MadisonJumpAround

Can't reveal too much, but my job hears intel from a company directly tied to one of the Pac 4 left behind schools. I am just passing along what I hear and doing it here because this is basically the realignment church and seemingly a long way from my own B1G forums. I have been told that someone at the Pac12 (likely Luck) is pitching something pretty radical in an effort to save the Pac-12 conference outright. The proposal is a merger of sorts with the ACC, but only in Football. The basic gist I was told was that the Pac 4 would effectively "add" San Diego State and become 5. SMU would join the ACC under the auspices that it would forego any TV revenue for 7 years. That creates a 20 team football conference. However, it would act like a conference in a conference, which it would be. The 5 west coast teams would form a Western Division. The 15 other teams would divide into 3 divisions of 5 each. This is specifically for scheduling purposes, not necessarily a prelude to conference semi-finals (but you could do that if the NCAA signed off). Why would the ACC agree to take on these schools? Money is what I am told. Apparently Apple is pretty hard up to get into the college FB game and Luck or someone still has them interested. The Western 5 would strike their own deal with Apple at something around $15-18 million per team. Apple would control all content in stadiums for those 5 teams. ESPN apparently kinda likes this idea, because they would likely only pay $5 million per for for the additional 6 teams or $30 million total. For such a small investment on ESPN's part they would add a ton of content - all of SMU's games home and away - and all of the Western 5's games in Eastern stadiums. Stanford @ Florida State for example. But the primary benefit would be that the Western Teams "self finance" their accession to the ACC and that the conference would generate $30 million more that could fund the unequal revenue sharing model that Clemson and FSU seek to restore stability, which ESPN wants above all else and keeps the B1G at bay. As far as the other sports, the Pac 12 would add 7 teams from the West Coast Conference, including Gonzaga and Saint Mary's, to create a regional league that cuts down travel expenses and has similar sports interests. Thus, the pac-12 would exist and be a west coast league. The 5 football playing members could create an identity of sorts inside the ACC. The ACC gets to expand without blowing up their own cost model for non-revenue sports (SMU is an easy travel site in Dallas) and preserves their basketball brand. FSU and Clemson get money likely than any B12 school, but still less than B1G and SEC (but enough to compete with them). ESPN gets to settle this whole thing down for a decade or so only paying an additional $30million total (less than half one SEC school's distribution). I was told this is a hail mary. For all I know it is full of crap. But seems like a pretty detailed proposal and while on its face, seems crazy, kind of makes some sense. I could see why people might go for it. Again, not a prediction. I am not the Dude of West Virginia. I hear stuff all the time from these guys, sometimes right, sometimes not. This was compelling enough I wanted to share. Take that for what its worth.