Living in NC I read a lot of this guys work. …he is pretty well connected to the the schools in the triangle. He points out the difficulties of giving ESPN the middle finger but also points out they might have to to get what they want. Which if they do they have to expand.
ACC faces a balancing act as a new college football alliance tries to level the field
BY LUKE DECOCK
LDECOCK@NEWSOBSERVER.COM
Napoleon — the Napoleon McCallum of France — could have told the SEC this was inevitable.
The balance of power in college football has teetered and tottered this way and that for a generation, always sliding more and more toward the SEC, until this summer’s poaching of Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12 put the SEC in what may become an unassailable position of strength.
And just as bitter rivals put aside centuries of enmity to join together and collectively push back Napoleon’s attempts to realign the European football conferences and expand France’s television footprint by force, the ACC and Big Ten and Pac-12 have come together to unite against the SEC, and by extension ESPN.
The shrewd maneuvering of the SEC and Notre Dame to engineer a proposed 12-team College Football Playoff that would directly benefit both, possibly to the detriment of others, has pushed the three next most powerful conferences together into an alliance of opposition that is expected to be formalized this week.
The only thing the three conferences have in common — aside from a healthy respect for their own academic standards — is concern that the SEC and ESPN are on the verge of building a college football monopoly that would eventually lock them out. They have different television partners and their geography is only barely contiguous, but voting as a bloc would give them the power they currently lack as individuals.
That power can potentially achieve some lofty goals. The Big Ten and Pac-12 will want to ensure that Fox and perhaps CBS or NBC or someone else are part of the bidding for an expanded CFP, whatever that ends up looking like, to make sure ESPN’s continued control isn’t a fait accompli. Amid perpetual grumbling that ESPN over-promotes the SEC, there are practical concerns about cornering the market. The CBS game of the day helped make SEC football what it is today. It didn’t go unnoticed when the SEC sold that inventory to Disney instead.
Partnering up like this should prevent another wave of reactive realignment and further disruption, at least among the trio of conferences. And all three will be working together to check the growing power of the SEC to set the entire agenda for college football, and the first step in doing that is pumping the brakes on CFP expansion.
All of which gets a little bit tricky for the ACC.
It is inextricably yoked to ESPN via the ACC Network, and the two continue to work together to grow revenue in that joint venture, with one huge step forward on the immediate horizon. The long-awaited carriage deal with Comcast and its 20 million cable subscribers — still the biggest hole in ACC Network availability — appears to be close, a coup for new ACC commissioner Jim Phillips.
But the Big Ten and Pac-12 have made it clear they see ESPN and the SEC as working together, to their exclusion. The ACC, in the alliance, is going to have to play along with that. The new alliance is going to demand a delicate balancing act from Phillips.
Meanwhile, the most direct way for the ACC to strengthen its position with ESPN — and reopen a rights deal that runs through 2036 and leaves the ACC far behind the SEC — is to bring Notre Dame aboard as a full member. Pushing a playoff plan that makes it more difficult for independents to gain access would help with that. So would a scheduling alliance, if the ACC can gain some measure of control over traditional Irish opponents like Michigan, Michigan State, Stanford and USC.
Those are the pressure points for Notre Dame: The jump to the safety of the ACC last fall proved it.
All of that may give Notre Dame more reasons to join the ACC in football, but it’s not going to engender good feelings at conference meetings. It’s long past time to put that aside.
As the original Napoleon once said, “Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest.” What applied then still applies now, especially in college football.
Luke DeCock: 919-829-8947, @LukeDeCock
ACC faces a balancing act as a new college football alliance tries to level the field
BY LUKE DECOCK
LDECOCK@NEWSOBSERVER.COM
Napoleon — the Napoleon McCallum of France — could have told the SEC this was inevitable.
The balance of power in college football has teetered and tottered this way and that for a generation, always sliding more and more toward the SEC, until this summer’s poaching of Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12 put the SEC in what may become an unassailable position of strength.
And just as bitter rivals put aside centuries of enmity to join together and collectively push back Napoleon’s attempts to realign the European football conferences and expand France’s television footprint by force, the ACC and Big Ten and Pac-12 have come together to unite against the SEC, and by extension ESPN.
The shrewd maneuvering of the SEC and Notre Dame to engineer a proposed 12-team College Football Playoff that would directly benefit both, possibly to the detriment of others, has pushed the three next most powerful conferences together into an alliance of opposition that is expected to be formalized this week.
The only thing the three conferences have in common — aside from a healthy respect for their own academic standards — is concern that the SEC and ESPN are on the verge of building a college football monopoly that would eventually lock them out. They have different television partners and their geography is only barely contiguous, but voting as a bloc would give them the power they currently lack as individuals.
That power can potentially achieve some lofty goals. The Big Ten and Pac-12 will want to ensure that Fox and perhaps CBS or NBC or someone else are part of the bidding for an expanded CFP, whatever that ends up looking like, to make sure ESPN’s continued control isn’t a fait accompli. Amid perpetual grumbling that ESPN over-promotes the SEC, there are practical concerns about cornering the market. The CBS game of the day helped make SEC football what it is today. It didn’t go unnoticed when the SEC sold that inventory to Disney instead.
Partnering up like this should prevent another wave of reactive realignment and further disruption, at least among the trio of conferences. And all three will be working together to check the growing power of the SEC to set the entire agenda for college football, and the first step in doing that is pumping the brakes on CFP expansion.
All of which gets a little bit tricky for the ACC.
It is inextricably yoked to ESPN via the ACC Network, and the two continue to work together to grow revenue in that joint venture, with one huge step forward on the immediate horizon. The long-awaited carriage deal with Comcast and its 20 million cable subscribers — still the biggest hole in ACC Network availability — appears to be close, a coup for new ACC commissioner Jim Phillips.
But the Big Ten and Pac-12 have made it clear they see ESPN and the SEC as working together, to their exclusion. The ACC, in the alliance, is going to have to play along with that. The new alliance is going to demand a delicate balancing act from Phillips.
Meanwhile, the most direct way for the ACC to strengthen its position with ESPN — and reopen a rights deal that runs through 2036 and leaves the ACC far behind the SEC — is to bring Notre Dame aboard as a full member. Pushing a playoff plan that makes it more difficult for independents to gain access would help with that. So would a scheduling alliance, if the ACC can gain some measure of control over traditional Irish opponents like Michigan, Michigan State, Stanford and USC.
Those are the pressure points for Notre Dame: The jump to the safety of the ACC last fall proved it.
All of that may give Notre Dame more reasons to join the ACC in football, but it’s not going to engender good feelings at conference meetings. It’s long past time to put that aside.
As the original Napoleon once said, “Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest.” What applied then still applies now, especially in college football.
Luke DeCock: 919-829-8947, @LukeDeCock
