2023 ACC News & Discussion

[ThatGuy]

Another reminder (for those who aren't aware) that @BigGameBoomers tweets are pulled out of the place where the sun doesn't shine.

(No, seriously. It's all hot air. There is no source cited, because there is no source. He's just throwing things out there to get reactions.)

 

[MWBATL]

Another reminder (for those who aren't aware) that @BigGameBoomers tweets are pulled out of the place where the sun doesn't shine.

(No, seriously. It's all hot air. There is no source cited, because there is no source. He's just throwing things out there to get reactions.)

I agree. Any such list that has UGa just two spots below GT is ridiculous on its face. Plus, where are the service academies on this list? Those are elite academic institutions...

 

[WraleighWreck]

It’s a list of power 5 teams.

 

[Richard7125]

It's easy for us. We play all "home" conference and OOC games as neutral site games at the Benz and the other half of the conference slate is away games. We lose no revenue, give the ACC the finger.

Clemp would either have to come to Atlanta or go to Charlotte. FSU's only real option is Jax.

For every dumb rule, there's usually a simple way around it.

Would that really work? That seems like way too simple of a solution/workaround.

 

[AUFC]

Would that really work? That seems like way too simple of a solution/workaround.

I can't speak to the money distribution piece but the production costs at MBS are significantly higher than the production costs at the stadium we own and would for sure cut into the total profit.

 

[Richard7125]

I can't speak to the money distribution piece but the production costs at MBS are significantly higher than the production costs at the stadium we own and would for sure cut into the total profit.

There's a difference between cutting into profit and sacrificing all revenue. Moreover, at least in the first few years, i would imagine these "neutral" games at the Benz would average more than 10k people than Tech has been getting at BDS. Again, i have no idea if this really skirts the GOR, but it is an interesting concept.

ETA: I'm highly skeptical the Big10 is interested in Tech. I don't think we move the needle enough for them especially since they are adding USC and UCLA in 2024.

 

[CEB]

It’s a list of power 5 teams.

Does that add any validity to it?
I think the point is that it is neither informed or informative. It’s simply a product of everyone having a computer and an opinion.
If there is even a shred of validity or objectivity to it, then we’ve been going about everything entirely wrong. I have a hard time believing that’s the case.

 

[CEB]

There's a difference between cutting into profit and sacrificing all revenue. Moreover, at least in the first few years, i would imagine these "neutral" games at the Benz would average more than 10k people than Tech has been getting at BDS. Again, i have no idea if this really skirts the GOR, but it is an interesting concept.

ETA: I'm highly skeptical the Big10 is interested in Tech. I don't think we move the needle enough for them especially since they are adding USC and UCLA in 2024.

I have a very hard time believing that “road games” are the answer. To my knowledge, no one here is privy to the ESPN agreement. The GOR has been out there but it simply says the rights are granted to fulfill the obligations of the ESPN agreement. We don’t know what that means, but it’s reasonable to assume that the conference and the conference members under the GOR have some obligation to a set number games as part of that agreement. I don’t know how that translates to any specific team, though. In other words, if one team walks, the conference likely could still fulfill their obligations for number of games without them. I would think that’s a reasonable assumption or it would allow a team to leave (say, FSU) and wait for ESPN to come after the ACC for providing them with no FSU programming, declare it a breach, and blow it all up. In such a scenario, it means FSU just has to walk and wait for the dominoes to fall and be a free agent in a year or two. Seems pretty unlikely.

 

[forensicbuzz]

I had an interesting thought and would love to get feedback on it. What if we scheduled our "home games" at MBS as neutral site games? If that wouldn't fly, what if we did the same but designate the opposing team as the "home" team?

Because BDS@HGF is smaller (and we don't sell out) and the gate is not as big a revenue earner as other schools, playing off-campus games would be less devastating. FSU or Clemson playing no home games in their own stadium would have a significant impact on their program (including their fans' access to watch the games live).

 

[WraleighWreck]

Only pointed out power 5 list since question was raised about military academies. Big game boomer has been around for a while and is 100% clickbait. A friend of mine likes to send it out whenever it trashes someone else’s school just to f$&k with people. The recent one about worst student fanbases that tfg retweeted was also BGB. For the academic school list, he just took USNews and some other best colleges list and mixed them up slightly so it wasn’t a complete copy job.

 

[slugboy]

Would that really work? That seems like way too simple of a solution/workaround.

1. No
2. Simple proof of point 1 is that there are 132 D1 teams, and none of them are doing point 1
3. Oddly, inner city teams like Tech, BC, and Pitt are the ones that have a real stadium nearby to try that with
4. To be a neutral site game, you’d have to split the gate and the media rights with the other team. Your season ticket revenue would be cut in half.
5. Any ACC lawyer worth their salt would go after media rights at the “neutral site” games. It’s a simple argument that FSU owes media rights to the ACC at least six games every year through the term of the contract.

 

[GT33]

We played Clemson at the Benz last year, giving up a “home game” except GT/ACC called it a home game when it really wasn’t. We got booted out of seat locations into lower priority/level seats, had no priority anything for that game. GT/ACC speaking out of both sides of their mouth here.

 

[Techster]

1. No
2. Simple proof of point 1 is that there are 132 D1 teams, and none of them are doing point 1
3. Oddly, inner city teams like Tech, BC, and Pitt are the ones that have a real stadium nearby to try that with
4. To be a neutral site game, you’d have to split the gate and the media rights with the other team. Your season ticket revenue would be cut in half.
5. Any ACC lawyer worth their salt would go after media rights at the “neutral site” games. It’s a simple argument that FSU owes media rights to the ACC at least six games every year through the term of the contract.

There's also a legal term for "work arounds" to try and beat the language in a contract. I can't quite remember what it's called, it' something to do with bad faith/deception. Suffice it to say, given that there's 10+ years left in the GOR, that's a LONG time to try to work around the "home team" media issues.

 

[slugboy]

There's also a legal term for "work arounds" to try and beat the language in a contract. I can't quite remember what it's called, it' something to do with bad faith/deception. Suffice it to say, given that there's 10+ years left in the GOR, that's a LONG time to try to work around the "home team" media issues.

I respect the ability of a determined lawyer to get out of a contract. I also understand the willingness of an executive to try to wiggle out of a deal (Twitter is currently not paying many of its bills, for example, and we’ll see how that turns out).

I expect someone to try something in the next five years. The main reason someone hasn’t is that they don’t have a good plan, and the university administration doesn’t support them.

I also think that “let’s not have home games until 2036” is a terrible plan and won’t work.

Plus, leaving the ACC and then having the B1G and SEC not extending an offer would be cosmically appropriate for a ton of teams, including FSU.

Also, wanting to accomplish something and doing it are different things. FSU wants to move to a bigger money conference. They may not be able to during the current contract.

I just looked, and it’s nearly 70 years between the first 2:20 marathon and the first sub-2-hour marathon. You can know someone is going to accomplish something someday, but seeing it happen in less than 10 years is another matter.

 

[Techster]

Plus, leaving the ACC and then having the B1G and SEC not extending an offer would be cosmically appropriate for a ton of teams, including FSU.

NO ONE is leaving without an invite in hand. That would just be comically stupid on their part.

If FSU (or any other school) is beating the drum to leave, it's because they already have and invite. FSU, in their defense, is not beating the drum to leave. They're just beating the drum to take money out of the pockets of the "have nots" to put in their pockets.

Honestly, if FSU and Clemson want to pay that game, GT needs to beat the drum that we deserve more money because we reside in the biggest market. Let's see how the FSUs and Clemsons of the ACC want to play that game.

 

[cpf2001]

I wonder if TV money will continue going up, to the point that even a basketball-centric ACC could get bigger paydays in 2028ish than they do today with the football schools.

I personally doubt it, since Bally's whole business plan was betting on "this line goes up forever" and they lost that bet...

But if it did, blowing up the conference as a "win win" for even the remaining ACC teams to get to renegotiate w/o the football powers - basically a face-saving way of letting them (us, hopefully) leave.

 

[Flajacket]

I don't even think more schools have to be involved yet. They could just be testing the waters, seeing who agrees with them.

13 years is a long time if some parties to the agreement are already rumbling about it. That's why I dont' believe that nothing will happen until 2036. Yeah, that's what the contract says, but contract negotiations and enforcement also involve power and desparation, not just the words, and it's really really early for it to be starting to show seams. It's only gonna get worse.

There's probably multiple angles they could explore. As it is right now, there's a solid chance that it's a suicide pact for everyone. This is college football, I think it's fair to expect some dirty pool as a result. How miserable could FSU and a few others make the rest of the league, both for those 13 years and after? While setting up some sort of "you agree to let us go now, we'll help arrange a soft landing for your basketball programs before the revenue gap makes them less relevant too"?

Good grief. That's like your buddy asking you to fix him up with your REALLY cute friend in exchange for a blind date with his cousin.

We all know how that ends up.

 

[Techster]

I wonder if TV money will continue going up, to the point that even a basketball-centric ACC could get bigger paydays in 2028ish than they do today with the football schools.

I personally doubt it, since Bally's whole business plan was betting on "this line goes up forever" and they lost that bet...

But if it did, blowing up the conference as a "win win" for even the remaining ACC teams to get to renegotiate w/o the football powers - basically a face-saving way of letting them (us, hopefully) leave.

I read that ESPN owns 50% of the ACC Network. If you want to know the big reason why the ACC will remain intact until the end of GOR, it's because ESPN has a LOT of skin in the game.

If anything, you may see ESPN find a way to pay FSU/Clemson/etc more money without hurting the projected payouts for the rest of the league. Make no mistake, ESPN has a big interest in making sure the ACC doesn't fall apart. Also, as I touched on earlier, there's a report that in terms of ROI, the ACC makes more money for ESPN than the SEC does. We are a higher margin investment for ESPN, so there's no way they'll let the ACC hurt that cash cow.

 

[TooTall]

I read that ESPN owns 50% of the ACC Network. If you want to know the big reason why the ACC will remain intact until the end of GOR, it's because ESPN has a LOT of skin in the game.

If anything, you may see ESPN find a way to pay FSU/Clemson/etc more money without hurting the projected payouts for the rest of the league. Make no mistake, ESPN has a big interest in making sure the ACC doesn't fall apart. Also, as I touched on earlier, there's a report that in terms of ROI, the ACC makes more money for ESPN than the SEC does. We are a higher margin investment for ESPN, so there's no way they'll let the ACC hurt that cash cow.

While that maybe true, we don't need to be the only reason E$PN is making money when we don't see any benefit.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

While that maybe true, we don't need to be the only reason E$PN is making money when we don't see any benefit.

To be fair, we see benefit. We get the bulk of our money from that TV deal. The issue is that other teams in the top two conferences are now about to make double what we do, and that will hurt our ability to be competitive with said teams.