Breaking news story: will post as more details come out.
Shocker: CBS walks away from SEC negotiations. All signs point to ESPN/ABC picking up the package. SBJ has the details: https://t.co/rBcPfoEnUw— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) December 21, 2019
Seeing reports that a new deal with ESPN/ABC could result in a 20 million dollar per team increase in payouts.
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Whelp this is not fun for the ACC. Really wish we had a time machine to try and push into the SEC about now.
Edit... much discussion further below.
Related - Apple is in preliminary talks with Pac12 network. Thought about posting here, but the source was WSJ, behind a pay wall.
Basically, the ACC is completely fucked in tv deals because we sold out to John Swoffords son 10 years ago, cutting our negotiating ability off at it's knees.
We just barely made our payouts somewhat equitable and now we are just as far back as we were a year ago. The SEC deal is going to be worth double ours, both handled by ESPN. One guess to which one will get the royal shaft in annual all sports coverage.
Fuck Swofford.
Amen
At least 60-70 million minimum per team distribution from SEC. that's over 70 percent of Tech's total budget in the Athletic department.
Yep, ACC completely blows. And the initial talk is that the ACCN is not nearly as lucrative as was initially hyped up to be. Couldn't strike a deal with Comcast, and just not commanding the fees the conference thought it would. Basically going to be a major flop while the SEC and B1G rake in the cash.
If the VT admin could, I would open up a dialogue with the SEC to see if they had any interest in taking us and maybe an NC State and giving the ACC the middle finger. Probably would be a steep exit fee but could make it back quickly with the ridiculous added revenue.
It is because university presidents do not have the balls to tell Swofford to fuck off and fire him post haste due to his lack of foresight. The ACCN was years too late to the party and the difficulty for cord-cutters to livestream is a good way to make sure diehard fans don't watch.
Hell, Mike Slive's bones would negotiate better TV deals than Swofford and his nepotism could.
Yes, I'm bitter about it because Swofford is a fucking idiot who graduated from fake-ass degree printing University of North Carolina factory. That's all we need to know why the ACC failed to get better TV deal and failed miserably to keep up with the Jonses in the football arm race.
So, fuck Swofford.
No... It's because university presidents are more concerned with the $500M in research money than the extra $25M in TV rights. The Atlantic Coast Conference Inter-institutional Academic Collaborative is more valuable than any partnership among SEC schools will ever be.
Swofford deals solely with sports as far as I know.
That's my understanding as well, however, I imagine (I'm speculating here) that the same politicking that got Swofford his position is the same politicking that got us access to the ACC-IAC. Presidents of research universities aren't going risk their access to grants and research opportunities over college football money.
At the end of the day, the ACC just isn't a great product, and hasn't been that often. How many 'must watch' ACC games have their been over the past decade? How many 'must watch' SEC games have their been in that time period? Many more.
Edit - removed sentence.
You nailed it right there. It's why I continue to contend that the day we got into the ACC was the day VT football went on autopilot. Being able to rub shoulders with UVA, UNC, and Duke was the school's main goal. With access to the money from the ACCAC, it has no doubt tremendously boosted our academic profile.
The problem is your second point. No doubt our negotiations were terrible and the ACCN is 10 years late, but the ACC just frankly does not care about football. Too many universities with little to no football support. It's never going to be an exciting football product. We are kind of caught in no mans land in the ACC. On one hand, we aren't going to go all in on football like FSU and Clemson (non-coincidentally two of the three ACC schools with academic endowments under $1 billion) and cut sports to boost football. They have also figured athletic fundraising out and have a huge advantage on us there. On the other hand, we aren't a UVA/UNC/Duke that is just flush with cash and can compete at a high level in every sport without a significant uptick in revenue. We are trying to be a Governor's Cup school on a shoestring budget, and unless donations significantly improve, we aren't getting any help from the ACC in this regard.
So it's weird territory for us in athletics. We are a football brand with a football culture playing in a non-football conference and investing heavily in other sports without a ton of money to do it. Could VT academically afford to leave the ACC for a huge payday in the SEC? The research money is huge. Tough questions.
So...VT to the Big 10 then?
Tech should seriously consider this ad an option. Tech aligns well with the football and academic cultures in the Big-10. Maybe even more-so than the ACC.
My question was a tongue-in-cheek response. I think that wouldn't work too well as travel would be tougher than in the ACC.
I agree with almost everything you said. That said, I think we can take advantage of our 'blue ocean' position. There's two things that have to be done first:
That said, I don't want to be in the SEC - I think we belong in the ACC. I think it benefits our university from a cultural standpoint (in terms of the geographic areas our students and alums come from) and a financial standpoint (off the football field at least). Finally, I do think the administration should strive to provide a well rounded experience for students - academically and socially. At risk of sounding like a UVA fan, about half of the SEC fails in the former.
I completely agree. When VT was coming into the ACC, told a few folks that I thought it was a great fit for the football program, and so-so for basketball (back when Greenberg was the coach).
Now? I think you are right when you said:
This is definitely the problem. That is where Whit, president Sands, and other top level university administrators need to listen to the fans and try to get those clubs reorganize to where they can talk to each other. If they need to fold the administration of the clubs to be under one director, then do it. The clubs' mid-level management can report to that one director who then report up the food chain. VT needs to get adopt some principle from Lean manufacturing principle and streamline communications and accessibility.
Is it bad that I have no idea what the Monogram Club is? I know of the Hokie Club, and I know that we have an Alumni Association. I don't think I realized that the Alumni Association did fundraising, although that makes perfect sense.
Monogram Club is a donor/alumni club for former athletes. No reason would you know what that is unless you were an athlete, or (like me) you've done some research on the complaints that our athlete alums have with their connection to the university after their playing days are over.
But there will be quite a few must watch BBall games. Can't judge the success of the ACCN on one bad football season. Give it some time. And as someone else said, cancel Comcast as soon as you can.
A must watch BBall game does not bring the same amount of eye balls as a must watch football game. The 3/9 Duke/UNC men's college basketball game scored a 2.5 rating and 4.16 million viewers on ESPN. This year's iron bowl peaked at 18 Million viewers.
So the best rivalry in college basketball gets a fourth of viewers of the best rivalry in college football. So if there's 10 must watch SEC games each years, we need 40 must watch ACC basketball games to balance that out. It's just not realistic.
Numbers may be better than you project. There are only 12 football games and almost 40 B-ball games.
The only numbers that matter right now are the tv contracts and it shows that basketball is worth about 1/3 that of football
The floor is also lower for basketball than football. Take a look at this list of ratings from the 2019 football season - You'll see that games like Ole Miss vs. Arkansas are getting over a million viewers. Do you think the Clemson/VT basketball game (a 'basketball equivalent' of Ole Miss/Arkansas) got over 300k viewers? Personally I doubt it.
The other think you're not considering is that College basketball has far more competition than college football. What else are people watching on a Saturday? Maybe playoff baseball early in the season, and NBA regular season towards the middle/end, but that's it. College basketball regular season, depending on the broadcast day and date, could be competing against NFL, NCAAF, NBA, MLB, NHL, and much else.
TLDR - In the current sports climate, TV rights for NCAA basketball will never be as lucrative as TV rights for NCAA Football. If they were, the ACC would've been bringing in more money already, prior to the ACCN launch.
Fine then.
Still...fuck Swofford.
I agree to agree!
ACC Inter-Institutional Academic Collaborative is more valuable? I've worked in the academic research field for over 30 years - with many institutions in various "conferences" including the ACC, the B1G, Big 12, etc - and trust me, these things are pimples on a gnat's ass. They're real, but they're largely just internally funded PR.
Just being in the ACC does not bring in any significant additional external funding.
5 years ago it was a big deal but the last 2 or 3 years our football preformance hasn't been the same. The conference doesn't get the eyeballs of the SEC
Without a real fsu/Miami or fsu/Clemson there's no power match up
What are 15 games worth 300 million in the ACC
During the conference realignment in the early 2010's, I got a ton of blowback, but I thought if there was a way for VT to get into the SEC, that we should go all-in to make that happen.
Biggest pushback is that we wouldn't compete.
While it is likely we would have been a year in year out middle of the pack team, this kind of funding would have never been a bad thing for our program.
So then this is an interesting question to bring up. Would we as fans/the school prefer to be a middle of the pack team who has a much larger budget or a school with a smaller budget but has the chance to compete for conference championships every so often? Each side has its pros
Pros for SEC:
More money/larger budget
Better facilities
Probably better recruiting/staff due to the larger budget
Playing against much more talented teams on a regular basis equating to playing more ranked teams and more primetime games
The opportunity to go to some incredible venues as a road team(the other Death Valley, The Swamp, etc)
Pros for ACC:
A bit better proximity to our opponents(would never have to go as far as Missouri or Texas A&M)
Deeper history competing against our opponents. UVA, BC, Pitt, Syracuse and Miami come to mind with rich history in our rivalries(could even throw in UNC). Tennessee would be the only possibility at a real rivalry starting out for us in the SEC.
Better athletic conference in just about every other sport other than football.
The opportunity to compete for conference championships every year(which going off your time frame of back in the early 2010s was not a farfetched thought because Clemson wasn't Clemson yet).
Not saying either of these is the obvious right choice, just pointing out that each has their pluses and is something to think about for us as fans.
#ThanksSwofford
Let's make a deal with Amazon
Too bad we don't have the individual negotiating power a la Notre Dame/NBC.
Seriously.
I watched a Thursday night NFL game via Amazon Prime, and my jaws dropped at the gorgeous broadcast quality that rivaled ESPN. If Swofford was smart...
... he would take your advice and contact Amazon about exclusive rights to broadcasting ACC football and basketball games except where by contractual obligation exists (local channel right, etc, etc), I think the amount of Amazon Prime subscribers would generate an insane amount of revenue for the conference.
Yep I was floored at how good it looked. Especially compared to fox's nfl broadcasts which are total crap.
Hope ABC/ESPN buys the SEC on CBS theme from them. It's very nostalgic and iconic.
Can we leave?
Would probably be insanely expensive, but the disparity in the amount of money we are missing out on each year is unbelievable. I say we go all in, start talks with the SEC and dangle our new Amazon partnership out there for some exclusive sponsorships with the SEC, negotiate an exit fee with the ACC, and never look back. The amount of money we could gain would be unbelievable for VT athletics. And think of how much fundraising and recruiting would increase with Georgia, Tennessee, Florida on the schedule each year, an annual crossover with aTm to keep TX2VT going, and games with Bama/Auburn/LSU every few years.
That would be hype
What about the B1G?
Hey is that SEC membership thing still on the table or nah?
Sure, they should just kick Missouri out.
And VT would become Missouri. Weee, where do I sign up?
The SEC would want the TV footprint we cover if given an opportunity.
Slive did want it, but we didn't jump. Lots of back room politicking and we decided not to jump. We absolutely should have.
There's people who know way more about the situation than me, but I know Slive wanted VT for the Mid-Atlantic footprint.
It just makes too much damn sense. We have Amazon here now investing heavily in their new NoVA facility. Partnering with Tech on the Innovation Campus, they want us to supply them with the best and brightest minds in technology and business. VT Athletics can be a giant vehicle for advertising that relationship and making Virginia a huge technology hub. Why not have your team competing in the highest college football league in the nation with the most eyeballs watching? We would literally be THE Mid-Atlantic team. Elite VA recruits - want to come play for the home team in the best league and your family can catch every home game with ease? Come to VT.
VT is growing and thinking big. It's time we got out of the lazy country club that is the ACC and show our true potential as an athletics department.
The SEC love in here is quite different from the last time we did this
https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2014/july/1/would-virginia-tech-be-go...
Something about not having to be good looking, just be rich. Right now the SEC is looking pretty good even with three missing teeth and pot belly.
Count me among the folks that like the regional footprint of the ACC. Seeing that chunk of change though, I would jump ship for the SEC yesterday.
#VT2SEC
SEC pls
Obviously missing out on that kind of cash sucks and can't be made up with how they negotiated the ACC Network, but is there a chance the ACC could try to get a little something by sliding into that CBS slot? CBS, unless they are giving up football entirely, now needs something to fill the void on Saturdays left by the SEC. I know the ACC has a deal with ESPN via the ACC Network, but so did the SEC (SEC Network via ESPN) and that didn't prevent them from having a side deal.
Please no. I don't want to have to sit through 4 hour VT football games or 4 hour ACC games
That theme music opening up to Wallace Wade is... disappointing.
ESPN owns all of the ACC rights from top to bottom until 2036. Also, the ACC owns the TV rights to all of the current members through 2036, even if they leave the conference. (Link for more.)
For CBS to get any ACC action, they would have to sublicense from ESPN, and all that would get them would be the games that currently go to the RSNs.
And the SEC and CBS didn't have a side deal, they had the main deal. CBS had the first tier rights, which meant first choice of games and on a broadcast network. I'm pretty sure that deal existed before ESPN bought all of the rest of the SEC rights and launched SECN.
From your link, and worth reading:
TLDR Summary: The deal is done. We're not going to the SEC.
Everything is negotiable. Lawyer up and take it to court. There would be an exit fee if fought hard enough. The Big East wanted absurd exit fees from WVU and Pitt at the time to leave and that ended up being drastically reduced. It would be insanely expensive but it could be done.
This is true. But you're talking about a lot of money there.
While I like SEC-level money, VT's path to the national championship goes through Clemson. Getting there is easier in the ACC Coastal.
If VT, FSU, Miami, and Clemson do their jobs, the ACC should end up with some pretty good teams over the next few years. I left out UNC because I hope they fall flat.
The only way out is for all of the schools to dissolve the conference, and find new homes. VT and NC STate in SEC, UVa, UNC DUKE and Pitt BIG rest to the Big 12. I know it isn't going to happen; but the SEC will overtake the ACC in all sports with that kind of money edge.
How does this relate to the Amazon Prime discussion?
Anyone other than ESPN who wants to broadcast an ACC event during our current contract has to sublicense it from ESPN. There are no side deals.
This is absurd.
Gotta wonder how many of these games will be broadcasted on ESPN+... would be a great way for ESPN to slowly build content on their OTA platform.
Technically, none of the games from the current CBS package would go to ESPN+ (at least with how the landscape looks currently). But some of the games that they displace could likely trickle down, and not necessarily SEC games.
If ESPN picks up all of the SEC rights, then that give ABC access to SEC games. That would push a lot of other conferences down to the cable channels, and eventually, some game is going to fall off of ESPNU or ACCN and into a streaming only broadcast.
Big12 and B1G are likely going to get more favorable treatment from Fox. Fox did a great job with B1G programs and games, and the Big10 Network of course. Big12 is the one that's somewhat of a stepchild at the moment. I would expect more Fox opportunities for the Big12.
I left out the PAC12 cause I have no idea what direction they will be going. P12 Network has been a dud, and they are talking about 9am kickoffs for ESPN.
#VT2B1G
If you could join the SEC, but get placed in the SEC West, would you go for it?
That's a much tougher call. Our most natural fit would be the East, which I would take in a heartbeat. Especially since I am a short drive from Athens and Columbia, and Tennessee would make for a great natural rivalry.
Not to mention that Missouri is likely to get bumped over to the West if two eastern teams are added to the SEC.
I'd love to see us play Tennessee more often.
I guess we'll have to catch them in a bowl game sometime.
I knew I was onto something six years ago when I realigned conferences on NCAA 14 and put us in the SEC.
A question for those more in tune than I am:
How does Clemson respond to this news? Stay in the ACC where you have a clear path to the playoffs most years despite a pathetic TV deal that pays you far less than your SEC competition... or start exploring an avenue to jump over to the SEC East. Assuming of course that "everything is negotiable" and broadcast rights can be paid off or litigated away.
Clemson would have to weigh the potential gain of just being in the SEC vs. the potential loss of not always being in the national title hunt. In other words, they might get more money from ESPN, but they might lose some from merchandising and donors.
Also, conference realignment is a two party issue. The SEC would need to want Clemson as well, and I'm not sure that's such a surefire guarantee. Clemson wouldn't add anything to their TV markets since they already have USCe. Plus, adding Clemson might dilute the pool of potential national championship teams if they all start beating up on each other.
Plus, I think you can make the argument that Clemson has enough money to compete for national championships at this point, with an excellent path there most years.
VT has an excellent path to play them for the ACC Championship.
Despite any Dabo/Clemson rhetoric (literal propaganda) regarding the SEC to the contrary, they are extremely aware that they are in the best possible position. They have no reason to leave the ACC, they have by far, and it's not remotely close, the easiest path to the playoff every year. They damn near start every year with a guaranteed spot given the immense talent/coaching disparity between the ACC and themselves. It's much easier to make your propaganda pitches to the media once a week than it is to actually have to play Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Florida, Auburn, etc. during the regular season in order to win your division or make the playoffs. They are smart enough to know they are in the most fortunate position possible in regards to the playoff. Their boosters are more than doing enough to keep them recruiting and staffed at the highest possible level with or without the SEC tv money.
You nailed it. Clemson isn't leaving. They recruit at the same level if not better than the top SEC schools. On top of that while the SEC schools are busying killing each others playoff dreams Clemson's starters are playing on average 13 QTRs less of football a season (including the ACC Championship) by being up big going into the 4th. That's a well rested, less nagging injuries come playoff time. Why would Dabo want to subject his staff to game planning for the SEC gauntlet when they can game plan for household college names and know their spot in the playoff is set.
Can we talk about what a dumb deal this is for ESPN? 20 mil per game for 15 extra games? I can't imagine they make the money back in advertising dollars.
It's not just the actual games, though. It includes the broadcast network rights. So ABC (notably Saturday Night Football) could air SEC games.
It would be similar to Disney buying Spider-Man movie rights from Sony. They might overpay in terms of how much the individual movies would be worth, but they would be basing it on the value of having a complete set of rights.
CBS: The SEC isnt making us money
ESPN: We'll over pay for that
CBS: Cool cool cool
ESPN: Watch us go bankrupt faster!
The deal also includes the SEC championship game. For context, a few years back the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl broadcast were sold individually for $80 million each. I think getting the championship plus a few other highly ranked match-ups per year makes it worth it.