Money rules ACC drive to expand

By By Stan Torgerson / sports columnist
June 10, 2003
Many years ago, America's greatest sports writer was a man named Grantland Rice. By "many" years we're talking about the 1930s, a bit before and a bit afterward.
It was Grantland Rice who created a story dubbing the Notre Dame backfield of that time as "The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame," a nickname that exists to this day.
But he also created another phrase which still lives. It was Grantland Rice who once wrote, "It doesn't matter whether you've won or lost, it's how you played the game."
That was then and now is now. If Rice were penning that as a today truism he would write, "It does matter whether you've won or lost, not how you played the game."
Isn't that the basis for the lawsuit filed last week against the Atlantic Coast Conference by Big East Conference members Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Rutgers and Connecticut.? If this was a real live lawsuit involving real live every day people it would be filed as an alienation of affections action. "They don't love us anymore because the ACC lured them away and we think we're entitled to cash for our pain and suffering."
Plain and simple it has to do with money. The ACC figures if they pick up those three new attractions they will have a 12 team league and can, therefore, split into two divisions with the winner of each playing a post season championship game that fans will pay big bucks to attend and television will pay bigger bucks to broadcast.
The ACC's reasoning goes if the SEC can do it why can't we? On the other hand, The Big East believes if they lose their chief television attractions people won't pay big bucks to attend their games and television won't pay top dollar.
In addition, it makes the ACC a real power conference as far the BCS is concerned. Other bowls will find the league much more attractive and there will be bushel baskets of new money to split up, even if there would now be 12 shares rather than nine. The SEC handed out $100 million a few weeks ago from television and post season games. Everybody except Alabama received at least $8 million. Are you under the misguided impression that nobody noticed?
Of course, the ACC doesn't want the dogs of the Big East. They want the schools with big stadiums and national images. That's why they opened their arms to Miami, Boston College and Syracuse. Love us, love our paydays.
Winning is more important today than it has ever been because there is more available money floating around than there has ever been. As the song "Love and Marriage" goes, you can't have one without the other. And it's not just the schools. We've all gotten into the act.
Recently The Hattiesburg American" looked at the full grandstands for the NCAA regional baseball tournament in that city and tied it into the proposed $40 million proposed expansion of the University of Southern Mississippi's athletic facilities, editorializing thusly: "…The record crowds over the weekend at the NCAA Regional baseball tournament at Pete Taylor Park give credence to a related concept, If you win they will come.'"
Waiting until the need for bigger and better facilities obviously would cost USM money, the paper said.
Nowhere in that editorial did we see the words "student-athletes" or "sportsmanship" or praise for the grand job the community did in making the guests feel welcome.What the paper said was Hattiesburg is more than willing to support a USM team that is exceptional and one that is playing for something big. Big achievements translate into big bucks.
I am not criticizing the newspaper because I could not agree with them more. The importance of winning and the importance of adequate
ities do go hand in hand. The upgrades from weight rooms to stadium seating at various SEC schools, including Mississippi's own, have been done to make the facilities more attractive for recruiting purposes and thus to win more games and by so doing encourage alumni to donate more money so that more facilities can be upgraded to attract more and better athletes in order that the process can begin all over again.
The editorial was right and if Grantland Rice was alive today he'd be wrong. Whether you win or lose is mainly what counts, not how the game is played. Why else do you think so many SEC schools are in trouble?