Go west, young man, was the call underpinning the concept of manifest destiny in the 19th century, which is why the country stretches from coast to coast – at the expense, yes, of Mexico, Natives.
People lived in the places that we considered our destiny; displacement became their destiny.
The ACC expanded westward ahead of the 2024-2025 academic sports year, adding schools from Texas (SMU) and California (Cal and Stanford).
Nobody else wanted SMU, Cal or Stanford, so, it’s not like we stole anything from anybody here.
The casualty to the move: the A in ACC stands for Atlantic, so, maybe need to rethink that one.
The benefit: the first year of the coast-to-coast Atlantic (ahem) Coast Conference was like printing money.
A report from WRAL News has it that the ACC saw its revenues increase $115.2 million in its first full year with SMU, Cal and Stanford in the league, to $826.5 million.
The bulk of the bonanza came from TV: ACC TV revenue increased from $487 million to $588.8 million, so, $101.8 million.
That came about primarily because of the ACC Network, a joint venture between the conference and ESPN, being able to charge higher subscriber rates in Texas and California with schools in the league now in those TV markets.
Expansion has led to scheduling nightmares, particularly with the Left Coast schools, but it’s paying off.
The ACC was able to distribute a record $736.6 million to its 18 member schools in the 2024-2025 academic sports year, which is still not at the level that the SEC and Big Ten pay out to their schools – each distributed more than $1 billion total to their schools in the 2024-2025 academic sports year.
But, hey, the gap isn’t nearly as big as it looked like it was going to be when the SEC and Big Ten signed their new TV deals a couple of years ago.
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Chris Graham
