I'll take them one at a time. "You are talking about something that may or may not happen 11 years from now. ESPN will go to where they can make the most profit, and those rights will be bid on by other entities. ESPN is not in the business of building conferences in the NCAA. They are in the business of making money." No one knows what is going to happen, not even me. :-) If I gave that impression, that is not the case, but I do think what I laid out is a plausible theory for the future. I don't believe this is 11 years out, the penalties to leave in 2031 will be less than what the P2 make in a year, I think those that get an invite will be playing in a P2 in 2031. I agree ESPN is in the business of making money through sports first. They will not be the NCAA, but they could take over the broadcasting of the expanded NCAA basketball tournament to make money. Dropping the MLB frees them up to be able to do that IMHO. "If they wanted more basketball content, they could have out bid those that have the Big East rights. In addition, basketball is worth 25% AT BEST of football. Also, the SEC has the money to "build" their own basketball conference." I don't think they want every Big East team. Just like the ACC didn't want every Big East team when they were acquiring them. Just like the SEC doesn't want every ACC team. They want the basketball schools that will make them the most money. The SEC is Southern mainly eastern Conference, but ESPN needs a national conference too. I think the ACC with their penalty money coming in and ESPN signed on until 2036 could easily be that conference for them. Lastly, I think the NCAA basketball tournament is going to expand to 80-90 some teams. That is going to be more money. I think they use the early rounds to keep paying for other sports, but I think the Sweet 16 and later rounds are going to produce more money similar to what they do with the football playoff. So I think the economics are going to change for the NCAA College Basketball. "I'm also perplexed on how VT fans would even want to be in a basketball conference. You guys are a football school, through and through." You are correct that Virginia Tech is first a football school, there is no denying that. Because of that most Techies first want to be in P2, it's pretty split between the B1G and the SEC. We get a lot of our students from up north and many of them want the B1G, but we also have closer access location wise to the SEC since most Techies live in Virginia. Now I think we will get into a P2, but let's say for some reason we didn't, I think that means that only about 2-3 schools went to the P2. If we aren't one of them, you could see a shift in priorities because each Conference at the top has one number one sport whether they admit it or not. Thus if the P2 didn't work out for us, and we could end up in an ACC with schools like Duke, Kansas, Arizona, UCONN etc. I could easily see our investments shift more to basketball knowing the top recruits in football go the SEC and B1G, but the recruits that want a Conference where basketball is first, could easily be the ACC. ** Edited by Stech at 3/5/2025, 1:32:25 PM