Teel Article about the Stealth lead up to ACC Network.
I hadn't seen this here yet. It's from earlier in the week. Teel gets an interview with Swofford to go over all of it.
Swofford makes a couple of points. He did want to do a network in 2009, but the TV consultant told him that the ACC was not structured to do so. This confirms that Swofford didn't miss the boat in 2010. There wasn't a boat to catch until he transformed the league.
The ACC needed to get more football. The ACC was too basketball centric as a conference. The ACC also had to enlarge its footprint in the process. So this emphasis on football is real. But he doesn't want to lose the basketball identity.
That's why Syracuse, Pitt, and Notre Dame were added. Then with the setback of Maryland the ACC had already vetted potential members, so they acted on Louisville quickly.
He also made this comment: "From a marketplace standpoint, even though Washington, D.C., is a great market, we still feel like that's a part of our footprint with Virginia and Virginia Tech there. And Louisville's the strongest collegiate market in the country."
So John Swofford expects VT and UVA to deliver the Washington, DC market.
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Link: link
Posted: 07/28/2016 at 9:28PM