The ACC is making more than ever but still not enough.

Today’s column on the Warriors winning another NBA championship has been postponed because LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, with 41 points apiece, were both money for the Cleveland Cavaliers. So, while we wait for Game Six Thursday, let’s talk about some real money – what the ACC made in the 2014-15 fiscal year.

According to tax returns, the ACC made more than $400 million last year, the highest in its history, and distributed more than $26 million each to its 14 full member schools. That’s the good news. The bad news is the ACC was fourth among the so-called Power Five conferences, ahead of only the 10-school Big 12. The SEC, Big Ten and Pac 12 all made more money and dispersed more per school than the ACC, about $8 million more. And it would have been closer to $10 million had the ACC not received a one-time payment of $32 million from Maryland, when it bolted to the Big Ten.

Now, all this seems like Monopoly money, but it’s still a serious handicap when ACC members are forced to operate with significantly less revenue than the SEC, Big Ten and Pac 12 schools, which all have their own cable television networks while the ACC is still trying to figure out how to get more money and exposure from its ESPN contract that runs another 10 years. Olympic sports are paying the price.

What does 10 million more dollars buy you today? Higher salaries for coaches, bigger recruiting budgets, more elaborate and efficient team travel arrangements and maybe some capital improvements for Olympic sports programs. And the TV networks of the SEC, Big Ten and Pac 12 do something else besides produce more money. They put their teams on the tube more than the ACC.

UNC’s Olympic sports are amazing, when you consider Tar Heel teams are perennial contenders for national titles, like the two won in lacrosse this year. They recruit against schools from other leagues whose teams play more times on TV. That is a considerable recruiting DIS-advantage that no one thought about when all these plans were being made. But it’s real and why the ACC’s 400 million still isn’t enough.

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