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Bally Sports is out, and Bubba Cunningham is in. Hot news!

Two interesting developments were announced this week that may mean a lot more to ACC Sports fans than we think.

The first relates to watching ACC football and basketball this coming season on a third- or fourth-string network behind ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and the ACC Network.

The second could affect which of our teams will be playing in the NCAA tournament on CBS at the end of the basketball season.

Bally Sports fell under bankruptcy of its parent company, the Diamond Sports Group, which is facing an $8 billion deficit. Bally carried local Hurricane telecasts, the Atlanta Braves and was the last choice for ACC games that aren’t picked up by the aforementioned Disney-owned channels.

Bally was the last underling of Raycom Sports, which back in the 1980s was responsible for putting more ACC basketball games on the tube than in any prior season. Since that network was eventually sold by founders Rick and Dee Ray, the ACC has bounced around from various offshoots of Raycom, like Fox Sports South and most recently Bally.

The CW Network said it would pick up 13 ACC football and 28 basketball games for the 2023-24 season, which maintained the move by John Swofford to put every ACC game on TV, including streaming on ACCN+ and ESPN+.

“We’re thrilled to be adding The CW to our weekly television lineup,” said new ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, likely with a sigh of relief for avoiding an earthquake of criticism if some games got left out.

“We are committed to making the CW a destination for live, appointment-viewing sporting events,” said CW president Dennis Miller, not the famous comedian of the same name. Because this is no joke to ACC fans.

The news pushed Cunningham down the sports headlines after the UNC athletic director was named vice-chairmen of the prestigious NCAA Basketball Committee, which is responsible, among other things, for selecting at-large teams to the Big Dance and seeding the 68-team field.

Cunningham, who was on the committee last season and will head it next year, was miffed as the Tar Heels were sinking lower in the NET rankings and in jeopardy of missing the tournament for the first time since 2010, which they eventually did.

Due to strength of schedules, Cunningham believed that the worst of the 15 teams in the ACC hurt those teams that beat them while smaller leagues benefitted. Certainly, Bubba will address that when he takes the gavel.

 

Photo via The CW Network on Twitter.

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