Can the Atlantic Coast Conference afford to stay together?
The numbers were staggering when released this week. The Big Ten conference will distribute more than $50 million per school in 2018, and that figure will likely go up in years to come. The SEC, thanks to its own network owned by ESPN, will pass through more than $45 million per member.
By contrast, the ACC is expected to distribute about $25 million per school for 2017-18 and is banking on a full launch of the ACC Network in 2019 to up that amount in the future. Good luck with that, since we’re not even sure what the ACC Network will look like, and good luck keeping the ACC whole when the inevitable next round of conference realignment comes.
Now you can say that the ACC has won six national championships in football and men’s basketball over the last six years compared to only one for the Big Ten. And you can argue that money doesn’t really matter that much. But, yes it does, unless the NCAA or the government can somehow legislate a way to curb college athletic spending.
The $25 million more each Big Ten school gets can go toward recruiting, coaches salaries and facilities upgrades – all crucial in putting the best athletes and teams on the fields and courts. Sooner or later, and it already happened when Maryland bolted the ACC for the Big Ten, the power schools in the power five will be forced to make more money to stay competitive.
And another conference realignment is coming, you can bet on it. With football being the driver because the playoffs are not under the control of the NCAA, there is more money to be made from televising that sport’s Final Four and national championship game, and even more if they expand the playoff format. And if your football program isn’t making money, you will have a hard time increasing the budget and then balancing it.
In sports, politics and life lately, we have witnessed things we never thought possible. So don’t count out the day when the biggest ACC schools will be wooed by the Big Ten and SEC for twice the money they make in athletics right now.
Don’t worry, UNC and Duke will still play basketball twice every year, even if they wind up in different conferences. That’s the Blue Blood rivalry, worth millions on its own. But nothing else in college athletics is sacred or immune to the almighty dollar.
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