The ACC Tournament is "Bout That (New York) Life"

Somehow this slipped under the radar yesterday: the ACC men's and women's basketball tournaments will have its first official title sponsor starting in 2015. New York Life, a sponsor befitting of New York's College Team's New York College Conference, will be adding their name atop the storied tournament from 2015 through 2017. Those tournaments will take place in Greensboro, Washington D.C. and Brooklyn, respectively.

As is typical with this level of sponsorship, New York Life gets themselves a whole bunch of airtime on ACC hoops telecasts. So if you weren't familiar with their branding or logo or anything like that, well... you're going to be very soon.

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It's pretty obvious why ESPN and the ACC went this direction for the network's top postseason tournament property. For one, NEW YORK. And yeah, that's the main reason. Chances are they would have said no to any New York-based business that didn't have "New York" in the name, since #BRAND. That's not a bad thing. It's obvious that the ACC and Big Ten are going to be fighting over the distinction of being the City's conference for years, even if neither of them really are. So might as well just accept it and move on.

But seriously, expect the Big Ten to announce something similar within days, because that's how Jim Delany operates. In the meantime: