The UVA Football program turned a $21 million profit last year, largely because of ACC TV money – it certainly wasn’t the 22,000 empty seats, on average, for the six home games on the schedule.
The revenue-distribution model is changing this year, with 60 percent of the TV money being paid out based on how many people tune in to your games.
Clemson thinks the new model is going to boost its bottom line in the area of $20 million a year, and Florida State figures to be in that same ballpark.
This one is a zero-sum game – the more Clemson and FSU draw down, that means less for 5-7 teams relegated most weekends to ACC Network and The CW.
The breakdown of the new distribution model was made public this week by The Athletic, which obtained copies of the 68-page settlement agreement between the ACC, Clemson and FSU through public-records requests.
The agreement spells out that 40 percent of the league’s TV money will be split evenly between the member schools, with the remaining 60 percent being tied to TV-viewer numbers – 75 percent of that portion based on viewer numbers for football, 25 percent based on viewer numbers for men’s basketball.
We’re already doomed for 2025, even if Tony Elliott is able to turn the $30 million the money people invested in NIL for this year’s roster into an eight- or nine-win season, just based on what we know from the TV schedule.
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Virginia is on ACC Network with a 6 p.m. kickoff for the season opener with Coastal Carolina on Aug. 30, on ESPN2 at noon for the road opener at NC State on Sept. 6, back to ACC Network for a noon kickoff with William & Mary on Sept. 13, and looking out into October, there’s a 6:30 p.m. kickoff on The CW with Washington State.
The other game that we know the TV designation for at the moment is the Friday, Sept. 26 game with Florida State, which, being a Friday night, and being FSU, is set for the main ESPN.
Looking at the rest of the schedule, I don’t see a lot of room for optimism in terms of our TV options.
The Sept. 20 home game with Stanford gives off ACC Network with a 6 p.m. kickoff vibes, and the Oct. 4 game at Louisville just oozes The CW at 3 p.m.
Maybe Oct. 25 at UNC ends up on ESPN2 in primetime, but other than that, at Cal on Nov. 1, that one’s only on TV because it has to be, and Nov. 8 at home with Wake Forest and Nov. 15 at Duke are the tree falling in a forest with nobody there to hear it.
The TV interest in the season finale, Nov. 29 with Virginia Tech, might be, could one or both of the head coaches be gone at the end of the day?
The old adage with college sports is, football pays for everything else.
Even with the stupid money we’re throwing into football through NIL, I don’t see how it pays off for us in the end.
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Chris Graham
