vs the Big Ten? They're honestly pretty comparable in the top half. The Big Ten is on the surface pretending that this is about academic reputation, what's best for the student athletes, etc. The viewership numbers are there, and the conferences will no doubt do their homework. VT is far too valuable to be left out of realignment. This would have to be a highly coordinated effort though. Negotiate an exit fee - Less risk than option #2, but still quite expensive.īest case scenario is a package deal where 4 schools go to the SEC, 4 schools go to the B10, effectively dissolving the conference.That leaves a lot of questions about what everybody was agreeing to at the time." This is not a straight forward case. Even if you passed that hurdle, "what you have is a situation where you're tying up potentially billions of dollars of rights in three or four pages. This is a feature, not a bug - it's expected that there would be months of litigation just to determine where the lawsuit would take place. First, it's extremely unclear where the lawsuit would take place. Claim the contract is invalid - this would be a legal challenge.Leave the conference, but leave your rights with the conference - eg play an SEC schedule, but ACC has broadcast rights - would be legal, but zero chance the SEC would agree to this.According to this individual, there's four ways to challenge a GoR: The burden is on the school to prove that it is invalid. That's not what the lawyer in Andy Staple's piece said. Not only is the gap between SEC/B1G money and the others already significant, it's reasonable to expect that gap to continue to grow as well both short and long term, particularly in relation to the long term ACC deal in place. I won't speak on that definitively until I understand it better. We would probably need some shrewd legal navigation to deal with the GOR thing. We would instantly be a better cultural fit than Missouri, for example.ģ - Yes, the difference in money would make up for the travel costs almost instantly. College kids are college kids, and VT's football-specific culture is certainly more similar to the SEC than the ACC. to an SEC school that's a less important value add, but it's still there.Ģ - While VT isn't going to be aligned with the deep south schools of the SEC in terms of primary student body culture, I think this is a little bit overstated in terms of a concern. When you add that we have a legitimate football culture, more similar in intensity, fan involvement, tailgating, etc. This is the original reason VT was viewed highly by the SEC as a potential member, outspokenly so by former SEC Commissioner Mike Slive. 1 - The primary additional value, given that these TV contracts play such a huge role in these movements, is the Mid-Atlantic/DMV market that VT would give access to.
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