[grendalor]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

The ACC is the least worst option for Stanford right now.  Trying to cobble together a new conference with all of the other misfit schools would be a sub-par outcome, because in college athletics in 2023, you're either in one of those conferences, or you're irrelevant (ND is halfway in one of them as well, and is an outlier as a football independent that Stanford has no possibility of coming close to emulating).  The impact on the non-money sports is likely even worse in a non-ACC scenario than in any other one, even if the price of joining the ACC is extremely steep, as has been reported so far.

Sure, it's suboptimal.  But we're in the realm of "least worst option" at this point in time.  There was no optimal option, really, for Stanford because it became clear to the rest of college football that the Western US is not a viable standalone region for the sport, for the most part, on a revenue/interest/support basis, apart from the large LA market.  When USC essentially agreed with this perspective (I am fairly certain many SC boosters have had this perspective for quite some time, but leaving the Pac was difficult to imagine until recently), that was going to be the end of the Pac, or any successor Pacific conference that could be "bigtime", because the main market left the building.  The rest of the conference ex the LA schools had some value, but nothing close to the value of the other big 4, despite the weakness in the Big-12.  It really just became clear that a regional Western conference could not compete, revenue-wise, with any conference that has roots in Texas, the South, or the Midwest.  

For Stanford this was a completely disastrous turn of events given our practice of fielding a massive set of champion-caliber teams that are funded by our football team, essentially.  It forced us into a world of suboptimal options.  Going to the ACC under the conditions reported doesn't solve the fundamental problem of how to fund the other sports.  We will have to find a solution to that problem.  But it does prevent the other sports from being decimated in their ability to recruit as they would be if they were in a newly-constructed misfit conference.  So it's a way to stop that aspect of the suboptimal while kicking the can a bit on the funding side -- longer term we will need to either accept that these other sports will be funded long term by the university, or we will need to find some other funding coming from football in a way that the reported arrangements with the ACC won't.  And perhaps that "bet" is that the current arrangements are not stable, and that everyone will be playing roulette again in another few years for more definitive arrangements, and we would prefer to be an ACC member at that stage than a member of a newfangled conference on the outside of the new P4 structure.  

It's all suboptimal at this point, unfortunately.  Kicking the can is not necessarily the worst approach given the exigency, but I think we should realize that it is kicking the can nonetheless.  At some point the fundamental issues will need to be addressed, one way or another, because there is no real plan for Stanford's AD where the football media revenue isn't there long term.

[grendalor]

The ACC is a ridiculous option for Stanford even if ACC members would part with an equal media share. It's a self-debasing option if Stanford has to enter the conference for "free" -- nothing is free -- or with a buy-in.

How has the university lost its dignity, and its way, and its self-respect, so suddenly?

This would be a far better option: keep the Pac-4 together. Add SMU, Rice, Tulane and either Army or UConn. Those eight would be a credible foundation for something that (i) could be expanded and (ii) has a feasible travel schedule. You would add Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey (via Army or UConn) recruiting visibility. New TV markets would be Dallas, Houston, and New York. Texas and the south more generally are booming, with no signs whatsoever of a change in trend.

This new conference could wait for the ACC to implode, which seems likely, then add selectively from its ranks, but with eastern and western divisions to keep the travel burden down.

The ACC is the least worst option for Stanford right now.  Trying to cobble together a new conference with all of the other misfit schools would be a sub-par outcome, because in college athletics in 2023, you're either in one of those conferences, or you're irrelevant (ND is halfway in one of them as well, and is an outlier as a football independent that Stanford has no possibility of coming close to emulating).  The impact on the non-money sports is likely even worse in a non-ACC scenario than in any other one, even if the price of joining the ACC is extremely steep, as has been reported so far.

Sure, it's suboptimal.  But we're in the realm of "least worst option" at this point in time.  There was no optimal option, really, for Stanford because it became clear to the rest of college football that the Western US is not a viable standalone region for the sport, for the most part, on a revenue/interest/support basis, apart from the large LA market.  When USC essentially agreed with this perspective (I am fairly certain many SC boosters have had this perspective for quite some time, but leaving the Pac was difficult to imagine until recently), that was going to be the end of the Pac, or any successor Pacific conference that could be "bigtime", because the main market left the building.  The rest of the conference ex the LA schools had some value, but nothing close to the value of the other big 4, despite the weakness in the Big-12.  It really just became clear that a regional Western conference could not compete, revenue-wise, with any conference that has roots in Texas, the South, or the Midwest.  

For Stanford this was a completely disastrous turn of events given our practice of fielding a massive set of champion-caliber teams that are funded by our football team, essentially.  It forced us into a world of suboptimal options.  Going to the ACC under the conditions reported doesn't solve the fundamental problem of how to fund the other sports.  We will have to find a solution to that problem.  But it does prevent the other sports from being decimated in their ability to recruit as they would be if they were in a newly-constructed misfit conference.  So it's a way to stop that aspect of the suboptimal while kicking the can a bit on the funding side -- longer term we will need to either accept that these other sports will be funded long term by the university, or we will need to find some other funding coming from football in a way that the reported arrangements with the ACC won't.  And perhaps that "bet" is that the current arrangements are not stable, and that everyone will be playing roulette again in another few years for more definitive arrangements, and we would prefer to be an ACC member at that stage than a member of a newfangled conference on the outside of the new P4 structure.  

It's all suboptimal at this point, unfortunately.  Kicking the can is not necessarily the worst approach given the exigency, but I think we should realize that it is kicking the can nonetheless.  At some point the fundamental issues will need to be addressed, one way or another, because there is no real plan for Stanford's AD where the football media revenue isn't there long term.