What’s next for the conferences? And where does Dr. Jim fit into the equation?

[Pete Purple]

We’ve (I’ve) been listening to SIRIUSXM radio for almost a week now, and not hearing much (bc no one knows much) about next steps, predicting additional announcements, and who knew what when. Basically SEC, SEC, SEC. Maybe Clemson and/or Kansas could end up in the B1G. Iowa State? Who really knows. My only hope is that college fb needs to end up with some structure that “makes sense” and that’s difficult to see right now. I guess I’ll toss out one main Q to get things going.

What are Dr. Jim Phillip’s primary goals w/ the ACC, and the rest of NCAA football given recent announcements? Did he have advance knowledge and do you think he has some plans/announcements that might be good for the game, the ACC or the B1G? Or are we in the middle of an uncontrollable shit show? Or am I not being optimistic, and seeing the upside?

 

[curdog]

We’ve (I’ve) been listening to SIRIUSXM radio for almost a week now, and not hearing much (bc no one knows much) about next steps, predicting additional announcements, and who knew what when. Basically SEC, SEC, SEC. Maybe Clemson and/or Kansas could end up in the B1G. Iowa State? Who really knows. My only hope is that college fb needs to end up with some structure that “makes sense” and that’s difficult to see right now. I guess I’ll toss out one main Q to get things going.

What are Dr. Jim Phillip’s primary goals w/ the ACC, and the rest of NCAA football given recent announcements? Did he have advance knowledge and do you think he has some plans/announcements that might be good for the game, the ACC or the B1G? Or are we in the middle of an uncontrollable shit show? Or am I not being optimistic, and seeing the upside?

Dr. Jim was dealt a bad hand (one he was aware of when he accepted the job as ACC commish. His only real option is to somehow convince ND to become a full member of the ACC. That would allow him to go to ESPN and renegotiate the horrendous TV deal that former commish Swofford agreed to.

Let’s just assume for arguments sake the BIG signs a new media rights deal in 2025 that ups each schools payout to $62mm annually. ACC schools are expected to aversge $32mm annually. That’s $300 million more for each BIG school compared to ACC school over the 10 year period. That is not sustainable and several ACC schools will be looking around over the next few years. It will be interesting to see how OU/TX negotiate their way out of the Big 12’s GOR deal.

 

[curdog]

Dr. Jim was dealt a bad hand (one he was aware of when he accepted the job as ACC commish. His only real option is to somehow convince ND to become a full member of the ACC. That would allow him to go to ESPN and renegotiate the horrendous TV deal that former commish Swofford agreed to.

Let’s just assume for arguments sake the BIG signs a new media rights deal in 2025 that ups each schools payout to $62mm annually. ACC schools are expected to aversge $32mm annually. That’s $300 million more for each BIG school compared to ACC school over the 10 year period. That is not sustainable and several ACC schools will be looking around over the next few years. It will be interesting to see how OU/TX negotiate their way out of the Big 12’s GOR deal.

Addendum ACC GOR deal goes through 2036.

 

[zeek55]

We’ve (I’ve) been listening to SIRIUSXM radio for almost a week now, and not hearing much (bc no one knows much) about next steps, predicting additional announcements, and who knew what when. Basically SEC, SEC, SEC. Maybe Clemson and/or Kansas could end up in the B1G. Iowa State? Who really knows. My only hope is that college fb needs to end up with some structure that “makes sense” and that’s difficult to see right now. I guess I’ll toss out one main Q to get things going.

What are Dr. Jim Phillip’s primary goals w/ the ACC, and the rest of NCAA football given recent announcements? Did he have advance knowledge and do you think he has some plans/announcements that might be good for the game, the ACC or the B1G? Or are we in the middle of an uncontrollable shit show? Or am I not being optimistic, and seeing the upside?

Yeah what @curdog says is correct. ACC is in the worst spot right now of the majors and likely to face a significant raid from the Big Ten and SEC around 2031-2032.

Hard to see how he can prevent that short of dramatically expanding their media rights values (and the only school that enables them to reopen their media deal is ND).

We're in the middle of an uncontrollable shit show but the Big Ten is best positioned other than the SEC.

Unless the commish and presidents screw up expansion in the next round, we should see the Big Ten reach 16-20 schools.

 

[High Hopes Cat]

Yeah what @curdog says is correct. ACC is in the worst spot right now of the majors and likely to face a significant raid from the Big Ten and SEC around 2031-2032.

Hard to see how he can prevent that short of dramatically expanding their media rights values (and the only school that enables them to reopen their media deal is ND).

We're in the middle of an uncontrollable shit show but the Big Ten is best positioned other than the SEC.

Unless the commish and presidents screw up expansion in the next round, we should see the Big Ten reach 16-20 schools.

Curious on the ACC tv payments.

Why do they have such a bad situation? Did they sign a horrible deal or not have leverage in the last round of negotiations for some reason? Or is there a reason they are disadvantaged in terms of tv relative to the other P5 conferences?

Basically - is this a structural issue (in which case they probably get poached in time) or can they likely close the gap in future negotiations (so they take a big hit for a while but can maybe hold things together)?

 

[NUCat320]

Curious on the ACC tv payments.

Why do they have such a bad situation? Did they sign a horrible deal or not have leverage in the last round of negotiations for some reason? Or is there a reason they are disadvantaged in terms of tv relative to the other P5 conferences?

Basically - is this a structural issue (in which case they probably get poached in time) or can they likely close the gap in future negotiations (so they take a big hit for a while but can maybe hold things together)?

I think it’s because the ACC is pretty bad at football.

 

[zeek55]

Curious on the ACC tv payments.

Why do they have such a bad situation? Did they sign a horrible deal or not have leverage in the last round of negotiations for some reason? Or is there a reason they are disadvantaged in terms of tv relative to the other P5 conferences?

Basically - is this a structural issue (in which case they probably get poached in time) or can they likely close the gap in future negotiations (so they take a big hit for a while but can maybe hold things together)?

There's several problems with the ACC compared to the SEC and Big Ten.

SEC and Big Ten schools are much larger on average, fill much bigger stadiums/markets, and are typically much larger public institutions with broad followings among non-alums in their states. That gives a lot more eyeballs on those programs. It's not just about football on the field, it's about followings and the size of those followings.

The ACC has a lot of programs that simply don't pull their own weight or are significantly smaller than the average Big Ten program or don't dominate their states or too many share markets/states with other programs in the ACC or Big Ten or SEC.


And that's led to the separation in TV contracts; SEC and Big Ten TV contracts are much larger (and will grow significantly larger the next 3-4 years) as a result of those factors above.

Swofford the previous commissioner of the ACC realized that and negotiated a long-term contract through 2036 with a Grant of Rights to lock in all the members and try to get the ACC Network off the ground. The problem is that they're getting $32-35 million per school for the next 15 years with minimal chance to really expand that number.

The SEC is going to be getting around $80 million a year after adding Texas/OU; the Big Ten should be around $65-70 million per year.

The difference is mostly just eyeballs on TV; program size/alumni size/school size/market size/market reach+pull that the schools have.

If Swofford hadn't made the contract so long, Phillips might be presiding over the same mess that the Big 12 has. It's basically a double edged sword that contract right now; keeping everyone together while making FSU/Clemson and possibly UNC/UVa/etc. more likely to jump in 2031-2032.

Unless something happens like 3-4 ACC programs becoming national title contenders every year (and soon) or ND joining their conference in full and forcing some kind of upward jump in their TV deal, they're basically just dead in the water until their programs get poached in 2031-2032.