So my reconstituted ACC would originally look like this:
Florida State, Miami, Clemson, UNC, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, NC State, Duke, UVA, Louisville, Pitt and Memphis.
Then my next step would be to steal some Big 12 teams specifically Oklahoma State, Utah, Texas Tech, Texas Christian, West Virginia, Arizona and Colorado plus bring in San Diego State. I would also consider bringing in Kansas, Houston, SMU, BYU, Stanford and/or Tulane depending on the assessments from the networks as to their relative value.
To that above A league, I would add a B league that gets substantially less football money but gets equal basketball money consisting of: Any of the above I mentioned that got left out plus bring back Syracuse, Boston College, and Wake Forest plus add UConn, Gonzaga, Cincinnati, Coastal Carolina, Villanova, Temple, Baylor, Georgetown, Boise State, Houston, Iowa State, James Madison, Providence, St Joseph’s, UMass, Washington State, Oregon State, UNLV, Marquette, Butler, Dayton, UCF and Seton Hall.
So in my hypothetical, I would have the 22 team A league (leaving room for Notre Dame and a partner) consisting of:
FSU, Clemson, Miami, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, NC State, Duke, UVA, Virginia Tech, Louisville, Memphis, Pitt, Oklahoma State, Utah, Colorado, Texas Tech, BYU, Texas Christian, Arizona, West Virginia, Kansas, and San Diego State.
The 22 team B League football conference would be used to fill holes in the schedule of the tougher A League. It would be:
UCF, Cincinnati, Boise State, Baylor, Arizona State, Houston, SMU, Kansas State, Tulane, Stanford, Washington State, Oregon State, UConn, UMass, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Boston College, Coastal Carolina, Iowa State, UNLV, Appalachian State and James Madison.
Then I would add the following basketball only schools of Gonzaga, Villanova, Temple, Georgetown, Providence, St Joseph’s, Marquette, Butler, Dayton, St Mary’s, Xavier, and Seton Hall.
For Basketball I would probably break it into two similar A and B leagues with some teams left out of the basketball contract. I would have a 26 team A basketball league of:
Gonzaga, Villanova, Temple, Georgetown, UConn, UMass, Syracuse, FSU, Miami, Clemson, North Carolina, NC State, Duke, Houston, UVA, Louisville, Memphis, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma State, Utah, Arizona, West Virginia, UNLV, Cincinnati and Kansas.
And a 24 team B basketball league of
Butler, Boise State, Baylor, Arizona State, SMU, St Mary’s, Seton Hall, Tulane, Stanford, Washington State, Oregon State, Wake Forest, Colorado, Boston College, Providence, Marquette, Dayton, Iowa State, TCU, BYU, Virginia Tech, San Diego State, Xavier and Texas Tech.
So I would have football only schools of Coastal Carolina, Appalachian State, James Madison, and UCF.
Then I would market each of the four leagues separately and pay the schools their appropriate amount based on league and tv viewership probably splitting the money half or two thirds equally in their respective league and the remainder based on tv numbers. With this split up I could easily see Football A being at about 2/3s of the SEC or BIG but with an unequal split getting schools like FSU and Clemson on par or maybe even better. And Basketball A would clearly be the best and highest paid for basketball, those blue blood teams and cities would generate tons of money. Meanwhile Football B would still likely be at the highest $$ for the “Group of 5” leagues and Basketball B is still a pretty awesome basketball conference, maybe even still better than the BIG and SEC.