[SkiBum80]

I came back to add exactly what Card  Crimson just wrote.
Sad but so very true

Likewise
Well said by CardCrimson

Correct.  Which is why I have resigned myself to it.  It isn't even really the financial side of it--I'm sure Stanford donors could come up with the $15 million a year to make up for football revenue and keep the other sports going.  But I can't see WBB and all the other sports doing well in any west coast league that is left over after the Pac 12 debacle, so this crazy move is necessary.

But among my wife's and my college friends, I am the oddball.  Most of them would be fine with Stanford becoming U Chicago or Cal Tech or MIT.

Understand their perspective. But I think would be a tragic loss for Stanford to become a U Chicago, Cal Tech or MIT.
Another U Chicago based in Palo Alto would be a cave-in, a cop-out, an ignominious surrender.
So in the struggle for perspectives, mine was at the time I enrolled, and continues to be so to this day, that our identity is striving for excellence in academics and athletics. Both.  
And by athletics I mean broad based.  A lot of sports, more than just football and basketball.
There's not that many schools trying hard to do it and do it well.  It's pretty rare and worth saving.
If you look at US News college rankings, which focuses emphasis on academics,
and look at top 20 schools, and look at which ones also field strong nationally competitive teams in multiple sports,
you can see that from the PAC-12 in that group that UCLA is bolting away from us.
While with us joining the ACC, we are bringing along CAL in that group, and joining Duke and Notre Dame in that group.
So much as I grieve the loss of the PAC-12 foisted upon us, you could argue at least at some level that we have some more Excellence in Academics and Athletics sympathetic and similar schools in our new conference than our old.

[SkiBum80]

I came back to add exactly what Card  Crimson just wrote.
Sad but so very true

Likewise
Well said by CardCrimson

Correct.  Which is why I have resigned myself to it.  It isn't even really the financial side of it--I'm sure Stanford donors could come up with the $15 million a year to make up for football revenue and keep the other sports going.  But I can't see WBB and all the other sports doing well in any west coast league that is left over after the Pac 12 debacle, so this crazy move is necessary.

But among my wife's and my college friends, I am the oddball.  Most of them would be fine with Stanford becoming U Chicago or Cal Tech or MIT.

Understand their perspective. But I think would be a tragic loss for Stanford to become a U Chicago, Cal Tech or MIT.
Another U Chicago based in Palo Alto would be a cave-in, a cop-out, an ignominious surrender.
So in the struggle for perspectives, mine was at the time I enrolled, and continues to be so to this day, that our identity is striving for excellence in academics and athletics. Both.  
And by athletics I mean broad based.  A lot of sports, more than just football and basketball.
There's not that many schools trying hard to do it and do it well.  It's pretty rare and worth saving.
If you look at US News college rankings, which focuses emphasis on academics,
and look at top 20 schools, and look at which ones also field strong nationally competitive teams in multiple sports,
you can see that from the PAC-12 in that group that UCLA is bolting away from us.
While with us joining the ACC, we are bringing along CAL in that group, and joining Duke and Notre Dame in that group.
So much as I grieve the loss of the PAC-12 foisted upon us, you could argue at least at some level that we have some more Excellence in Academics and Athletics sympathetic and similar schools in our new conference than our old.