NC State in the world of college athletics realignment

In a time of great uncertainty for the ACC, one safe bet is that the summer vacation plans for the highest levels of athletic administrators of the league and its members’ offices have changed. In the wake of UCLA and USC’s bolting the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, ACC affiliated programs, of which NC State is obviously one, have no choice.

What does the future hold for NC State? Here are some questions and speculative answers to help understand the landscape.

What’s The End-Game For Big Ten And SEC?

The hard truth is that the future moves of those two soon-to-be super conferences will dictate almost everything that happens. The primary question: how big do they get?

Each are soon to be at 16 teams after the SEC adds Texas and Oklahoma and the Big Ten officially brings in USC and UCLA.

Is that enough, or is more to come?

The consensus among college insiders is the latter, but what is the final number? Assuming the destination is an even number, is it 18, 20, 22 or 24? Will there be requirements for being a member institution going forward? There has been speculation, for instance, that the SEC would like to make every sport full scholarship.

Without knowing what the end target is for the two conferences, any speculation on further realignment is tricky.

What Does Notre Dame Do?

One thing seems inevitably clear: Notre Dame would be a huge piece of the puzzle to fall. The Big Ten would make a lot of natural sense for the Irish should Notre Dame decide to make a move for a super conference.

The Fighting Irish might be well-positioned to do so. The grant of rights for Notre Dame in the ACC does not include football media rights, like NC State and the others have, and thus the penalty for a potential departure from the conference would conceivably be much less.

Of course, Notre Dame could choose not to pay any penalty and either stay independent in football or join the ACC full-time. If the latter happened, that’s a game-changer for the ACC and NC State. The burdensome current television rights deal that lasts through 2036 would be re-opened, although the question remains how much market value would the league have plus Notre Dame compared to the Big Ten’s soon-to-be billion-dollar TV deal and what the SEC is getting and will make in the future.

There is a wildcard with Notre Dame — that the Irish chooses to forego “big-time” college athletics and returns to a focus on academics. Notre Dame operates differently. Not many schools, for instance, suspends a starting quarterback from a team that played for a national title for a year for academic reasons, or its star basketball player (and future NBA player) midseason in similar fashion.

Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick is already on record predicting a split will happen with the NCAA, with the dividing line coming between those who choose to run athletics as an independent business with a licensing agreement with the school and those who tie sports into the academic mission of the school.

One could guess that Notre Dame would be more inclined on the latter, as Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde noted in a roundtable published Thursday after the USC and UCLA news.

“I honestly wouldn’t be shocked to see Notre Dame choose the road less taken and de-emphasize athletics — especially if the Fighting Irish are ultimately joined by the likes of Stanford, California and some of the more academically minded ACC schools (Duke, Georgia Tech, Boston College, Wake Forest, North Carolina, Virginia). Those schools could form their own league, one grounded in more of a traditional college athletic mindset,” Forde wrote.

One thing that seems clear, absent Notre Dame joining the ACC full-time, the conference is likely ripe to be plundered should the SEC and Big Ten desire, at some point (which leads to next topic).

The ACC Grant Of Rights NC State Has Signed

While the ACC could theoretically have a “look-in” on the contract with expansion, that is unlikely to result in major changes absent Notre Dame joining the league.

Ultimately what is keeping the ACC together is the grant of rights (GOR) through 2036 that NC State and its fellow conference members have signed. One might presume that getting lawyers involved could get around that, but as the Sporting News’ Michael DeCourcey observed on Twitter, if that was the case the SEC would not be waiting till 2025 to add Oklahoma and Texas.

Is there an avenue for NC State and others in the ACC to get out of the GOR? And how much would it cost? The answers to both, from almost anyone who would know, “It’s complicated.”

There is a real possibility that the GOR keeps the ACC lingering for a few more years until the length remaining reaches a point where the financial costs becomes less problematic. In the meantime, that buys a little time for the league to find the Hail Mary the conference may need to survive at the highest level long-term.

How Attractive An Option Is NC State?

Operating under an assumption that super conferences are coming, does NC State have a landing spot? That’s the obvious question.

It’s also a complicated question.

Is it certain, for instance, that the SEC and Big Ten are the lone super conferences? Could there simply end up being a massive realignment of affiliations once the SEC and Big Ten set mandates on what it takes to be a member institution, and those who can afford it survive and get placed into the Premier League version of the NCAA, and those who cannot are relegated to a different division.

Or will it simply be a 20 or 24-team SEC and Big Ten, which on the surface seems like a logistical nightmare, especially for scheduling. In the latter world, realistically NC State might be sweating.

While the state of North Carolina is growing, the ninth largest in the country and in the next 10 years could move to eighth by passing Ohio, market sizes do not dictate expansion decisions. Brand names do.

That’s not to say that there would be a total disregard to the market that North Carolina offers. The state does have three top-50 television markets, including two in the top 25. Both the SEC and Big Ten would probably want a presence in the state considering its size. Only the states of North Carolina and New York (fourth largest) among the top 10 populous in the country are not represented in those two conferences (Big Ten does have nearby Rutgers in New Jersey), and the geography of North Carolina is a great fit for the SEC, in particular.

Brand though is the primary driver. Who can draw eyeballs?

NC State has done an excellent job improving its brand. The baseball team was in the College World Series twice in the past 10 years. The women’s basketball team has been a top-five program the past few years. Football has been ranked in the top-25 for four of the past five years, one of only 28 programs that can say that. When the preseason poll is released, that will be five of the past six years for NC State.

The legacy of the NC State men’s basketball program has been well-documented.

Overall, the athletics program has been top 25 in the Learfield Directors’ Cup the past two years, including 17th this past calendar cycle.

But is that brand name strong enough to move the needle? A dream season in football this fall may not come at a better time for the Wolfpack.

Best-case scenarios for NC State? One may include that the university gets partnered as a package with North Carolina. There is speculation that politics in the state and the UNC system could make that a possibility.

Or, NC State tries to partner with other schools and makes a bet that if enough ACC teams get together it can offer a strong-enough package for the SEC, more likely, to accept and get around the ACC’s GOR through mass defections.

While some may roll their eyes, there is one constant theme among all 16 Big Ten schools — they are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU). So are schools like Oregon, Washington, Cal, Stanford, North Carolina, Virginia, Duke, Kansas and Georgia Tech. All programs that probably would rank higher on a Big Ten pecking order than NC State.

Could there be a scenario where the Big Ten makes a move on a Duke-UNC package, and cracks the door for NC State in the SEC? Other dynamics are at play, however. Clemson, Florida State and Miami are the ACC’s three strongest brand names in football. Is that more important to the SEC? Are there any Big 12 teams, like Kansas or Oklahoma State or, seemingly less likely, one of the leftover Texas schools, that might be enticing for the SEC?

Could Virginia Tech or Louisville make a stronger case than NC State?

Everything is uncertain, except that NC State director of athletics Boo Corrigan and chancellor Randy Woodson just had their summers dramatically altered.

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