Kickoff for the 2025 ACC Championship Game is in the 8 p.m. ET quarter-hour Saturday night, but Duke has already been whistled for a pass interference, two illegal shifts, a rather questionable targeting, and the game hasn’t even started yet.
And Virginia, man, you know they’re going to be getting away with everything.
Seriously, we’re all going to be watching every 50/50 play with an eye on, was that a Kansas City Chiefs call that we just saw there?
ICYMI
- ACC Football: What happens if our champ doesn’t get a CFP berth?
- How UVA fans can do a fun basketball-football doubleheader in Charlotte
- UVA Football: How much can we glean from the ‘Hoos 34-17 win at Duke? Probably not much
The assumption is, the ACC loses out big in terms of money if we get shut out of the College Football Playoff, but in reality, not so much.
The CFP payout is $4 million per team that gets a bid, plus the participating program gets $3 million to cover expenses.
Incidentally, no way should it cost $3 million to play a playoff game.
Looking at past years’ budgets, it costs Virginia about $1.7 million to go on the road for a game.
Let the fatcats pay their own way.
I digress.
It’s looking like we’re a one-bid conference, so, that’s $4 million guaranteed, to be divided among the 17 member schools.
If we’re able to sneak Miami in as an at-large, which is possible, but not likely, at the moment, that’s $8 million guaranteed.
There’s also $4 million for a first-round win, $6 million for a quarterfinal win, and $6 million more for a semifinal win.
So, if we get Virginia and Miami in and go 0-2, the ACC gets $8 million, divided amongst the members via the new revenue-distribution formula – 40 percent an equal share, the other 60 percent based on performance, not on-field performance, but TV ratings.
Yeah, that’s dumb – Florida State stands to get a bigger share than Virginia if Virginia gets a CFP bid, because FSU played Alabama and Miami in front of bigger TV audiences than Virginia had for being Virginia, and not a brand name.
Because the conference roster is so bloated, we’ll have to get a team into the semifinals to get over a million per school at the end of it all.
March Madness is still far more lucrative to the member schools – the ACC, for instance, for the 2025 NCAA Tournament, in which we only had four bids, with Duke getting to the Final Four, paid out $18 million to the ACC, right at a million per school.
What I can’t figure out is, ESPN is paying $1.3 billion a year for the rights to the CFP, which involves 12 teams from five or at most six conferences, and CBS is paying $1.1 billion a year for rights to March Madness, which involves 68 teams from 32 conferences.
Oh, yeah, that’s right – we all agreed to give most of the money from the CFP to the SEC and Big Ten.
Because the conferences that aren’t the SEC and Big Ten are run by morons.
Support AFP
Share
Chris Graham
