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Adam Goldman, Owner FranchiseCoach.net
Email: agoldman@franchisecoach.net
DM: @FranchiseCoach
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Obviously, conference realignment has been a dominating conversation over the past week, with Texas and Oklahoma on Friday formally accepting an invitation to join the SEC, officially in 2025 but realistically much sooner than that.
From talking with insiders and sources familiar with the college athletics landscape, here are some of our best thoughts and guesses of the current situation.
• The ACC’s future is obviously tied in with Notre Dame. There is not a fear of anyone being poached away from the conference at the moment, but that could change if the concept of grant of rights were to be successfully challenged in court.
The one school that has long been suspected of potentially being tempted would be Florida State. We had a source tell us years ago that FSU seemed to perennially be complaining about something in the ACC. This week, outgoing Florida State president John Thrasher had some interesting comments this week in the Tallahassee Democrat:
"I just want us to be prepared..." Thrasher said.
"My point to (FSU director of athletics) David Coburn and to (new ACC commissioner) Jim Phillips is I don't want Florida State to be left behind. I consider us as part of the ACC, but I also know that we have a marquee name, Clemson has a marquee name. I think there might be people coming after us, I don't know, but we've got to be prepared no matter what the options are."
• That said, there is a feeling that the ACC conference membership is strong, but a wide acknowledgment that its financial is not strong enough, especially a hand-cuffing TV rights deal, one of several blunders by former ACC commissioner John Swofford when it came to media deals (the long dragging of feet to get a linear network being the most notable).
The only way to fix that before it’s too late is to add Notre Dame. One insider told us that ultimately it may be 50-50 in the final analysis, when all the dust has cleared, that Notre Dame would join the ACC, but that same insider added that it’s “100 percent” that the Irish will be the last to make a move.
Hence it will do everything it can to hold onto its independence.
• One potential roadblock for Notre Dame and its independence, the level of distrust towards the SEC after this latest move. Already reports are that the momentum for what will inevitably be college football playoffs expansion has slowed as other conferences want a fresh look at a deal that may now be too favorable to the SEC.
Why does that impact Notre Dame? Because the set-up for the new playoffs seemingly secured Notre Dame’s independence for a good while. Probably not coincidentally Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick was on the working committee that crafted the new format.
If there are changes and modifications to the playoffs' expansion, would they be less favorable to Notre Dame? Financially, Notre Dame is not hurt by not being in a conference. Its payout from media deals in 2019-20 was about $26 million, a little over $6 million less than it would have received had it been in the ACC. The gap would need to be larger for that to matter.
Thus accessibility to the playoffs may be the bigger immediate issue.
Adam Goldman, Owner FranchiseCoach.net
Email: agoldman@franchisecoach.net
DM: @FranchiseCoach
•••
Obviously, conference realignment has been a dominating conversation over the past week, with Texas and Oklahoma on Friday formally accepting an invitation to join the SEC, officially in 2025 but realistically much sooner than that.
From talking with insiders and sources familiar with the college athletics landscape, here are some of our best thoughts and guesses of the current situation.
• The ACC’s future is obviously tied in with Notre Dame. There is not a fear of anyone being poached away from the conference at the moment, but that could change if the concept of grant of rights were to be successfully challenged in court.
The one school that has long been suspected of potentially being tempted would be Florida State. We had a source tell us years ago that FSU seemed to perennially be complaining about something in the ACC. This week, outgoing Florida State president John Thrasher had some interesting comments this week in the Tallahassee Democrat:
"I just want us to be prepared..." Thrasher said.
"My point to (FSU director of athletics) David Coburn and to (new ACC commissioner) Jim Phillips is I don't want Florida State to be left behind. I consider us as part of the ACC, but I also know that we have a marquee name, Clemson has a marquee name. I think there might be people coming after us, I don't know, but we've got to be prepared no matter what the options are."
• That said, there is a feeling that the ACC conference membership is strong, but a wide acknowledgment that its financial is not strong enough, especially a hand-cuffing TV rights deal, one of several blunders by former ACC commissioner John Swofford when it came to media deals (the long dragging of feet to get a linear network being the most notable).
The only way to fix that before it’s too late is to add Notre Dame. One insider told us that ultimately it may be 50-50 in the final analysis, when all the dust has cleared, that Notre Dame would join the ACC, but that same insider added that it’s “100 percent” that the Irish will be the last to make a move.
Hence it will do everything it can to hold onto its independence.
• One potential roadblock for Notre Dame and its independence, the level of distrust towards the SEC after this latest move. Already reports are that the momentum for what will inevitably be college football playoffs expansion has slowed as other conferences want a fresh look at a deal that may now be too favorable to the SEC.
Why does that impact Notre Dame? Because the set-up for the new playoffs seemingly secured Notre Dame’s independence for a good while. Probably not coincidentally Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick was on the working committee that crafted the new format.
If there are changes and modifications to the playoffs' expansion, would they be less favorable to Notre Dame? Financially, Notre Dame is not hurt by not being in a conference. Its payout from media deals in 2019-20 was about $26 million, a little over $6 million less than it would have received had it been in the ACC. The gap would need to be larger for that to matter.
Thus accessibility to the playoffs may be the bigger immediate issue.
