3 Steps the ACC Can Take to Save Itself

Over the summer, USC and UCLA announced their plans to join the Big Ten. Since then, there have been rumors of mega-conferences and it has left conferences like the ACC, Pac-12 and Big XII scrambling to figure out what to do next to avoid being left in the dust by the SEC and Big Ten.

The BIG XII has now made a big move, announcing their new TV deal, a 6-year contract worth around $2.2B, or around $31M per school. That amount goes UP from their previous deal that included Texas and Oklahoma as members of the conference.

As a fan of a team in the ACC, it has been frustrating see moves being made by the SEC & Big Ten and deals by the Big XII get done, while the ACC sits around doing nothing. So, since the ACC leaders haven’t said much about their plans, I’ve decided to share mine for the conference moving forward.

The most important thing that the ACC needs to get done to stay relevant among the SEC and Big Ten, and possibly separate themselves from the Pac-12 & Big XII as the clear #3 conference is to get ESPN to renegotiate the conferences TV deal.  I realize that is easier said than done, but ESPN has invested A LOT in the ACC with the creation of the ACC Network and they don’t want to see the conference fall into the abyss.  So here are the three moves that ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips needs to make to save the ACC!

1) Move to 9 Conference Games

2) Get ESPN to re-work the conference Rights deal and share it with another network.

3) Add Notre Dame

The first one is simple, so we can tackle that one first. By moving to 9 nine conference games, this gives your TV partners more quality content. Live television, especially sporting events, is what draws the highest ratings nowadays. This means it makes them the most money. The more quality content to sell advertisements during, the more money they have available to pay the conference for their TV rights. More games mean more live content. More ACC games, also means less games vs Group of 5 or FCS teams. Adding one more conference game will draw more eyeballs.

With the conference moving away from divisions in 2023, playing an extra game also helps cycle every team to all of the other schools on a more regular basis and sets up for closer, more exciting races to get into the Top 2 spots to qualify for the championship game.

Now, the more complicated points.

Notre Dame will not join any conference if they don’t have to. Expanding the College Football Playoff to 12 makes it easier for Notre Dame to make the playoff, but the new format makes it more difficult for Notre Dame to have success in the playoff. The ACC can offer Notre Dame a solution. Notre Dame already plays 5 ACC opponents every year but are not considered members of the conference, therefore they cannot play in the conference championship game or earn a Top 4 seed in the new upcoming expanded playoff, which guarantees a BYE into the quarterfinals. The ACC should ask Notre Dame to play 7 ACC games a year instead of their current 5. In exchange, the ACC would allow Notre Dame a spot in the conference championship game if they finished in the top 2 in the conference based on win percentage. This could give Notre Dame a 13^th data point for the CFB Playoff Selection Committee, which they typically would not have. And it would give the Irish a way to earn a BYE and a Top 4 seed in the CFP. After Saturday's win over Clemson, Notre Dame has now won 27 regular season games in a row vs ACC opponents and hasn’t lost since November of 2017, when then #8 Miami beat #3 Notre Dame in Miami. The only ACC team to beat Notre Dame during this span is Clemson, who did it twice in postseason games, so you could see how this offer could be intriguing to the Irish.

Another reason that this deal would make sense to Notre Dame is because they get a full football share of the ACC TV Rights if they agree. Notre Dame has publicly said that they are hoping for more money from their next TV deal, their NBC deal expires after the 2024 season. Not that Notre Dame won’t get more from their next deal but giving them more from the ACC couldn’t hurt.

Speaking of NBC…

The ACC needs to get more of their games on networks that everyone can see. The ACC Network is nice and is finally available nearly nationwide. But with the ACC’s current deal with ESPN, a lot of content gets dumped onto ACCX, which is only available via streaming or to the regional networks of the teams playing. That is fine for most sports, but not football. Every ACC football game should be available on national television. This is where NBC and their partnership with Notre Dame comes into play to help all parties involved. NBC clearly wants to be a bigger part of the college football market. They just agreed to terms with the Big Ten to broadcast 1 game weekly in primetime. NBC likely will bid on at least some of the broadcast rights for the College Football Playoff when it expands. So, adding more college football content and another conference would make a lot of sense for the network. If ESPN allows the ACC to share their rights with another network, NBC should be the network that gets the call.

The ACC could offer NBC ~15 games per season to help their brand get off the ground, all while putting more ACC games in a national spotlight. A win-win for all parties involved. Notre Dame typically plays 7 games on NBC a season, out of a 13-week regular season schedule. The ACC could give NBC a lead-in to every Notre Dame broadcast with a unique 11AM kickoff. On Saturday’s that Notre Dame is not playing a home game, NBC could either schedule an ACC double-header or schedule their ACC game during their typical 2:30pm EST slot that Notre Dame plays in. 11AM kickoff give the ACC a 1-hour window that they are the only game in town, which would be a unique exposure for any conference. And because of the already existing relationship with ESPN, they could have live look-ins of that game during College GameDay, again giving the game and conference extra exposure.

The ACC Championship Game is broadcast annually on ESPN/ABC, which also helps the ACC in negotiating their new deal with ESPN. When Clemson and Notre Dame played in the ACC Championship Game during the 2020 COVID season, they drew nearly 10 million viewers, which was the highest of any conference championship game for that season. It was also nearly double the viewers that ESPN/ABC drew the year prior when Notre Dame wasn’t in the game. Considering the possibilities, ESPN would have to be crazy to not agree to renegotiate the ACC conference’s media rights deal if these other pieces were all in place.  More eyeballs equal more money and Notre Dame attracts a lot of eyeballs. Which means more eyeballs for ESPN and NBC equals more money for both the ACC and Notre Dame.

If Jim Phillips can do these 3 things, he can save the ACC.

Fix The Bowl System, Have A Draft

This is becoming an annual Rant come Bowl Season as I continue to feed ESPN ideas on how to #MakeBowlSeasonGreatAgain.  My format is simple, conference tie-ins to bowls suck and everyone loves drafts.  Basically, because the playoff and the NY6 Bowls eat up so many of the great teams, the other matchups leave a lot to be desired.  Then throw in all the bowl tie-ins with each conference and all the different rules each of those conferences have in their selection process and we seem to always miss on the great common-sense matchups and instead get a bunch of BLAH.  I have fixed all that.

A BOWL DRAFT!!!  Instead of the 4-hour show that ESPN aired today unveiling all the bowl games, we have a live draft.

The rules are simple. The draft order goes by the bowl payouts from the previous bowl season.  You want the best teams, you payout the most money.  Every year bowl payout bids are sealed until AFTER the bowl games are announced.  The payout figure is then used for the next year to determine the draft order. This would make it that no bowls would have an advantage over others.  It would also allow a bowl to make a play for a big game with better opponents if they were willing to pay a premium.  This also could drive up the payouts in bowls, which will make university presidents and athletic directors very happy.

Here is the Draft Order based on the 2018 Bowl Season payouts: (Note: All New Year’s 6 Bowls are protected in the Top 6 spots, but conference affiliation is no longer a part of the bowl selection process)

CFB Playoff Sites:

1. Peach Bowl

2. Fiesta Bowl

Remaining New Year’s 6 Bowls (in a rotating order):

3. Rose Bowl

4. Orange Bowl

5. Cotton Bowl

6. Sugar Bowl

All Other Bowls:

7. Citrus Bowl ($8,550,000)

8. Alamo Bowl ($7,975,000)

9. Outback Bowl ($6,350,000)

10. Holiday Bowl ($6,326,258)

11. Texas Bowl ($6,300,000)

12. Camping World Bowl ($5,800,000)

13. Music City Bowl ($5,650,000)

14. Belk Bowl ($4,505,556)

15. Pinstripe Bowl ($4,300,000)

16. Liberty Bowl ($4,294,681)

17. RedBox Bowl ($3,600,000)

18. Sun Bowl ($3,447,568)

19. TaxSlayer Bowl ($3,168,292)

20. Las Vegas ($2,760,000)

21. Military Bowl ($2,066,990)

22. ServPro First Responders Bowl ($1,667,000)

23. Birmingham Bowl ($1,650,000)

24. Lending Tree Bowl ($1,500,000)

25. Independence Bowl ($1,248,280)

26. Gasparilla Bowl ($1,133,735)

27. New Mexico Bowl ($1,050,000)

28. Cheez-It Bowl ($1,037,118)

29. Hawaii Bowl ($1,000,000)

30. Boca Raton Bowl ($1,000,000)

31. Idaho Potato Bowl ($950,000)

32. New Orleans Bowl ($925,000)

33. Armed Forces Bowl ($900,000)

34. Cure Bowl ($751,115)

35. Quick Lane Bowl ($750,000)

36. Frisco Bowl ($750,000)

37. Arizona Bowl ($412,920)

38. Camellia Bowl ($250,000)

39. Bahamas Bowl ($225,000)

THE DRAFT:

The Draft would be simple, there is no conference affiliation, no automatic bids and no side table negotiations, just each bowl picking their teams, with a just a few rules.

*Bowls will select in order with a pool of 10 teams to choose from.  For instance, the Rose Bowl would have the 1st choice after the CFB Playoff Committee selects the top 4 playoff teams.  The Rose Bowl would then have the next 10 teams in the rankings available to pick from.  This means that the CFP Committee would have to rank all bowl eligible teams (79 this season).  For this exercise I am using the CBS Top 130 Rankings from their website.  With each bowl selections, two more teams come available for the next bowl to choose from.

*No team can drop more than six bowl games.  Meaning that once you show up in the selection pool, if you are not picked by the 1st five bowls you were made available to, you are automatically assigned to the next bowl.

There is no chance that ESPN couldn’t and wouldn’t sell the hell out of this.  Can you imagine a 4-hour show unveiling the 4 Playoff teams, plus a live draft for the remaining bowls?  They could have a greenroom with 79 different coaches/AD’s from all the bowl eligible schools and a “War Room” like the NFL Draft of all the bowl committees.  Every 5 minutes a new bowl representative comes on stage to make their pick followed by team reps coming out on stage for a quick photo op.  Then back to the set and that bowl gets the attention of Rece Davis, Desmond Howard, David Pollack and Kirk Herbstreit for the next 5 minutes while waiting on the next selection.  Let’s not forget about the rankings continuously being unveiled with two more eligible teams for the next bowl to select from.  It would be College Football’s version of the Royal Rumble as everyone waits to see who is next!  Think about it, every bowl gets their individual time in the national spotlight, the coaches get some face time and the network gets millions of eyeballs, EVERYBODY WINS!

Another benefit from this format is avoid the repetition we see every bowl season with the same schools going back to the same bowls due to conference affiliations.  The current format has teams limited to only a few locations based on their conference tie-ins.  Bowl attendance has been way down recently, and you’d have to imagine it has to do with fans not wanting to go back to the same location every few years.  This format would make any bowl a possibility for any team and give the bowl the decision to not pick the same teams they have had in recent years.

So, without further ado…

THE 2019 SELECTIONS: (My Mock Fake Bowl Draft)

ROSE BOWL – #6 Oregon vs #8 Wisconsin

ORANGE BOWL - #5 Georgia vs #10 Penn State

FIESTA BOWL - #9 Florida vs #11 Utah

COTTON BOWL - ##7 Baylor vs #13 Alabama

CITRUS BOWL - #12 Auburn vs #15 Notre Dame

ALAMO BOWL - #14 Michigan (Mandatory Pick) vs #22 USC

OUTBACK BOWL - #16 Iowa (Mandatory Pick) vs #23 Navy

HOLIDAY BOWL - #17 Memphis (Mandatory Pick) vs #18 Minnesota (Mandatory Pick)

TEXAS BOWL - #19 Boise State (Mandatory Pick) vs #20 Appalachian State (Mandatory Pick)

CAMPING WORLD BOWL - #21 Cincinnati (Mandatory Pick) vs #31 Texas A&M

MUSIC CITY BOWL - #24 Virginia (Mandatory Pick) vs #25 Oklahoma State

BELK BOWL - #26 Kansas State (Mandatory Pick) vs #30 Indiana

PINSTRIPE BOWL - #27 Air Force (Mandatory Pick) vs #28 SMU (Mandatory Pick)

LIBERTY BOWL - #29 Central Florida (Mandatory Pick) vs #37 Texas

RED BOX BOWL - #32 UL-Lafayette (Mandatory Pick) vs #33 Washington

SUN BOWL - #34 Iowa State (Mandatory Pick ) vs #35 Virginia Tech

TAXSLAYER BOWL - #36 Florida Atlantic (Mandatory Pick) vs #41 Tennessee

LAS VEGAS BOWL - #38 Wake Forest (Mandatory Pick) vs #42 Arizona State

MILITARY BOWL - #39 San Diego State (Mandatory Pick) vs #40 Temple (Mandatory Pick)

SERVPRO FIRST RESPONDERS BOWL - #43 Kentucky vs #52 BYU

BIRMINGHAM BOWL - #44 Louisville (Mandatory Pick) vs #46 UAB

LENDING TREE BOWL - #45 Louisiana Tech (Mandatory Pick) vs #53 North Carolina

INDEPENDENCE BOWL - #47 Marshall (Mandatory Pick) vs #57 Florida State

GASPARILLA BOWL - #48 Western Kentucky (Mandatory Pick) vs #59 Illinois

NEW MEXICO BOWL - #49 Cal (Mandatory Pick) vs #50 Hawaii (Mandatory Pick)

CHEEZ-ITS BOWL - #51 Pitt (Mandatory Pick) vs #63 Michigan State

HAWAII BOWL - #54 Utah State (Mandatory Pick) vs #61 Washingtoni State

BOCA RATON BOWL - #55 Tulane (Mandatory Pick) vs #56 Central Michigan (Mandatory Pick)

IDAHO POTATO BOWL - #58 Wyoming (Mandatory Pick) vs #62 Mississippi State

NEW ORLEANS BOWL - #60 Georgia Southern (Mandatory Pick) vs #66 Miami (FL)

ARMED FORCES BOWL - #64 Boston College vs #70 Arkansas State

CURE BOWL - #67 Georgia State vs #71 Western Michigan

QUICK LANE BOWL - #65 Southern Miss (Mandatory Pick)  vs #72 Miami (OH)

FRISCO BOWL - #68 Charlotte (Mandatory Pick) vs #69 Buffalo

ARIZONA BOWL – #73 Nevada vs #75 Ohio

CAMELLIA BOWL - #74 Liberty vs #76 Toledo

BAHAMAS BOWL - #78 Eastern Michigan vs #79 Florida International

Change is good.

Change is needed.

Pirates Scheduling News

The Pirates made 2 scheduling announcements today.  The 1^st announcement, that Major League Baseball has selected the Pirates and Cardinals to officially open the season, moving the game from its originally scheduled date of Monday April 4^th, to an ESPN Broadcast Sunday afternoon game.  Typically, ESPN kicks off the season with a Sunday night game, but this game will be a 1:05 1^st pitch to kick off the season.  With the season opener moving up 1 day, the rest of the series adjusts as well.  The series was originally scheduled Monday, Wednesday, Thursday.  This now changes to playing Sunday, OFF DAY Monday, play Tuesday and Wednesday, OFF DAY Thursday.  The Pirates then travel and play in Cincinnati for a weekend series beginning Friday.

Obviously, this is a huge honor and recognition for the Pirates to be selected for this game, but the 1^st thing that I thought of was how this allows Hurdle to set up his rotation.  If the Pirates would elect to, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t, they don’t need to throw their #5 starter until GAME 8 of the season. Considering the large question marks regarding the Pirates starting pitching staff for the 2016 season, I think this could be very beneficial.  This also allows the Pirates to throw Cole 3 times in the teams 1^st 9 games.  I know that people may complain about pushing him too much early in the season, but he is the ace of your staff and he would still be going on full rest for all of these starts.  The way the Pirates have started off the last 2 seasons, I would say it would be a good idea to push Cole to make these starts.  The Pirates were 21-26 in April over the last 2 years, which is 5 games UNDER .500.  They were a combined 63 games OVER .500 after April in those 2 seasons.  For whatever reason, the Pirates get off to slow starts, this may be something that helps to avoid that again in 2016.

Another small benefit from this scheduling means that the team could elect to carry an extra bat for the 1^st 7 games of the season.  Being that the Pirates play in Detroit for games 7-8, I’m guessing that they will opt to keep an extra bat, since they will need a DH.

As for the 2^nd announcement made today, the Pirates will be playing in Puerto Rico this season.   The Pirates and Marlins are scheduled to play a 4-game series in Miami from May 30^th to June 2^nd.  Major League Baseball, assuming with the Miami Marlins, moved the 1^st 2 games of that series to Puerto Rico.  The move was to celebrate Roberto Clemente, as all of Major League Baseball will celebrate Roberto Clemente Day on May 31^st.

My only hope is that the celebration of Roberto Clemente Day is kicked off by Major League Baseball announcing the retirement of the number 21 league wide. It would be long overdue.