1. Like the oft-repeated "media markets" trope, I don't think this matters as much as folks apparently think it does. There is no honor among thieves to be found when it comes to this round of conference realignment. Oregon left Oregon State in the dust. Washington left Washington State. Oklahoma left Oklahoma State. UCLA left Cal, with the UC system governance board and half the California legislature crying foul. I don't think it's even a question of whether or not both institutions are governed by the same entity; I think it's more about what actual leverage one institution holds over the other to prevent it from doing whatever it wants to do. I know that "UNC and NCSU are tied at the hip because x, y, and z" is a trope, but, if the metal hit the meat, I don't think there would be any appetite to actually do anything about it with anyone that actually had the power to stop UNC from leaving the ACC if that's what UNC really wants to do. Why would they? Do you really think that powerful movers and shakers are going to cut off UNC's nose because the SEC or Big 10 doesn't want NC State? I don't. Again, you have to ask yourself, why would they? I imagine, if anything, UNC would be allowed to leave for greener pastures with some kind of "Calimony" requirement, similar to what happened with UCLA - they pay NCSU a nominal penance and go. But even that would surprise me. 2. The price tag on leaving is no longer the big issue for anyone in the ACC, football brand or otherwise. It would be a no brainer to pay, and, believe it or not, I imagine any ACC school could come up with the exit fee relatively quickly. When you're talking about doubling your $45m annual media rights payouts, or more, $165m isn't that big of a price tag in the grand scheme of things. Since the exit fee issue has been settled, the big issue now is actually having somewhere to go. You have to create enough value at your new destination to not only avoid dilution of current shares, but add to the pot. The Big 10 is extremely top heavy. Half the football programs in the Big 10 have less real value than most of those in the ACC, and there's no good way for the conference to get rid of that dead weight. So, I imagine the Big 10 is not exactly dying to add more mouths to feed until they figure that issue out. The SEC is filled with high-value football programs, and already doesn't want to play more conference games now, because they feel they're not being adequately compensated for those additional L's, both in terms of media rights payouts and CFP access. So, clearly they're also not exactly dying to add more mouths to feed. You take all that, and combine it with speculation from pretty some pretty credible folks that these enormous P2 media rights deals are very likely overvalued as-is, and you don't have a situation where the SEC or the Big 10 are dying to expand any time soon.