“A Bad Deal” for the ACC

I was recently interviewed by Virginia Magazine about the ever changing world of collegiate athletics specifically around conference realignment and how the new look of the Atlantic Coast Conference came to be.

The ACC has expanded from a small, but strong, regional conference to one spanning from coast to coast. While this type of growth sounds like an organization operating from a position of strength, it is to the contrary, a case study in abandoning traditions, poor planning, and in some cases the effects of being caught flat-footed. On its path towards revenue growth, the ACC also lost one of its founding members, added west coast institutions that create the need for overnight, multiday travel resulting in more missed classes, and made longer term media deals driven not by strategic benefit, but out of desperation to keep up with the other conferences.