their neighbors. It certainly was a start, and short of "subsidizing" the top teams in the ACC, I'm not sure what more you guys can do - Take the top 7 teams of the ACC - Now Cal, Stanford, and SMU come in at a level that maybe some of the other 10 teams should be looking at. A sliding scale, so to speak, where the top schools get the most, and the bottom schools get the least. There aren't many SMU's out there - so set that aside - but it the ACC were to break up - there are many Cal - Stanford - WSU and OSU type schools that are in danger of being on the outside looking in. When ESPN has their "look in" on the contract in two years - maybe the ACC can have something different to propose to it's members that make it very attractive to the FSU's, very competitive for the NCSU's, and palatable for the Cal's, Wake's, and other low teams - but attractive enough to have Tulane's and UConn's chomping at the bit to get in. More content for ESPN, so there could be a bump in the contract, and being a sliding scale, a chance for the lower rated schools to invest some money, get better, or bow out. (just a spit ball here). The B12 could do something similar - as currently we have parity, but the schools that invest in their budgets, coaching, facilities moving forward will have the edge in recruiting, and will field competitive teams. Those that are complacent, and do not, will ultimately go to the lower end of the scale. There could be a combination of metrics to use, with winning at the top - but investments, history, ratings, other sports besides football, - all could used to determine the top schools in the conference. As long as there is a legit chance to move up the scale over say, a 3-5 year window, something like that could very well produce the next legitimate team that could contend against the SEC and BIG.