The ACC has decided to increase the number of in-conference games a team has to play each season, and other conferences are considering doing the same. According to John Calipari, that is going to hurt the sport of college basketball.
With ACC teams set to play 20 in-conference games as opposed to 18 starting in 2019, Calipari believes fans are going to be robbed of some marquee matchups. He blames the television networks for that.
“They need more inventory for their own network so you just play more league games and then you have more inventory for your network to put on,” Calipari said Tuesday, via the Currier-Journal. “Hopefully in our case in this league (the Southeastern Conference) we stay where we are and if we don’t, we’ll make it work.”
Like they did with the SEC Network a few years back, ESPN has announced it will launch the ACC Network by August 2019. The Big Ten, which also has its own network owned by FOX Sports, is also leaning toward increasing its number of in-league games to 20 per season.
“What you do is, you take away some of those kind of games that have been good to us,” Calipari said. “North Carolina, for example: If they go to 20 games we won’t have any more series with North Carolina, so I’m not for it.”
Calipari added that increasing the number of in-conference games would prevent teams from improving their schedule the way they see fit.
“I think teams can use those last two games to put their own schedule together,” he said. “If you need a tougher game, if you have a rivalry game, if you need an easier game, if your team needs a team they can beat or a team they’re challenged by, if they need a road game, you can do it with those two games.”
Having matchups like Kentucky-North Carolina taken off the regular season college basketball slate would be a disappointment. Some of the most exciting games of the year happen when teams from different conferences square off, so we’re with Calipari on this one. Unfortunately, money talks.
