Point: ACC offers stability, prestige

The first time the Atlantic Coast Conference raided the Big East several years ago, I was… The first time the Atlantic Coast Conference raided the Big East several years ago, I was heartbroken, aghast and confused. Why would they do such a thing? What about rivalries, tradition and honor? Well, ladies and gentlemen, as I have grown into the cynical semi-adult that I am now, I have realized that tradition is dead in college sports, and for good reason. Because the Wu-Tang Clan was right: Cash rules everything around me.

This move — like all made in the ever-changing conference landscape — was made for money, and you better believe that’s a good thing. The Big East is a dying conference and I, for one, don’t want to be a carcass left for the buzzards.

The Big East’s current six-year television deal with ESPN, which runs through 2012, is valued at around $200 million, which absolutely pales in comparison to the 12-year, $1.86 billion deal that the ACC has with ESPN/ABC. The Big East has the lowest average football revenue of the six BCS conferences. And just to be clear, basketball revenue doesn’t come close to football revenue, even at a basketball school.

The ACC is more competitive than the Big East in nearly every sport that Pitt offers. Critics say the football team will not be competitive. All of the hard-core basketball fans out there will cry about how the Big East’s reign as basketball kings is about to end and the crown will be returned to the ACC — especially if the ACC picks up Connecticut as well.

Those same fans will cry about the tradition of playing the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden, all of those conference rivalries that seemed to appear over the past five years or so, northern recruiting hotbeds and other such frivolities.

The cream rises to the top, people. The football team will not become a small fish in a (slightly) bigger pond, but will have more national exposure and recognition. The basketball team will establish new rivalries with traditional basketball powerhouses like Duke and North Carolina. We can go one on one with the Cameron Crazies to see who really has the best student section in the country.

The ACC will open up more recruiting opportunities in the talent-rich south for both football and basketball. The conference is more prestigious, much better academically — which also benefits all of those students who don’t have the “athlete” tag behind their name, may I remind you — and will make the school more money.

Yeah, Pitt will be lambasted by the move, especially considering how they reacted several years ago to the last conference raid. But you have to look out for number one. I’d rather be the car than the roadkill, wouldn’t you?