What Syracuse's AD means for BC

Earlier this week, Syracuse hired former ESPN executive John Wildhack as their new Athletic Director. From an ACC and BC perspective, this is good news. Now as we design and negotiate new TV deals, we have a level of expertise unmatched by any other major conference. Wildhack understands ESPN in a way that few could. Hopefully, he also leads the charge in the every evolving ACC Network.

While hiring someone without any previous Athletic Department experience comes with risk, I applaud Syracuse for trying something new. Although non-traditional names were floated after GDF, Brad Bates was a safe and traditional candidate. The jury is still out on his success, but it seems pretty clear he is not going to make any major changes while in charge nor take any big risk. I hope that BC soon reaches a level of stability, so that when it comes time to replace Bates, BC can look beyond the traditional and make a hire like Syracuse just did.

Syracuse officially in Atlantic Division

The ACC announced that Syracuse will be slotted in the Atlantic and Pitt will join the Coastal. On the basketball side, Syracuse will be our designated "rival" and the rest of the teams will rotate on and off BC's schedule. This is good news on multiple fronts.

For football this is great. BC's history with Syracuse is long and meaningful to older fans and Alumni. We were scheduled to play them over the next decade so this doesn't dramatically increase the difficulty of our schedule. When it was a non-conference game, it was designed to be the final regular season game for both teams. Now that it is a conference game, that matchup can be guaranteed. The expansion also means the ACC regular season will expand to nine games too. That's a mixed blessing for BC fans. We will now have more meaningful games, but fewer opportunities for exciting non-conference games. BC also keeps Virginia Tech as its permanent cross-division game.

Basketball will now play Syracuse twice every year. All the other schools will rotated in a tiered basis. We will not play Miami and Virginia Tech twice every year. This schedule will help interest but will hurt BC's chances to pad our win total. Despite their recent successes, I think playing Miami and VT twice in hoops annually was going to be beneficial to BC. I have doubt about either school ever becoming dominant powers in hoops. Now we will play a more balanced schedule ACC schedule, which will probably be harder.

ACC expansion: BC's world just got bigger and smaller

As most of you know, the ACC is expanding to include Syracuse and Pittsburgh. The move was necessary and impacts BC in a variety of ways. While the details are still to be worked out, here are some of the ways this will impact BC. And as I said in the headline BC's world got bigger and smaller at the same time.

How BC's world got bigger.
No one knows when or how this evolution of the conferences will all stop. But everyone predicts a few Super Conferences will control everything. With the ACC expanding to 14, the conference has solidified its position among the power players. As a member in good standing and located in a Top 10 TV market, BC is assured a seat at the table. If the Super Conferences break away from the NCAA, we will be part of it. A playoff? The ACC will have access. As long as the BCS is around, we will be in position there too.

This will also mean an influx of TV money. These things are always about money. Once the Pac 12 hit the lottery with their TV deal and Texas got its own network, the ACC's once lucrative media contract seemed dated and small. The ACC knew their deal was below market. One of the triggers for a new deal was expansion. Now we can go back to ESPN and the other players and get a lot more money. And that means more money for BC too.

The ACC will probably get a TV network out of this. Did you want to watch all sorts of random BC sports? Get ready then because a lot of non-revenue sports programming would probably fill this channel.

This might also not be the end of this all. Our conference could very well expand to 16. If it does, then it BC isn't part of a conference any more. We'd be part of a cartel.

How our world gets small
Remember how the ACC move meant new rivalries and new locales? Well we will soon be in a conference with Pitt and Syracuse again. My prediction is that we will also be in some sort of division with them too. And if the ACC goes to 16 and goes to four pods/division/etc, we will certainly be clustered with former Big East members.

If the ACC gets its own network, that will mean even less coverage on the ESPN family of networks. While I would gladly trade ESPN3.com games for real TV, I think losing coverage on ESPN feels a little smaller. It means we are not getting the random eyeballs and general sports fans that always catch a game or two on ESPN.

Finally, this means more of a closed network. If we go to nine ACC games, add UMass to the schedule and keep the FCS team, that really only leaves one other out of conference game per year. That just means fewer unique opponents and fewer opportunities to travel to our fans in the midwest and west coast.

Bottom line
If things stay like this, the ACC is now an even better place for BC. The new money, old faces and closer geography all ease some of the lingering issues BC has had in the conference. It also provides stability and a conference of peers. Regardless of what happens on the field, the money and winnable conference will always give BC a chance to excel.