ACC Update Rumors: 7 Schools Investigating Entitlements But can you give it up?

ACC Annual Spring Meetings in Amelia Island, Fla. They are underway and are expected to be completed by noon Wednesday. It’s the first time the league’s top administrators have met in person since Florida State athletic director Michael Alford publicly opposed the ACC’s current equal revenue sharing model, saying “something has to change” because FSU can’t compete nationally if it falls short of $30 million. Peers in the SEC and Big Ten every year.

Comments before the Board of Regents in February made waves nationally and were followed by similar calls from Clemson, Miami and its affiliates in North Carolina to consider unequal revenue sharing.

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips acknowledged the league’s position relative to the SEC and Big Ten. He hired foreign aid to find new sources of revenue for a closed conference on media rights until 2036. ACC is unclear before that time; The exit fee alone is $120 million, and the ACC’s disqualification case remains unchallenged and is considered by most to be up in the air.

Attorneys for the schools division have been scrutinizing the document. An industry source has been told that seven ACC schools are interested in finding ways out of the ACC.

“If it was easy, everyone would have done it already,” an ACC source said.

The GOR piece is important because the ACC continues to own the broadcast rights to a team’s home games even if that team pays the exit fee. Is there a dollar amount that a school must pay to reclaim its rights? It’s overpriced, but it’s worth paying to join a league that brings in $30 million more members a year.

An ACC source said the hope of this week’s meetings was to “advance the ball on changes in income distribution,” though he admitted it won’t close the gap compared to schools like Clemson and Florida State in the Big Ten and the SEC. It’s incremental change and transitioning to a system that produces success on the field (or on the court), he said. Some of the school presidents are expected to be in Florida in person for the conference. Others do it by video conference.

The tension between ACC schools has been a hot topic this season both inside and outside the league. The question that has been in the conversation for weeks with any manager in any league is: When will one or more ACC schools challenge the ACC’s franchise? Could it be this summer? next year? Or is the contract, which runs until 2036, too close to expiration? Everyone knows there are disgruntled members led by Florida State and Clemson, but it’s unclear what it would take, legally and financially, to leave the ACC before 2036.

“There’s a big difference between saying you want to do something like that and actually doing it,” one league source said.

Perhaps most surprising is the amount of attention given to the ACC at other spring meetings — the one held earlier this month in Scottsdale, Ariz. The Big 12 and Pac-12 met there, as they always do, and a good amount of Big Ten football coaches and athletic directors came out for a few days of Fiesta Bowl-sponsored events (and vacations). Agents, search firm representatives and other industry leaders as well as reporters were networking.

There has been much speculation about the future of the ACC and what it could mean for the rest of major college athletics. Most of the managers I talked to The athletics In Scottsdale, they were more interested in whether the ACC floodgates could be open — and what that could mean for the Big Ten and the SEC, both of which will be 16 members starting in 2024 — than discussing the current rift between the pack. 12 and the Big 12 over schools like Colorado and Arizona.

If Florida State, Clemson, Virginia, North Carolina and Miami are available, that’s a real and major domino to fall on conference realignment. As one Big Ten source put it, “Those schools are in a real value position.

That person specifically marketed Virginia and North Carolina as new states and/or East Coast expansion for the Big Ten. This Big Ten source believes eastward expansion makes more sense than expansion into the Pacific Northwest, an idea that has lacked support both internally and among the league’s media partners since it was first floated. University of Illinois Chancellor Robert J. Jones said. The athletics Last month, there was “no sense of urgency” for the league to expand beyond USC and UCLA.

“Are we thinking about[restructuring]? Of course,” said Jones, chairman of the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors. “We’re doing an analysis, the costs, the benefits of staying at 16 or going up. It is not something we do just to respond to what other congregations might do. We only do what’s best for our current membership, and expanding beyond that should add some value.

The SEC doesn’t appear to be interested in going above 16 members anytime soon (though that could change if certain ACC schools join), and the Big Ten, with new commissioner Tony Petty, said his top priority now is deciding how to integrate. Two Los Angeles schools into the league. The Big Ten’s new media rights deals expire at the end of the decade, so the topic will probably be around for a few years while the dust settles and the industry sees what happens to the ACC.

But someone (or) a person) would have to reject the ACC’s offer of rights to leave, and they don’t want to do that unless they know they have a berth in one of the two richest leagues. But you can’t make a commitment to one of those leagues without knowing for sure that you can get out of GOR.

It’s a chicken or egg situation. As of now, ACC schools are not available. Will it stay this way?

(ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips Top Photo: David Jensen / Icon Sports via Getty Images)