ACC athletics directors met on Friday via Zoom to talk through the USC/UCLA-to-the-B1G news that seemingly has everyone in the college sports business in a lather.
Reporting in The Athletic put to rest, for now, at least, the notion on fan message boards that the ADs at ACC schools are in full panic mode.
“Commissioner Jim Phillips presented a strong, positive front, the AD said, as he reminded all of the strength and stability of the league relative to every other conference outside of the Big Ten and SEC, and as he stressed the stability that the league’s Grant of Rights provides,” staff writers Matt Fortuna and Andy Staples wrote.
The discussion included what would seem to be all of the key options on the table: expansion, alignment with the Big 12 and Pac-12, making another run at getting Notre Dame to become a full football member, even leaving things where they are.
The report in The Athletic described the meeting as “business as usual,” which would seem to signal that, despite what you’re reading online and hearing on sports radio, nobody among the membership is throwing out a lifeline to the Big Ten or SEC, not yet, anyway.
A key to that is the grants of media rights, which the average message board poster seems to think is something that can just be ignored, but sports law experts seem to think would lead to a tough, lengthy and thus expensive legal battle that, in the end, may not end with a member school or group of schools coming out on top.
Those grants of media rights extend all the way out to 2036, an eternity in today’s media landscape, though they would be revisited if the league were to vote to expand, since everyone would to again sign off on the agreement if a new school or schools were to be added to the league roster.
In that scenario, it’s not hard to imagine that member schools could demand a shorter duration for the grants of media rights, giving them more flexibility if the sports media landscape were to change yet again, and giving the league leverage with respect to ESPN, the TV rights holder through 2036, because of the 20-year TV deal that the league signed with ESPN back in 2016.
Another item that could be on the table for the ACC could be the current revenue-sharing agreement. It’s possible that members could decide to change the formula for conference revenue distributions to better reward on-field and on-court success, basically going with an incentive system that one would think would make everyone want to be more competitive across the board.
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Chris Graham
