Has the grant of rights spelled doom for the ACC?
UNC’s John Swofford was considered a great commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference. He followed Gene Corrigan’s brilliant move of bringing Florida State into the conference to bolster its football reputation, and the Seminoles did so by dominating the league and winning national championships that forced other programs to get better to keep pace.
Swofford also entered the expansion fray by poaching Miami, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Boston College and Louisville from the old Big East to grow the ACC to 14 members. Then he convinced Notre Dame to come in as the 15th school in all sports except football, while the Irish agreed to play five ACC teams each fall.
However, one negotiation Swofford engineered for good reason may have done irreparable damage to the ACC. He got each school to sign a so-called grant of media rights back to the conference if it left for another league to assure members could not afford to bolt to the SEC or Big Ten. Those two leagues are expanding wildly and are to the point of annually distributing $100 million to each school by 2029. The last ACC distribution was for $34 million.
Those grants of rights are signed through 2036, and the recent blockbuster moves by UCLA and USC joining the Big Ten after Texas and Oklahoma announced they were moving to the SEC could leave the ACC facing possible financial ruin.
Each ACC school is likely huddling to make contingency plans for the future, which could mean Clemson and FSU finding a way to bolt for the SEC and other members winding up in the Big Ten.
Two such super conferences are reportedly looking to have 20 to 40 members each and serve as de facto minor leagues for the NFL and maybe the NBA.
Those of us who still remember the original eight-school ACC shudder of what could become of college athletics in general. But when it was clear that money determined how successful college programs would be in the long run, we’ve gotten used to all the restructuring.
The only way for the ACC to survive as a true Power 5 Conference might be to reorganize under a different name and thus nullify the grants of rights and renegotiate ESPN contracts that run for another 14 years.
John Swofford had a dream to build the ACC we knew and loved and to save it. Now that dream could be turning into a nightmare.
Featured image via Atlantic Coast Conference
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