ACC expansion, Qwikster, and spandex

Richmond won a Major Award that will (hopefully) increase our paltry spandex-per-capita numbers! Netflix did a thing and people said angry things on the internet about it! Again! All this in your Week in Review.

September 23, 2011; 11:26 AM • by Ross Catrow

Sunday

In what seems to be the final move in The Great Conference Realignment Saga of 2010/11, the ACC officially welcomed Syracuse and Pitt as new members. There have been a lot of changes to the college conference landscape in the last two years:

BYU became an independent
Colorado and Utah joined the Pac-12
TCU joined the Big East
Nebraska joined the Big Ten
Texas A&M joined the SEC (pending some lawsuits)
Pitt and Syracuse joined the ACC

And, the whole thing’s not over yet, either. The Big East will need to pick up some more members, and the future of the Big 12 is uncertain at best.

No one is quite sure when the new ACC members will begin regular season play (the Big East requires 27 months of notice before existing members can leave), or what the new divisions will look like. For Hokie fans, a “previous members of the Big East” division and an “old ACC members” division is not desirable.

Monday

Well, Netflix, you’ve really gone and fudged the bucket on this one.

In the very letter apologizing for the lack of communication leading up to the the recent price increases, Netflix CEO Reed Hasting announced they would be splitting Netflix in half and launching Qwikster. BAM, JUST LIKE THAT! The two services (Netflix for streaming, Qwikster for discs) will have separate websites, separate queues, and separate bills.

Wednesday

What started out as an incredible safe year for the eastern part of the City has started to slip: this week alone there have been three murders in East End’s housing projects. September, with five murders, is the second most violent month of the year so far, January had seven.

— ∮∮∮ —

We did it! We won a Major Award! Richmond won the bid to host the 2015 UCI World Road Cycling Championship. This is a pretty big deal and meshes nicely with Richmond hiring a new bicycling coordinator. Get your spandex ready–I’m wearing mine right now (under my clothes).