California, Stanford interested in ACC: Conference set to evaluate viability of adding Pac-12 teams

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California and Stanford have shown interest in joining the ACC, industry sources tell CBS Sports. What's not known is whether the interest is being reciprocated by the conference.

ACC athletic directors were scheduled to meet to discuss the schools' viability on a Monday call. ACC presidents meet later this week on the subject. It's not clear whether either meeting includes exclusive discussion of expansion. The talks are considered preliminary at this time, but as we've seen over the last couple years, realignment can accelerate quickly.

Furthermore, the University of California Board of Regents has scheduled a meeting at 10 a.m. ET on Tuesday to discuss its Pac-12 membership.

Cal and Stanford potentially moving across the nation to the easternmost power conference could be the first significant piece of fallout from last week's significant realignment moves. The Northern California programs have apparently been left out by the Big Ten in any potential plans for further expansion as the Bay Area is considered to be overrated as a television market, industry sources tell CBS Sports.

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Reported by Dennis Dodd this morning.

Marty said:

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This just doesn't work. The PAC-4 teams will have to make 4-5 trips across country each year. The ACC teams will have to travel to the west coast once each. That's a competitive and financial hardship for us, not to mention the built-in hardship of taking a lower share of revenue to start with. And as everyone on this board knows, you can see the Pacific Ocean from Memorial Stadium. What sense does it make for a team playing within sight of the Pacific to be a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference?

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Even if the B1G had taken us, we'd likely have gone to the East or Midwest three times a year. The Big 12 has Cincinnati and West Virginia along with its schools in the southwest, Texas, and Midwest. The only option with travel comparable to what we had is MWC merger. The only way that works is if the finances are somehow improved. Pac 4 + MWC and AAC members would be similar, and might still ultimately involve east coast teams.

Marty said:

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This just doesn't work. The PAC-4 teams will have to make 4-5 trips across country each year. The ACC teams will have to travel to the west coast once each. That's a competitive and financial hardship for us, not to mention the built-in hardship of taking a lower share of revenue to start with. And as everyone on this board knows, you can see the Pacific Ocean from Memorial Stadium. What sense does it make for a team playing within sight of the Pacific to be a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference?

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It would honestly likely just be Cal and 'Furd joining. I think ACC only has 8 conference games, so that would be 4 games away in the ACC? 8 conference games actually works our for us to schedule some closer games. ACC teams would only have to travel 1x/year to the Bay?

Marty said:

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This just doesn't work. The PAC-4 teams will have to make 4-5 trips across country each year. The ACC teams will have to travel to the west coast once each. That's a competitive and financial hardship for us, not to mention the built-in hardship of taking a lower share of revenue to start with. And as everyone on this board knows, you can see the Pacific Ocean from Memorial Stadium. What sense does it make for a team playing within sight of the Pacific to be a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference?

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It makes sense in that we don't have other options (not even sure if this one is a real option).

Update: ACC presidents met this morning. No decisions made. Still in exploratory stages; we'll see if it gets beyond that.

— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) August 8, 2023

It's all temporary as the powers will expunge the pretenders soon enough in order to keep more cash and provide that "every game is a big game" lure for the providers.

Anarchistbear said:

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Just send the lacrosse teams East and tell them to stay until the end of season.

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they probably wouldn't protest that much frankly …do we have a LX team or is it a club?

Marty said:

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This just doesn't work. The PAC-4 teams will have to make 4-5 trips across country each year. The ACC teams will have to travel to the west coast once each. That's a competitive and financial hardship for us, not to mention the built-in hardship of taking a lower share of revenue to start with. And as everyone on this board knows, you can see the Pacific Ocean from Memorial Stadium. What sense does it make for a team playing within sight of the Pacific to be a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference?

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Makes sense in terms of survival, assuming the B1G does not want us.

And the number of trips the we would have to take would depend on how scheduling is structured. The ACC only has 8 conference games so if they make the PAC-4 teams a pod then each PAC-4 team only needs 5 games against the Atlantic teams per season, or 2.5 trips each year. With 10 trips West per season to spread out of 14 Atlantic schools, they would a get a season off of making a West coast trip once every few years.

Spacing out those cross country trips would be easier for the Atlantic schools if they excluded WSU and OSU. That would leave them with only 7 trips West each season between 14 teams and 100% of the trips would be to the Bay Area instead of the less popular tourist destinations Corvallis and Pullman. But this would be much worse for us than a Pacific pod because we would have to make 3.5 trips to the Atlantic each season instead of 2.5.

do we have any satellite campuses out there? would be a great time to expand that way.

nikeykid said:

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do we have any satellite campuses out there? would be a great time to expand that way.

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satellite campuses? No.

cal83dls79 said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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Just send the lacrosse teams East and tell them to stay until the end of season.

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they probably wouldn't protest that much frankly …do we have a LX team or is it a club?

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Cal has a womens lacrosse team. It has not been good for several years (sound familiar) - and a new coach started last year. Team improved to 5-13 (2-8) from 2-16 (1-9. Pre-COVID, in 2019, team was 7-12 (3-9) Lacrosse - California Golden Bears Athletics (calbears.com)

Marty said:

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This just doesn't work. The PAC-4 teams will have to make 4-5 trips across country each year. The ACC teams will have to travel to the west coast once each. That's a competitive and financial hardship for us, not to mention the built-in hardship of taking a lower share of revenue to start with. And as everyone on this board knows, you can see the Pacific Ocean from Memorial Stadium. What sense does it make for a team playing within sight of the Pacific to be a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference?

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I don't think the ACC would take OSU&WSU. At this point, I don't think you can hold us accountable for lack of solidarity with these two programs, given that the Pac is all but dead. FSU, Clemson and co already are a bit reluctant on taking Cal and Furd, they're not going to add 2 more programs that are even less attractive to them and even further away.

As a package pair to the ACC, Cal and Furd would only have to travel east on average 3.5 times per season (8 conference games, and we play each other ever year). It's not that much of a burden, and of course the financial burden from these 3.5 trips is dwarfed by the burden of no guaranteed B5 conference annual income or mid-major income (MWC).

JimSox said:

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BigDaddy said:

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Update: ACC presidents met this morning. No decisions made. Still in exploratory stages; we'll see if it gets beyond that.

— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) August 8, 2023

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The fact that no vote was taken seems to me to be a bad omen. No vote may mean they didn't have the votes to pass it. Maybe I'm misreading the tea leaves here. Maybe they're negotiating with the TV companies to see if there's more money in it. But the fact that pundits are panning the idea is not good. I'm preparing to be disappointed.

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From the limited info I've gathered (so not 100% sure), the ACC expansion vote would need at least 3/4 positives to go throw.

JimSox said:

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BigDaddy said:

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Update: ACC presidents met this morning. No decisions made. Still in exploratory stages; we'll see if it gets beyond that.

— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) August 8, 2023

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The fact that no vote was taken seems to me to be a bad omen. No vote may mean they didn't have the votes to pass it. Maybe I'm misreading the tea leaves here. Maybe they're negotiating with the TV companies to see if there's more money in it. But the fact that pundits are panning the idea is not good. I'm preparing to be disappointed.

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There is a lot to consider and a lot at stake not only from a TV perspective but the well-being of the students and stability of the conference.

It would be derelict of duty for them to vote that quickly on something that probably came up less than a week ago.

cal83dls79 said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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Just send the lacrosse teams East and tell them to stay until the end of season.

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they probably wouldn't protest that much frankly …do we have a LX team or is it a club?

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Club. But very good generally.

I was curious to know about ACC viewership and how Cal stacks up. According to this article, Cal ranked 45ty overall, but would be 5th in the ACC behind Notre dame, Clemson, Florida State, Navy, and NC state. Cal is just ahead of North Carolina.

But honestly, if you look at the ratings, you have Notre Dame, Clemson and Florida state ahead of everyone and then 5 schools between 800k and 1 million viewers, which is where both Cal and Stanford fall. Pitt, Miami (?!), Duke, wake forest, and Boston college are below us (some quite substantially).

I'm also not a fan of the author using a 'zero' when ratings information is not available, but I'm not sure where to find better data.

https://medium.com/run-it-back-with-zach/which-college-football-programs-were-the-most-watched-in-2022-94eca4f6acbd

Oski87 said:

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cal83dls79 said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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Just send the lacrosse teams East and tell them to stay until the end of season.

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they probably wouldn't protest that much frankly …do we have a LX team or is it a club?

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Club. But very good generally.

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Does Cal's AD provide travel funds for club sports? My kids played club-level soccer ~10 years ago at Cal Poly and I'm certain the school didn't pay for any travel - I'm not sure they even payed for the coach.

golden sloth said:

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I was curious to know about ACC viewership and how Cal stacks up. According to this article, Cal ranked 45ty overall, but would be 5th in the ACC behind Notre dame, Clemson, Florida State, Navy, and NC state. Cal is just ahead of North Carolina.

But honestly, if you look at the ratings, you have Notre Dame, Clemson and Florida state ahead of everyone and then 5 schools between 800k and 1 million viewers, which is where both Cal and Stanford fall. Pitt, Miami (?!), Duke, wake forest, and Boston college are below us (some quite substantially).

I'm also not a fan of the author using a 'zero' when ratings information is not available, but I'm not sure where to find better data.

https://medium.com/run-it-back-with-zach/which-college-football-programs-were-the-most-watched-in-2022-94eca4f6acbd

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Those #s are also inaccurate for us because for some reason viewers from games on PAC12 channels don't count. Plenty of our games were on PAC12 channels, so our #s are actually higher.

Cal88 said:

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I don't think the ACC would take OSU&WSU. At this point, I don't think you can hold us accountable for lack of solidarity with these two programs, given that the Pac is all but dead. FSU, Clemson and co already are a bit reluctant on taking Cal and Furd, they're not going to add 2 more programs that are even less attractive to them and even further away.

As a package pair to the ACC, Cal and Furd would only have to travel east on average 3.5 times per season (8 conference games, and we play each other ever year). It's not that much of a burden, and of course the financial burden from these 3.5 trips is dwarfed by the burden of no guaranteed B5 conference annual income or mid-major income (MWC).

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RE: I don't think you can hold us accountable for lack of solidarity with these two programs, given that the Pac is all but dead. If it's possible, and they'd want to move on with us, then Cal should make a pitch on their behalf. But none of the remaining four schools can be blamed at all for finding whatever safe harbor they can reach.

RE: It's not that much of a burden, and of course the financial burden from these 3.5 trips is dwarfed by the burden of no guaranteed B5 conference annual income or mid-major income (MWC). The entire situation is a burden. We were part of a conference that was over 100 years old. We are going to have to play against unfamiliar teams starting in '24 to be sure. At this point, it looks like there is very little to zero chance of getting a nod from the B1G, and the Big 12 has signaled that they are done for now. The ACC is the only remaining peer conference of the PAC that is showing any interest in Cal and Stanford. So it is potentially take more money and travel or stay in our comfort zone and end up in the MWC or AAC or some reimagined PAC. Any way you look at it, getting through this is a burden.

golden sloth said:

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I was curious to know about ACC viewership and how Cal stacks up. According to this article, Cal ranked 45ty overall, but would be 5th in the ACC behind Notre dame, Clemson, Florida State, Navy, and NC state. Cal is just ahead of North Carolina.

But honestly, if you look at the ratings, you have Notre Dame, Clemson and Florida state ahead of everyone and then 5 schools between 800k and 1 million viewers, which is where both Cal and Stanford fall. Pitt, Miami (?!), Duke, wake forest, and Boston college are below us (some quite substantially).

I'm also not a fan of the author using a 'zero' when ratings information is not available, but I'm not sure where to find better data.

https://medium.com/run-it-back-with-zach/which-college-football-programs-were-the-most-watched-in-2022-94eca4f6acbd

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Media networks also factor in MBB in rating considerations, which means UNC, UVA, Syracuse, and Duke all leapfrog us

I dont think so. Not sure how all that works. My Nephew played Lacrosse at Cal in the club team when they were ranked very highly - #1 club team for a while anyway. The coach wanted him to change his major from molecular biology because it was getting in the way of his lacrosse stuff….

He is graduating from med school this year so guess what he chose to do. But some other clubs are much less serious. I was the Handball
Club treasurer back in the day and we got some funds from the ASUC I think for travel to some tournaments. But it was like $2000 for 6 of us to travel to Memphis for the tournament. Won the nationals in doubles that year. We also had some West Point guys stay at our place in the floor for the tournament Cal put on. It may have been rec sports or the ASUC which funded that stuff.

What about basketball? Looks like the ACC plays 20 conference games a season (with 15 teams). So Cal has to travel to the East Coast for 10 games, which is 5 trips (5 long weekends). That's rough.

calbear93 said:

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SoFlaBear said:

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Cal88 said:

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I don't think the ACC would take OSU&WSU. At this point, I don't think you can hold us accountable for lack of solidarity with these two programs, given that the Pac is all but dead. FSU, Clemson and co already are a bit reluctant on taking Cal and Furd, they're not going to add 2 more programs that are even less attractive to them and even further away.

As a package pair to the ACC, Cal and Furd would only have to travel east on average 3.5 times per season (8 conference games, and we play each other ever year). It's not that much of a burden, and of course the financial burden from these 3.5 trips is dwarfed by the burden of no guaranteed B5 conference annual income or mid-major income (MWC).

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RE: I don't think you can hold us accountable for lack of solidarity with these two programs, given that the Pac is all but dead. If it's possible, and they'd want to move on with us, then Cal should make a pitch on their behalf. But none of the remaining four schools can be blamed at all for finding whatever safe harbor they can reach.

RE: It's not that much of a burden, and of course the financial burden from these 3.5 trips is dwarfed by the burden of no guaranteed B5 conference annual income or mid-major income (MWC). The entire situation is a burden. We were part of a conference that was over 100 years old. We are going to have to play against unfamiliar teams starting in '24 to be sure. At this point, it looks like there is very little to zero chance of getting a nod from the B1G, and the Big 12 has signaled that they are done for now. The ACC is the only remaining peer conference of the PAC that is showing any interest in Cal and Stanford. So it is potentially take more money and travel or stay in our comfort zone and end up in the MWC or AAC or some reimagined PAC. Any way you look at it, getting through this is a burden.

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MWC is a non-starter. What will getting less than $5 million a year do for our debt situation and our program? It will be a negative revenue, so what would be the point of keeping it alive?

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MWC is the end game that media networks envisioned for us. Why pay 12 schools $40M each when you can pay 8 schools ~$35M and 4 schools $5M

The ACC is very fractured right now. There are two perspectives to look at this from:

1) The members who want to dissolve the GoR and leave the conference. Adding more teams will NOT in ANY way significantly bridge the gap in media contracts between the ACC and the SEC/B1G. What it WILL do is add more voting members impeding their options on dissolving the conference, which is likely their ultimate goal right now. There is ZERO upside to these teams to adding any members from the Pac, but there is downside (travel costs for one).

2) The members who do not want to dissolve the GoR and are being faced with the very real reality that if Cal and Stanford can be left out, so can they. Easiest way to ensure that they don't have to face that reality is to ensure that Cal and Stanford land on their feet, comforting them to the belief that they will too. It also adds more members to vote no on dissolving the conference, and the cost is relatively small for them.

I also imagine that the whole talk of realignment is making a lot of presidents very uncomfortable. The *only* people winning in this wave of realignment are the TV networks. Fans are losing. Tradition is losing. The product will be worse. The student athlete experience will be worse. There will be fewer high paying coaching jobs (remember, the coaching community is relatively small and tightnit and they are losing very high paying jobs). It is not hard to see a lot of parties looking to extend an olive branch here.

And I'm sure a lot are willing to do so...as long as it doesn't cost them money. If Cal and Stanford get into the ACC it will likely be without voting status and only for football (I saw someone post you cannot separate mbb from your other sports, I don't know if that's true or not). The ACC already has experience with having ND in the conference and it wouldn't be a huge ask for them, but our BEST outcome would involve using the ACC's interest as leverage to ensure we aren't completely short changed by the B1G.

I think what we always seem to forget is that one of the main reasons we are where we are now is that the media does not believe we bring enough value to a conference to make sense enough for them to broadcast us. This is likely the prime reason we are not getting an invite to the B1G. Fox doesn't believe we have enough value for them to spend more money on broadcast.

This is probably the same convo they are having at ACC and ESPN. Does Cal/Stanford bring enough value to avoid dilution of media rights money? If they go less than full share (I'm sure they wouldn't even consider us having a full share to start), then what's the drop dead figure and for how long.

I'm sure FSU and Clemson are going to have a huge say in this because they already feel they are not getting paid enough. And for them to have to travel out here is an increase in costs. Perhaps marginal but still, its a cost increase.