WSTB

[quote="WSBornNBred"]You have one more chance to see Wake football at home this year - we play NC State on 11/13. Wake has a pretty good shot at cracking the top 10 today after the win yesterday and three losses by teams just ahead of us in the rankings (Kentucky, Ole Miss, Iowa).

For what it's worth, despite all of the hand wringing about WFU and Charlotte, Wake does a fantastic job at promoting Winston during the games with the Welcome to Deactown marketing, with the scoreboard featuring shots of Bailey Power Plant and the skyline, with hashtags of WFWS (Wake Forest Winston Salem), etc. The football team is gaining National recognition and bringing more eyes on our city. If we can hang on to Clawson, Wake may become a perennial contender in the ACC.[/quote]

Your points are well taken! Regarding the highlighted last sentence, God knows they're spending enough money to keep him. Jeez, I wish we had about 3/4 other Bob McCrearys dumping that much $$$$ into the undergrad & grad school operations here in Winston!

Gregory Slade AKA "The Pointer" was killed in a hit and run over the weekend. Many of you may recognize him as the guy who was always smiling and dancing while selling newspapers on University Parkway (between the coliseum and Putters). He was always sporting Wake Forest gear and apparently was walking to the coliseum to catch a game. He was truly part of the Winston-Salem fabric.

Here's a link to his gofundme page:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/yy8qw5-funer ... e=customer

WF sports will likely hit an inflection point in the next few years. It's looking more and more likely that the ACC is done as a Power conference. The next domino to fall will be when Notre Dame signs with the Big 10 or Clemson or Miami or FSU or UNC announces their intentions to move to the SEC or Big 10. I understand there will be huge payouts for leaving the ACC, but these schools don't have much choice when looking at the network contracts involved.

Either the ACC folds and Wake has to find a new home, or it becomes a much smaller conference built around basketball (like the Big East) and Wake stays. Either way, Wake's conference payout will likely be greatly reduced, which will impact all sports downstream.

I hope Wake is replenishing the coffers now, because I don't think the ACC money ($36MM/year or so) will last forever. Unfortunately, there just aren't many options for a school as small as Wake with a relatively small fan base and alumni network.

This also shows how completely pointless the ACC's move to Charlotte will be. The state will provide $15MM to keep a dying conference, who should have been focused on recruiting new members instead of moving HQs. The site of the HQ makes absolutely no difference in the success of the conference (the SEC is located in the metropolis of Birmingham).

So, why is the ACC in such trouble and why does it not have the respect of the other big conferences? The ACC does have powerhouse members. So why isn’t it being promoted aggressively to compete with the big guys? Obviously, just something I don’t understand.

I think the big reason is football money. Duke and UNC are huge brands in college basketball but in-terms of revenue, wouldn't be top 10 in football. Clemson is a big brand today, but doesn't have the decades of success and brand recognition that Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, bring.

It's pretty easy to draw the parallels to corporate consolidation into large cities. The ACC is Winston, the SEC is Atlanta.

What may be interesting is if Wake receives a large payout from teams that exit (I would assume the amount paid to leave would be distributed amongst remaining teams). Wake's athletic budget could see a one-time infusion of $100MM+. Then, overtime, would see decreasing annual revenues.

Congratulations to Wake for dodging a bullet against Liberty when the latter decided to go for the win rather than a potential tie and overtime.

Additionally, congratulations to Appalachian State for their so-far outstanding performance.

I do understand that the Winston-Salem Journal serves Northwestern North Carolina. However, one wonders why the Journal gives way yonder more coverage to Appalachian State including page one today and before Wake in the sports section.

Or, is this my misplaced bias?

The Winston-Salem Journal serves Davenport, Iowa.

Thanks possum - come to think of it I should have realized.

App has gotten more coverage this year, but to be fair, App has been involved in the game of the week three weeks in a row and had ESPN on their campus this past weekend. App State also has a bigger alumni base than Wake, perhaps even in Winston. Finally, Winston is the nearest big city to Boone, and so the Journal gives them a lot of coverage to help sell papers in that area.

Towns on 421 have gotten a lot of coverage the past two weeks - Wilksboro with the re-opening of the speedway, and Boone with their football team. I'd love to see the Carolina Corridor stretch a bit further West! That would put Winston more in the middle of the action instead of the tail end.

Of course, I think everyone would agree, but for practical and other reasons this corridor should, nay must be an Interstate designation (minor shoulder upgrades most of the way) and would have to be (in keeping with AASHTO rules) I 477 from I 77 to I 40 and I 177 from I77 to North Wilkesboro then Boone though NCDOT is not noted for following AASHTO numbering rules in the W-S area. One ought not be optimistic in this minor upgrade because W-S and Forsyth officials have seemingly demonstrated reluctance to be involved or if they have been do not seem to have the wherewithal to succeed.

Congratulations to Wake football on today’s win! Oh, by the way, MASN network carried the game and indicated the game was being played at Truist Stadium, Charlotte. One reckons they thought the football game was being played in the baseball stadium in Charlotte. One supposes that MASN (that’s Mid-Atlantic Sports Network so should know better should they not?) just made an “honest” mistake or is just sloppy reporting making assumptions that others might tend to make? Reminds one of the guffaw made by the Today Show some years back during the Krispy Kreme hype by announcing to the nation that the secret recipe was held in a safe at the headquarters in “Atlanta” not Winston-Salem. Well, that was when Krispy Kreme was headquartered in Winston-Salem. Who knows where that recipe be now.

A regrettable loss, but this game was not even mentioned in the WSJ digital edition, but WSSU along with other ACC games were mentioned. What do I not understand about this? I know copy is approved in Iowā, but WSSU was mentioned. Did I somehow just not notice it?

Oh, it’s there. At least the Journal reported it!

I have a bigger beef with the Charlotte Observer.... there is a reason my former boss and mentor referred to it as the “Charlotte Disturber.” It did not bother to report on Wake’s previous three games, including the big win in Tallahassee against the Seminoles, but it could report on losses by NC State, or on games by Carolina or Duke, win or lose. I understand newspapers don’t employ writers these days. No wonder their daily issues are not worth the cost of purchase. I wrote a letter to the Observer, for what it’s worth, to lament the fact that Wake Forest is the closest ACC and major university in proximity to its home base, but it still, shamefully, does not give Wake Forest the credibility it deserves.

Go Demon Deacons!

If you are a Wake Forest fan, I encourage you to donate to Roll the Quad. This is an NIL program that is headed by "who's who" of boosters and notable alumni, including Don Flow, Ben Sutton and Mit Shah (co-owner of the Atlanta Hawks). This will allow student athletes to get paid (which puts $$$ back into the local economy), will allow Wake to recruit against teams like UNC, and will help keep their excellent football coach, Dave Clawson, and basketball coach, Steve Forbes, around by giving them the tools they need to succeed.

I'm glad to see Wake is getting behind this - those that don't support NIL will be left behind in athletics.

https://rollthequad.com/