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Looks like Carolina’s conference future has three options.
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips gave the “state of” speech to open the ACC football Media Days that began Tuesday. He was less than convincing about the future of the league he took over four years ago. He knows his competition is mounds of cash named the Big Ten and the SEC.
If UNC departs the ACC when the adjusted exit fee is reduced to “only” $75 million in 2030, it’s apparently bigger prey than either Clemson or Florida State, which had to settle their competing lawsuits after finding out the SEC doesn’t want them.
The SEC wants the Tar Heels for obvious reasons. Unless Bill Belichick somehow turns them into a national program, they pose no threat to the perennial College Football Playoff contenders in that league. And the SEC would have the TV money by adding eyeballs in North Carolina.
The faculty is already lobbying against the SEC, which only has a few schools in the prestigious Association of American Universities. Most alumni and fans apparently like that move as it’s the richest conference in the country and an easy drive down there.
The second option would be the Big Ten, which has 17 out of 18 schools in the AAU and makes almost as much money from TV thanks to the Big Ten Network started by UNC alum Jim Delany, the celebrated and retired commissioner.
I have written and talked about it in this space, but my guess is the Big Ten also wants Duke to have the revered home-and-home basketball series that could be put out to bid like Notre Dame, which has its own contract with NBC for home football games. The Big Ten would also have a team or two from North Carolina to boost its TV ratings and may be interested in Virginia for the same reasons.
The third option, which Phillips tried to sell to the media throng in Charlotte, is to keep the ACC together and replace whatever schools leave by poaching the Big 12 and hope the ACC Network grows enough to distribute more money.
I for one love that option. While this is not our grandad’s ACC, it has been close to our hearts over the last eight decades, when money was slowly taking over college athletics. And as Phillips pointed out, his league has won 29 different national championships since he took office, mostly by women’s teams.
The other points mirror what Mack Brown said when he returned to Carolina. He claimed it would be easier to win the ACC championship against relatively weaker opponents and get into the College Football Playoff as an automatic entry.
Of course, if Clemson, FSU, Louisville and Miami stuck around, that might not be as easy because those great programs have gobs of money and see the same runway to the CFP as Brown did.
So, what is your choice?
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
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