The ACC Network is being described as “imminent” from Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel. Remember those expansion era bloggers writing about done deals and imminent realignment movements? The word imminent carries a little more weight from a Senior Writer at Sports Illustrated.
In an article previewing the Big 12 Springs Meetings, Thamel has a couple of notable blurbs about the ACC Network. By the way the article is a good read on the issues facing the Big 12.
Between the Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC, the Big 12 could be viewed as the most vulnerable in its current state.With only ten teams, the Big 12 is the smallest league, the only one without a championship game and is one of two Power 5 leagues lacking a cable television network. (The ACC also lacks a network, but is expected to iron out the remaining issues and announce a network deal with ESPN that could be considered the model for future television deals in the cord-cutting era.)
Later he goes on to say…
The Pac-12 Network’s struggles have shown that just having a network doesn’t guarantee success, as broadcasting has entered an era of stiffer distribution resistance. The counter-argument is the ACC’s imminent deal. The Big 12’s biggest problem—outside of its Longhorn Network albatross—is that it lacks leverage. ESPN owns all of the ACC’s content, so there’s a distinct incentive to create an outlet for it.
Take Thamel’s words for what they are worth, but you can add him to the growing list of credible media members from the Daily Press’s David Teel, to Fox/Raycom’s Tim Brando firmly saying that an ACC Network deal with ESPN is very close to happening.
By the way if you haven’t read David Teel’s recent article on the ACC’s Financials, you should. The ACC wouldn’t spend over $600K on a television media consultant group for nothing.
Relevant wews on the ACC Network seems to come out on a nearly weekly basis now, and we’ll try to keep our readers informed.
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4 pings
Hokie Mark says:
June 1, 2016 at 9:48 pm (UTC -5)
Good stuff!
Dan Allen says:
June 2, 2016 at 10:19 am (UTC -5)
“ESPN owns all of the ACC’s content, so there’s a distinct incentive to create an outlet for it.”
Isn’t this logic backward?
Leverage is when you can threaten to go elsewhere. ESPN already owns the ACC, so what is the incentive for an outlet?
Jfann says:
June 2, 2016 at 10:24 am (UTC -5)
No it doesn’t have to be…
It’s called re-branding. Just because ESPN owns the rights, doesn’t mean they can’t re-brand and sell it in a different way that is more profitable. That’s exactly what they did with SEC content that had to be bought back.
Hokie Mark says:
June 3, 2016 at 1:53 pm (UTC -5)
I assume the point was ESPN has more ACC content than they can sell without a network to show it on…