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Jan
30
2025

ESPN picks opts-in to extend ACC Media Deal and what it might mean.

Thursday ESPN opted in to extend their media rights deal with the ACC. If you enjoy following random accounts on X, this may have surprised you. If you prefer to pay attention to actual observers of the ACC, we told you this would happen and why back in September of 2024. 

The real question is what does this actually mean? What does this mean for the future of the conference and its members?

From ESPN’s article on the topic  by David Hale and Andrea Adelson some key points.

After ESPN agreed to pick up the option, a decision the ACC board of directors voted to approve Wednesday, sources said the conference is working on additional “value adds,” which could include creating more marquee matchups in football and men’s basketball to maximize content on the networks that would help pave the way toward the new revenue distribution model and a settlement with Clemson and Florida State.

Multiple athletic directors told ESPN this could also involve using the ACC’s relationship with Notre Dame to strategically create more games against the conference’s top-tier teams. 

Under the proposed plan, a percentage of the ACC’s television revenue would be included in a “brand” fund, and that money would then be distributed to schools that annually generate the most revenue for the conference in football and men’s and women’s basketball — with Clemson, Florida State, Miami and North Carolina likely at the top of the pyramid, sources told ESPN.

Should that agreement be finalized — something sources said is not imminent but was closely tied to the ESPN option — Clemson and Florida State would be expected to drop their lawsuits.

The brand initiatives would also be accessible to any ACC school, though the biggest names would have a clear leg up

Here are a couple of take aways and questions.

First off we’ve been critical of Jim Phillips, but it’s time to give credit where it is due. He inherited a difficult financial situation, is fighting lawsuits from member schools, and a growing financial gap between the SEC and the Big 10. It appears he is on his way to putting together a scenario where the ACC will stabilize for at least 4 or 5 more years. This does not guarantee the ACC’s future beyond that, but that’s OK. In a college athletics world where 5 years is an eternity, who knows what the landscape will look like then.

I do not expect ACC schools to take much if any financial deductions to their future projected media revenue. I just can’t see ACC presidents agreeing to take substantial hits to their bottom line to appease the biggest brands. That said additional games with Notre Dame with the bigger ACC Football schools would be something ESPN may be willing pay to for, and that could create additional revenue for those ACC brands.

I think the metrics will be far for nuanced than School A gets X percentage of the revenue.

How those metrics will be calculated is the question, but considering Phillip and the ACC came up with a successful athletic revenue model, I’m expecting an agreed-upon uneven media revenue model.

Conferences weren’t ready for uneven revenue models 15 years ago, as the Big 12 epically failed with their model back then. When the Big 10 is now entertaining private equity it’s only a matter of time before every big brand is asking for a bigger piece of their conference pies. The ACC just might just be the first this go around.

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