Big UVa-UNC Clash On ACC Network Prelude For Disney-Comcast Showdown
By David Glenn
When Virginia visits No. 21 North Carolina on Saturday night, the stakes will be relatively high, on and off the field.
Most of the usual gridiron-related storylines already are in place. The Cavaliers, for example, have gone from losing seven straight games (2010-16) to the Tar Heels to winning four consecutive head-to-head matchups (2017-20).
Nevertheless, 1-1 UNC is a nine-point favorite over the unranked, visiting 2-0 Wahoos. Since Kenan Stadium will provide the venue, the Las Vegas wise guys certainly know that the Cavaliers haven’t won a road game against a Top 25 opponent in about a decade. Then coached by Mike London, the Cavs beat a nationally ranked Florida State team in Tallahassee way back in 2011, when Jimbo Fisher was in his second season as the Seminoles’ head coach.
As fellow members of the ACC’s Coastal Division, both the Cavaliers and the Tar Heels believe they’re good enough to win the division and play in Charlotte for the ACC championship this season. Both sides are well aware of “Coastal Chaos,” as symbolized by the recent, wild, seven-year stretch (2013-19) in which each of the seven Coastal members took a single turn in the title game. Under Larry Fedora, the Heels lost to Clemson there in 2015. Bronco Mendenhall and the Cavs took their turn in 2019.
Here in 2021, while Duke and Georgia Tech appear vulnerable, the other five Coastal teams all legitimately think they can win the division. UNC and Miami remain nationally ranked despite Week One defeats, while Pittsburgh, UVa and Virginia Tech all have looked pretty solid while starting the season 2-0.
The fact that the UVa-UNC television broadcast will be exclusively on the ACC Network probably doesn’t matter much, if at all, to the overwhelming majority of North Carolinians. The dominant cable company here, Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable), both heavyweight satellite companies (DirectTV and Dish TV) and a variety of fiber/internet-TV companies all have carried the ACC Network since its launch (Aug. 22, 2019) or soon afterward.
However, a huge percentage of UVa/ACC fans in Virginia and many other places won’t be able to watch the game while enjoying the comforts of home. Perhaps they will find it at a friend’s house, or at a bar or restaurant with a different TV package, but millions of Comcast/xFinity cable subscribers are now more than two years into their blackout (see chart), even at a time when almost every other major TV carrier does offer the ACC Network.
So how does this affect UNC?
Well, in the bigger picture, regardless of what happens in the game on Saturday night, Carolina and its fellow ACC members desperately need to find ways to increase their individual and collective revenue sources, because on money matters they’ve fallen way behind the Big Ten and SEC especially. With that in mind, getting an ACC Network carriage deal done with Comcast/xFinity would be another significant step in the right direction.
Even in the age of cord-cutting and cord-shaving, Comcast/xFinity remains an absolute behemoth in the sports, media and internet/broadband worlds, with more than 31 million internet/broadband subscribers and more than 19 million pay-TV subscribers. Both numbers certify the company as an Alabama football-style juggernaut.
Comcast/xFinity has a particularly impactful presence in the ACC footprint, with millions of customers in Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia, in particular. For the past two years, the company’s customers have had access to the Big Ten Network and the SEC Network, highly successful conference-specific channels that have played huge roles in those leagues’ stunning financial surges, but not to the ACC Network. Seems odd, right?
Fortunately for the ACC, here is where it all ties together, and where a success story likely is imminent.
Like the SEC Network, the ACC Network is owned by ESPN, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company. (Disney/ESPN actually own 80 percent of both, with Hearst Communications owning the other 20 percent.) Each conference shares its channel’s profits with ESPN, and moving forward each side’s split will be measured in the low nine digits (hundreds of millions of dollars) annually. The SEC Network passed that threshold years ago.
Obviously, a Comcast/xFinity deal would provide a windfall for the ACC and its members, and the massive power of Disney maximizes the possibility that an ACC Network deal finally will be struck, perhaps even later this month.
Disney, remember, is omnipresent in the TV world. Its vast holdings (sometimes in partnerships) there include ABC, the ACC Network, A&E, the Disney Channel, more than a dozen ESPN-branded properties, FX Networks, the History Channel, Lifetime, the Longhorn Network, National Geographic TV, the SEC Network and their many derivatives.
Here’s an understatement for you: As a result of its wide-ranging portfolio, when Disney negotiates with a TV provider, even one as large and influential as Comcast, it has an extraordinary amount of leverage. A provider may not want to pay a premium to carry the ACC Network, for example, but would it really want to jeopardize its broader negotiations with Disney by taking an especially hard line on one of its many channels? Probably not.
Well, guess what. Over the last two years, Comcast/xFinity didn’t have enough incentive or pressure to give into Disney’s requests or demands about the ACC Network specifically. Now, it definitely does.
In a message posted recently on its website, Comcast/xFinity reminded its customers that dozens of its carrier contracts will expire at the end of September. On that list of 30-plus TV partners whose renewals are imminent, more than half are represented by Disney, led by the almighty ESPN but also including popular channels such as Disney Channel, Disney Junior, ESPN2, ESPNU, FX and National Geographic.
With all due respect to the Tar Heels and the Cavaliers, as they face each other in an intriguing matchup televised by the ACC Network on Saturday night, a much bigger battle will be looming in the background.
While there may not be a traditional scoreboard for the Comcast-Disney clash as it plays out through the rest of September and perhaps beyond, the ACC, the ACC Network and ACC sports fans everywhere finally have become the heavy favorites to come away with a very important victory at some point soon.
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
The founding editor and long-time owner of the ACC Sports Journal and ACCSports.com, he also has contributed to the Durham Herald-Sun, ESPN Radio, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Raycom Sports, SiriusXM and most recently The Athletic. From 1999-2020, he also hosted the David Glenn Show, which became the largest sports radio program in the history of the Carolinas, syndicated in more than 300 North Carolina cities and towns, plus parts of South Carolina and Virginia.
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How soon will acc network going to reach & sign a long term contact agreement with comcast/xfinity.