Well there are degrees of parity. The ACC Coastal is obviously one extreme, where literally any team can win it any year. Then like the Spanish or French soccer leagues are the other extreme, where basically two or three teams are the only teams that will ever win it barring a fluke occurrence (or an oil billionaire buying a team and pumping money into it until it’s good).
I honestly think overall American professional sports do it pretty well. Our attachments to things like player drafts that give the worst teams top picks help any given team feel like they’ve got a shot of turning things around, and often they do over a long enough time period. So it’s reasonable for a fan of an American franchise to think in their lifetime they’ve got a shot at a title. For the most part in other sports around the world, that isn’t necessarily the case.
I prefer the parity of American pro sports, but college football is increasingly like European pro sports. Money and resources dominate, there are major gulfs between tiers of teams, and there are large numbers of teams that know they’ll never be able to compete for a meaningful title. I’d like if we could swing college football a little back towards the other extreme, without obviously ending up in full ACC Coastal territory. But that seems unlikely.
I tend to agree with @ElliottHoo the illusion of parity is more intriguing than the reality. Everyone wants their team to have a shot but they don’t want mediocrity. The coastal was mediocrity and that’s not cool
To weigh in here a bit, if the Coastal Division were some sort of important thing, then “Coastal Chaos” / parity would be fun and cool. But it’s not some important thing – it was a silly made-up thing so the ACC could create a championship game, and for 10 or 11 years, the Coastal winner was a sacrificial lamb for Clemson or FSU to steamroll on their way to the BCS.
Right, which is what parity gives you. The SEC isn’t famous because Vandy or South Carolina is a threat to Bama every year, its famous because Bama annihilates everyone. Their parity, such as it is, is that they have other teams who are good and when the stars align might be able to beat Bama.
Its famous because of its lack of parity as much as because they have good teams (which, to be fair, they do).
I’m getting off the topic of the thread here, but for me the paradigm is March Madness. There is lots of parity.
College football, conversely, is super popular has no parity.
I tend to think college football is super popular despite having no parity, not because it has no parity, but admittedly this is a half-developed thought…
@haney hit the most damning point. Coastal chaos only meant a new team was sacraficed to Clemson every year. Rendering winning the division pointless because who really cares. So parity without stakes. Equals bad
Eh. In the last 12 years, the Coastal has won the ACC twice. VT in 2012 and Pitt Thais year. In the SEC, the East has won twice in the last 12 years, both by Georgia.
Also, Bama won the SEC 6 times during that stretch, and Clemson has won 6 times as well.
The Championship game winning margins WERE reasonably similar, too, until the last 3-4 years when Clemson started just mauling everyone. Prior to like 2018 they were generally tight games.
Hmm, that might not be great for my original point.
Biggest difference to me in your example is even though the SEC west has dominated it’s side the conference championship game still had stakes beyond the SEC. It’s a lot harder to get hyped to watch unranked 6-6 take on the undefeated national title contending juggernaut vs the 8v1 matchup the SEC gives.
Also this is why I don’t rank UVas orange bowl apperence. They received an invite on a technicality. Clemson was essentially too good for it and played for a Nati meanwhile UVa got leftovers. Getting invite had similar vibes to FSU posing for the ACC tourney champ in 2020
I will say, when I went back and looked, I was surprised by how close some of the ACC championship games were. Though sometimes a 7/8 point victory can be a bit cosmetic.
That’s how most orange bowl appearances are these days though lol only reason Florida was there was because Bama and Georgia went to the playoff and a better bowl respectively.
I think when they eliminated divisions, the league said that the coastal winner was the team with the second best conference record something like 8 of the past 10 years or something, so it’s just that Clemson has been that much better than the rest of the conference moreso than the Coastal being mediocre. The entire conference is mediocre.
True the ACC on the whole never materialized into the conference they hoped for. It was built for FSU Miami to headline with VT UNC UVa BC Cuse Pitt and Clem to be the undercard. Basically none of that happened
I am generally cool with them, but are the V sabres always a sticker like that? Is it not possible to paint them on? Wasn’t sure if they just do this when they’re showing off the new stuff or if that’s just what it is.
