The ACC’s demise is not if but when; the settlement has only prolonged the inevitable.
This March may be remembered as the league’s darkest hour and the culmination of decades of poor decisions. The increasing television revenue of the SEC and Big Ten compared with the ACC’s has been well documented from a football perspective.
But that resource disparity has a ripple effect.
That resource disadvantage has manifested on the basketball court. The SEC and Big Ten have leveraged their financial advantages, enabling schools once considered afterthoughts—such as Alabama—to evolve into burgeoning basketball powerhouses.