ESPN extended its contract rights to broadcast Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) sporting events through 2036, a deal that would have ended in 2027 had the two entities not reached an agreement on February 1. That settlement had major implications for Florida State and Clemson, which have been actively trying to exit the ACC since 2023.
ESPN’s Greg McElroy spoke on the matter and said that he thinks that the move puts the ACC on “solid footing” in regard to the ongoing dispute.
“This now allows things to kind of calm down a little bit with Clemson and Florida State. Now, I look at the ACC Grant of Rights, and Clemson and Florida State have been publicly challenging that. I think now, at this point, they’re at least on solid footing until 2031 at the very earliest,” McElroy said of the deal on ESPN’s Always College Football.
Although the conference has a new revenue-sharing model, it might not satiate the ever-growing revenue gap moving forward in the Power 4, which was one of the major complaints from the two schools. The new model will reward programs with a higher distribution of shared TV revenue based on their success during the year, and McElroy thinks that it could calm things down in the immediate future.
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“I don’t anticipate any immediate exits. I don’t anticipate Florida State and/or Clemson continuing this on. I don’t think North Carolina’s going anywhere. I look at all of this, I think everything’s going to be just fine. So this is really good,” McElroy continued. “What I’m also excited about is the possibility of a new revenue distribution model that will kind of alleviate some of the problems for the financial disparity that the ACC has relative to the Big Ten and the SEC.”
However, it could just be delaying the inevitable between the haves and the have-nots. The powerhouse programs within the conference, like Florida State and Clemson, will keep getting more money for NIL initiatives and facilities attracting the more high-end players while leaving other schools who aren’t having success scrounging for change to stay in the mix.
But, in McElroy’s eyes, he sees it as a good thing for now, and he makes a good point. Reward the programs that are sustaining success and drawing in the most revenue with more money.
“I think it makes sense. Hey, you win? You get a bigger piece of the pie,” McElroy said. “It makes sense to me. In a perfect world, would you like to split everything evenly? Sure. Equal distribution works best. We’ve seen it work in other places, but I don’t know if it is something that can be sustained when it is pretty obvious that some of the programs are kinda carrying the brand of the ACC.”
Additionally, the ACC is actively working on scheduling games with out-of-conference big-named opponents like Notre Dame to boost television viewership and, on a broader scale, could help out the teams at the bottom and the top of the pack.
“We could see more Notre Dame at Clemson, Notre Dame at Miami, Miami at Notre Dame, North Carolina at Notre Dame. We could see more games like that, which is beneficial to not just the ACC but Notre Dame as well.”
Time will tell if the move benefits ESPN and the ACC in the long run or if it is just, as McElroy puts it, “calming down the chaos” that has been brewing over the last few years.
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