ACC enters into new reality — or unreality —where speculation of its demise will reign
By the time their last session ended Monday night, at the end of a long first day of the ACC’s spring meetings, the conference’s athletic directors looked spent. Their final meeting went more than an hour longer than scheduled. Late afternoon turned to evening. Dusk arrived at the Amelia Island Ritz-Carlton, joining the anxiety that conference officials brought with them.
A group of about a dozen reporters waited ... and waited ... to talk with the athletic directors, some of whom will undoubtedly shape the ACC’s future in the years to come. When the door swung open a little past 7 p.m., though, they speed-walked out of the room, past the gaggle, heads down.
Some of them muttered something about heading to dinner. Boo Corrigan, of N.C. State, released a prolonged sigh. John Currie, of Wake Forest, playfully asked if anyone wanted to talk with him about the Demon Deacons’ top-ranked baseball team. No takers.
For a day, at least, the ACC’s ADs avoided talking publicly about the elephant in the room. That being the future of the conference. And the present, for that matter. And the obvious question of how this whole thing manages to stay together ... or fall apart.
The ACC faces an existential threat unlike any it has encountered since its founding, 70 years ago, in a smoke-filled Greensboro hotel room. Seven schools back then broke away from the Southern Conference to form the new league, with Virginia joining not long after. Fitting, then, the focus on Monday quickly shifted to the so-called “Magnificent Seven,” as national college football reporter Brett McMurphy termed them when he dropped the Tweet Heard Round the Ritz.
As McMurphy reported, seven schools — Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia and Virginia Tech — are now exploring how unbreakable the ACC’s grant of media rights really is. An important question, given that the legal agreement appears to be the only thing holding the conference together while its revenue disparity with the Big Ten and SEC continues to grow wider and wider.
With respect to McMurphy, who has a well-earned reputation as one of the most plugged-in college football reporters in the country, the news wasn’t the most interesting part of his tweet. It’s fair to say, after all, that every ACC school has attempted since last summer to gain a better understanding of the security of the grant of the rights. Schools with an interest in escaping it need to know whether that’s possible; schools that want the ACC to stick together need to know how strong it is.
The most interesting part of the “Magnificent Seven” report, then, was the reaction. It took on a life of its own on social media, where the general response, essentially, was to start writing the ACC’s obituary. “It’s over,” seemed to be the consensus, and with that little bit of business decided people were left to speculate — and speculate they did — where these seven schools would wind up among the Big Ten, SEC and Big 12.
For an afternoon, the ACC came to be at the forefront of a fascinating case study in modern-day sports journalism and social media, and how a nugget of news can create an entirely new reality — one in which a 70-year-old conference, among the wealthiest in the country (just not the wealthiest, anymore) suffers a quick demise, while the so-called Magnificent Seven — I prefer Splendid Seven, for the sake of alliteration — rides off into the sunset. (Or, um, the SEC or Big Ten.)
To watch the reaction in real time was, really, to watch a bunch of the people on the Internet just throw stuff out there. Might any of it actually happen? Sure, maybe. Was it more likely that most had no idea what they were talking about? Yes. Did any of it actually matter, or mean anything? Who knows. The chatter just blended together to create a white noise hum of conjecture.
In a broader sense, this is now the ACC’s new reality. Which is an unreality, of sorts. For the foreseeable future — until something definitive happens, whatever that might be — the league will exist amid the haze of speculation, and under an inescapable cloud of doubt. The why of it is easy enough to understand: The SEC and Big Ten have both added massive brands in recent years, and the revenue gap between those two leagues and everyone else is only getting bigger.
Indeed, the ACC finds itself in an untenable position, long term, despite generating record amounts of revenue (nearly $580 million in 2021) of its own. The league’s biggest brands, especially Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina, would undoubtedly be attractive commodities for other leagues. Unless something drastic (and unlikely) happens — like, say, ESPN renegotiating the ACC’s television contract — the league’s future has earned its doubt.
And yet, well, nothing appears all that imminent, either. The ACC’s grant of rights agreement runs through 2036. It binds the league’s 15 members (with the exception of Notre Dame, in football) together where it matters most.
If any of them leave, they’d forfeit their broadcast rights to the ACC for the next 13 years. No wonder lawyers are poring over this thing, looking for any possible loophole. It brings to mind an image of a team of attorneys from Florida State and Clemson, locked in a bunker somewhere at a top-secret location in Georgia, surrounded by volumes of legal cases and contract law, unable to leave until they find a way to break free. That might not be far off, actually — and it’s probably more likely a scene than some of the ACC Doomsday scenarios circulating Twitter in recent days.
Back in the real world, league officials reconvened here Tuesday morning for the second day of the ACC’s spring meetings. They started at 8 a.m. It was business as usual. As much as it can be, anyway, for a conference that will now, fair or unfair, exist alongside constant speculation of its impending demise. For a moment, the ACC going back to work amid all the chatter brought to mind the old Mark Twain quote — or misquote, as it were:
“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Same for the ACC. For now. And for as long as the grant of rights holds.
It may just be a long 13 years of speculation and angst. Unless, that is, the lawyers find a way.
This story was originally published May 16, 2023 at 12:33 PM with the headline "ACC enters into new reality — or unreality —where speculation of its demise will reign."
