I’m still a fan of Chip Kelly’s idea to put all former Power 5 schools (I think 64?) into one Football league, with one TV/media/streaming contract. That makes sense in so many ways…not competing against each other for media deals, divisions by geography, gets rid of overhead costs of these expensive conference administrators and offices, and more things I am sure I haven’t thought about.
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And then there are Texas and ND, who wouldn’t like that at all.
Why wouldn’t Texas like it?
ND’s current FB media deal with NBC, paying $22M per year, runs out in 2025. They would make more if they joined the Big10. They get another $11M from the ACC for their other sports…still would make more money with the Big10 all combined.
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Mike Silver reporting that SMU, Stanford, Cal may be joining ACC only for football, M/W basketball.
What. I thought the other sports were so important ……
For those that don’t know, Mike Silver is a Cal alum and a huge Cal booster.
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Wait, what? That makes no sense. I thought soccer, gymnastics, volleyball, field hockey, LAX, track & field, tennis, golf, swimming and diving, etc. don’t matter and no one cares. 
Only if there’s a monetary aspect - like none.
Truth is, we heard similar last week and it didn’t happen.
If the rumors are true and we don’t know that they are - the ACC is - hmmmm - coming off as very desperate. SMU I get - but not the others.
Stewart Mandel of The Athletic responded in the comments section regarding the report that “Cal, Stanford and SMU are in the process of finalizing a deal to join the ACC in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball” only is inaccurate.
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Besides the academic prestige, according to Stewart Mandel’s article:
So, under the ACC’s contract with ESPN, the ACC will receive an extra $30 million or so per NEWLY ADDED school, which they don’t have to share (at least not fully) with the newcomers.
Desperate? Maybe, but it looks like the only way to keep certain current ACC member schools happy with a new revenue spike the ACC desperately needs.
And this new revenue doesn’t include a likely gain in ACC Network subscriber fees in San Francisco and Dallas.
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Espn also gets more money from ACCnetwork carriage fees by having a team in-state. Not only CA, but Texas. I believe the league gets a piece of that extra income.
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Right - but the key is how the existing ACC teams will agree to divide and distribute that new money. Until the last 48 hrs or so, it has been thought, per Ross Dellenger, that the rest of the ACC outside FSU/Clem/UNC wouldn’t agree to anything other than a straight proportional distribution of this new ESPN money. Assuming small partial shares for Stan/Cal and nothing for SMU, there would be around $2M per school to offset the higher travel costs, and then an extra $2-3M per school in actual unallocated revenue. This amount wasn’t expected to be sufficient to satisfy FSU et al., who perceive that they are falling $30+M behind the SEC - but there was real resistance to the idea of allowing these big brands to take a disproportionate share, since everyone knows they are planning to leave the league at the first opportunity anyway. Why give away money in an effort to appease someone who can’t be appeased?
Now, however, it sounds like there is momentum behind the idea of putting most of the non-travel-designated money into a pool that will be awarded based on performance. So there’s incentive for FSU and Clemson to approve, since (a) the TV money that has fueled this round of B1G realignment seems to have dried up for now anyway, and (b) at least there’s a pathway to earn significantly more money while they wait on the next round of realignment in the 2030-31 timeframe.
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FSU is right about that!
Here’s some background on that: https://www.si.com/college/westvirginia/big-12/is-the-acc-on-the-brink-of-falling-apart
This part from the above article cracks me up. Magnificent 7 indeed.
Monday afternoon Brett McMurphy of the Action Network confirmed Dellenger’s report that Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia, and Virginia Tech have tabbed themselves as “The Magnificent 7” ACC schools.
Makes sense.
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That is funny. Two of those programs are really just tagging along hoping that their state legislatures won’t let their bigger siblings drop them at the curb.
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How so?
They’ve been a doormat since joining and have added little to nothing to the conference. They’re lucky anybody even said, “hello.”
Their natural place is in the old Big 8 with Nebraska and Oklahoma. The latter went their separate ways years ago, but the B12 is a good place for Colorado to try and rebuild something resembling a competitive football program.
They don’t. At. all.
If football is the driver, and it is, 3 of those 7 - Miami, FSU and Clemson - bring a ton of football prestige and history. Miami has 5 titles, is within an eyelash of having 7, and is about to tie and surpass Buck for schools with most players in the Pro FB HOF. FSU finished in the top 5 an astonishing 14 years in a row and were a model of elite consistency. Miami and FSU are always just a coach away from being a bully again.
I suppose if you are the Magnificent Seven then you have to travel to the Wild West…