Editor’s note: ACC presidents have voted to add Stanford, Cal and SMU
The world of conference realignment is about survival. Recent history has shown that if you’re not the Big Ten or the SEC, you either expand or face extinction.
The ACC must do whatever it can to add Stanford and Cal. The league needs 12 of 15 presidents to vote yes. After a week of talks, it doesn’t have the votes right now, but it needs to figure out how to get there. There is safety in numbers, especially when your biggest brands are looking for the exits. If it doesn’t expand, the league may find itself in the same position some conference brethren have faced.
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In 2016, the Big 12 explored expanding beyond 10 teams. In an almost “The Bachelor”-style interview process, as many as 17 schools made their case. The league chose not to expand, in part because some members didn’t like the idea of adding another Texas school like Houston (Barry Switzer was a “hell no” on the issue). TV executives didn’t love the idea of expansion, so the Big 12 stayed put with some extra money.
Five years later, the Big 12 nearly collapsed when Texas and Oklahoma jumped for the SEC.
In 2021, the Pac-12 had the opportunity to expand by adding schools like Texas Tech, TCU and Houston, among others, that would’ve jumped at joining the Pac-12 given the Big 12 uncertainty. Commissioner George Kliavkoff reportedly supported the idea, but the Los Angeles Times reported that USC president Carol Folt led the push against expansion, and the league stayed put.
Two years later, the Pac-12 collapsed, sparked in part by USC and UCLA’s departure to the Big Ten. Now just four schools are left, and the possibility of rebuilding looks like a long shot.
The ACC finds itself in the exact same position, except this time it won’t be blindsided. Florida State has publicly declared multiple times how much it wants to leave, if it can get out of a seemingly ironclad grant of rights agreement that runs through 2036. Other ACC schools have been very open about needing more money, too.
Adding Stanford and Cal should be a no-brainer. (It’s unclear how much SMU is still in the mix, but there are benefits to adding the Mustangs, too.) When your biggest brands want out, they eventually get out. So don’t let them hold up your future. The opportunity to add sitting Power 5 schools may not come around again.
Not only are Stanford and Cal both Power 5 schools, they’re among the best universities and most accomplished athletic departments in the country. The Cardinal have won 26 of the 29 Directors’ Cups, awarded to the top athletic department in the country based on performance in a number of sports. Cal, one of the top public schools in the country, also regularly finishes in the top 25 in the Directors’ Cup. The money-making sports of football and basketball are down, but they are still incredibly prestigious institutions. The two schools have produced the most and fourth-most Olympians, respectively, among all colleges, and their academic profiles fit the ACC.
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At least four ACC schools are against the move, including Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina and NC State, sources told The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach last week. That’s not surprising. If one was to guess who would be against it, it would be those four plus perhaps Virginia and Miami. Those are among the most likely schools to get a Big Ten or SEC invite if that time should come.
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The main argument against expansion is travel, of course. I’ve seen many people say Stanford and Cal to the ACC makes no sense. Have you paid attention to conference realignment? This isn’t supposed to make sense.
We’re in a new era. As much as I personally hate all of this realignment and what it means for players and fans, distance cannot be a reason not to expand anymore. Not when the Big Ten stretches from New Jersey to Los Angeles to Seattle while the Big 12 stretches from Orlando to West Virginia to Utah. Even the American and Conference USA in the Group of 5 stretch well over 1,400 miles east to west. Cross-country conferences are the norm now.
It wouldn’t even cost more. With the two California schools offering to take a lesser share of the same pro rata payout from ESPN (maybe at 60-70 percent or lower), along with increased ACC Network carriage fees in California, the extra money could be used to cover the increased travel costs. (SMU is also offering to forgo conference payments for several years.)
Florida State will not decide to stick around because the league opted not to expand, just as Texas and USC didn’t when their leagues stood pat. If FSU doesn’t begin the process of challenging the ACC’s grant of rights by Aug. 15 of this year (the deadline to give notice of departure in order to be eligible in a new league for 2024), it’ll come next year, or the next year, or the next year. The Seminoles believe they cannot survive as a football national title contender at such a financial disadvantage compared to the Big Ten and SEC, and they’re probably right.
Schools like FSU, Clemson and North Carolina likely will have suitors if they break free. NC State, I’m not so sure. It’s not an AAU school, an unofficial requirement for Big Ten presidents, and it doesn’t carry the athletics brand value that Florida State does. If the ACC falls apart, are the Wolfpack sure they’ll have a landing spot? Broadcast companies are running out of money to spend on rights, even in the Big Ten and SEC. Washington and Oregon weren’t worth full shares to the Big Ten, and the SEC can’t get more money for a ninth conference game. But North Carolina and NC State are part of the same university system, so separating them may be difficult.
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The Big 12 survived and has thrived because it gathered like-minded schools that know they can’t catch the Big Ten and SEC in revenue. The rest of the ACC needs to understand that third place is not a bad place to be. It’s even possible the league’s supposed albatross of a TV deal through 2036 actually looks good in five years with the state of the TV industry. Having a linear channel with the ACC Network and longer guarantees from ESPN is not necessarily a bad thing.
There is no amount of hand-waving the ACC can do to make up the revenue difference. The Big 12 and Pac-12 have shown that if your biggest brands want out, they will eventually leave. The Pac-12 collapse confirmed for all that we’re in an era of survival.
It’s up to the ACC to convince enough schools that adding Stanford and Cal is about setting the conference up to survive.
(Photo: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)