ACC Team Reallocation

Recently, the Atlantic Coast Conference has allowed the addition of both the University of Pittsburg and Syracuse University to become affiliated athletically. This addition, based on this article written by an ESPN analyst, could pose future potential problems with the allocation of teams based on a 'divisional-style' organizational format. Katz, the author of this article, explains the possible negative externalities that could be put onto Wake Forest University and the other North Carolina schools in the ACC. The author poses the possibility of a North-South divisional layout, where the geographically relative northern schools and southern schools would be grouped together, unfortunately leaving out, most likely, Wake Forest (since UNC, Duke, and NC State would be kept together). This division layout would restrict Wake Forest from competing against those other North Carolina schools, which I believe would negatively effect Wake's athletic event attendance and subsequent revenue from those attendees (ticket sales, merchandise sales, etc.). Also, these detailed decisions will be made by votes among the athletic directors from each school. When these votes are being discussed, however, "it will be hard to take these North Carolina schools and separate them." As expressed in chapter six of "The Calculus of Consent", both external costs and decision-making costs are put into consideration as individuals are working to minimize costs while making voting decisions. We know from this ESPN article that certain ACC teams could face potential high external costs, and from "Calculus" we learned that as the number of necessary voters for collective action to take place increases (in our scenario, as more teams get added to the ACC), strategic behavior during voting increases, as decision-making costs increase. So, it can be possible in our scenario for logrolling and other strategic planning to occur in the future. For example, Wake could tell UNC, NC State, and Duke that they will vote for the North-South split, leaving those three together as Wake splits off, if those three schools agree to come to Wake and play a certain number of athletic games on Wake's home field during the year, regardless of division allocation. I would expect to see deals being made between Athletic Directors of the ACC schools (especially those North Carolina schools) regarding scheduling and divisional organization.