Hurtlocker

I was shocked when I read them, it was like "Hold up, these are bylaws, what circus clown wrote this?"

But meetings are what the Pac does best!

They're really only forgoing about $70-100m, that's what the AAC would pay them over that time. In return they get more exposure.

You mean besides hiring a big name friend as a coach who couldn't coach college and broke a lot of rules before they finally got rid of him for a solid amount of money, then slapped the penalties of his work on the kids who were trying to rebuild, irritating the players and the fanbase and making pariahs out of the president and AD?

I really don't give a fuck about SMU, but why wouldn't you do it. You only get paid $7m a year now, let's say you have a $20m buyout. So, for just shy of $100m you get to build excitement and place yourself in the upper two tiers of the haves for exposure and money going forward. Kind of a no brainer. What I can't get is why the ACC would do it. I can't imagine this makes FSU/Clemson/UNC want to stick around longer and the optics of them not wanting it and ND wanting it is going to sting

Insane is a good way of phrasing it, this can't be sustainable. SMU is taking no money AND hosting most of the Olympic events for Cal and Stanford. Crazy

every win in the NCAA tournament earns you a credit, the more your conference wins the more credits you get. They do it on like a 3 or 5 year swing I can't remember, then that is how the NCAA shares the revenue from the tourney, its not paid out on a single year. I think the B12 made the most last year with like $11m or something, but most of the big conferences are like $7-10m a year. So for the Pac, WSU and OSU are sitting on 3-5 years of credits from the NCAA which could pay out $20-30m

that's insane

This has become the most boring realignment storyline yet.

what a glorious ending

Same, I'd rather watch the Sunbelt than the Big Ten West.

ESPN pays two thirds and Fox pays a third, of what is probably around a half billion dollar contract at this point. Most of the top football properties go to the mouse and Fox picked up weekly basketball. And it was already turned to market. Without movement the B12 was closer to the $50-55m a year number, now they're closer to $30-35m. Their current contract is likely slightly undervalued due to 1) taking whatever you could in a terrible market. As the Pac showed, it was a bad time to ask for more and 2) as it reads in press releases, the B12 is getting a portion of the value returned in marketing. It cost them money, but it is a smart move in the long run. The SEC has the product on the field over the past decade, but 20 years ago they were helped greatly by CBS pumping tons of marketing into their brand on a weekly basis. The next contract, in 2031, will be reflective of how well they do in this new structure. There are two things at play here that may actually balance out each other. There is no doubt that Oklahoma and Texas have THE followings in the old Big 12, that's not really open for debate. So most other schools see a bump in viewership when they play them. However, outside winning, one of the things that grows audiences the fastest is where you play. Texas and Oklahoma utterly dominated the T1 programming slots for the B12. When people tried to do spreadsheets pulling out these games you found you couldn't really compare what was left. If the B12 was on ABC or Fox, 80% of the time it was a team playing Texas or Oklahoma. That's going to be a MAJOR change for the new B12. They have interest, for instance TCU/ISU drew over 4m this last year in a blow out, the CCG not featuring Texas nor Oklahoma was only 10% behind the B1G/SEC, but double the ACC/PAC. What ends up occuring when ESPN is not only featuring new teams on T1 outlets and marketing them more like the did the B1G when they had them is the wild card in all of this. If the new B12 can get some post season success with multiple teams and put together really competitive games on T1 match ups, they'll get a boost in the next contract. If they don't, they won't.

No, I can't think of a more terrible idea from the ACC. I had heard the first time they looked for expansion they talked about taking 8 Pac teams, THEN found out they'd already moved to the B12. I cannot imagine this passing over the objections of FSU/Clemson to favor ND going to end well for the ACC.

So let's: Remove any benefit from playing an FCS opponent, e.g. does not count as a win on the record Force the ACC/B1G/B12/SEC to play a minimum of 10 P4 games a season. allowing 2 regional FBS/G5 games Playing more than 10 either provides a bonus or provides a safety net as only your best 10 games are rated, with the other two being tie breakers. Not doing that bars you from participation in the CFP. Then everyone's resume would be at least slightly similar.

Remember though, ESPN isn't a part of the B1G media package. Pac After Dark is an ESPN construct. Fox could put late night games on FS1, or more likely BTN, but these slots are not THAT valuable, they're just more valuable to ESPN than airing bowling. Oregon/Indiana, prime time in Oregon, so late on the east coast, is a perfect BTN game and a good way to pay $30m a year. I doubt USC will play an evening west coast game, but will play a lot of prime-time east coast slots, e.g. 4:30 pt. The B12 is in bed with ESPN, so I'd expect a lot of filler 4C games to end up later, like Iowa State at ASU or Kansas at BYU or Utah. They don't have enough to fill them all, however, so the MWC will fill that niche very well with Oregon State and Washington State vs SDSU/Fresno/Boise. That could maybe even get some juice like Maction does on Tuesdays. If Stanford/Cal slide into that bed it just gets a bit better.

That's because the PACN is the only one that is a stand alone entity, so you see it like a corp filing. All revenue and all expenses, which inflates the Pac pay out numbers if a beat writer does revenue only. The networks never release their right agreements, outside grandiose full contract amounts. The details are kept secret as part of winning the deal. ACC Network is structured like the SEC Network. These are rights deals, but they have bonuses that can be achieved by increased viewership. The payout is included in their yearly releases, just all in, they don't break it out by tier. Both have a gigantic about of inventory on the channels, like nearly 50%. They probably account for a quarter to a third of revenue though. The B12's deal is a bit less on revenue, but higher on exposure; e.g. they gave up cash for marketing. They'll have more games on broadcast and less on what would go to a channel, in this case ESPN+. ESPN is about 2/3rds of their media deal revenue. Fox took less good football games, but added a lot of basketball. The B1G's used to have an ownership component that paid out differently, but back in the pandemic they controlling interest for cash. Then they put all of their rights into BTN until the mid 2030s and BTN now does their agreements. Which basically means Fox does their agreements. So they won't break out who pays what either, likely as part of the agreement. At the end of the day, the Ohio State and Alabama's of the world aren't going to be more powerful due to media revenues. The difference between the SEC and ACC in payouts, for Ohio State, for example, is like 10% of their full revenue. The real question is can the top end of the B12/ACC keep up with the middle of the pack of the B1G/SEC.

not sure if this showed up here... ACC expansion: Stanford and Cal (and SMU, really?) would add nothing to a proud conference

That's a total number

According to Delinger... Adding SMU/Cal/Stanford triggers a $24m T1 clause for the ACC, so $72m in revenue. - Stanford/Cal take 30% - SMU plays free for 7 years. + increased travel = ACC nets $30m more than today.

Yeah i mean, i get numbers don't add up, but their name is literally the Atlantic Coast!

This is the most likely hypothesis I've heard yet.

Someone needs to teach her how to make a fist

damnit, that's what I get for playing catch up.

That's about as many who go to most ACC games.

The ACC Network gets a bump with DFW and the Bay Area I guess, but its not THAT big of a bump. The ACC is paid about the same as the B12, so lets, for simplicity, call it $35m. If Stanford, Cal, Oregon State or WSU were worth $35m, why isn't ESPN putting them in the B12, since they just paid for that for the 4 corners? Clearly OSU/WSU are not on par and probably value out closer to $15m, which will help the MWC. If Calford IS worth $70m combined but turned down the B12, then you could make it make sense I guess, but only for a short period of time. At your 60-70%, that only amounts to $25m/year back to FSU/Clemson to split, but then they have to ship a fuck ton of other schools out to the west coast? I mean Washington mentioned $10m in increased travel to the B1G, but they'll be making $80+m in six years. Its all sunken money. They'd be better off saying, "you play in the playoffs you split 50% and the remaining 50% is split to non-participants." That would make Clemson/FSU waaaaay more money in the short and long run as the ACC will likely be making $100-150m a year from the post season going forward.