Make Georgia Tech Football Great Again!

Given the recent conference payout projections covered by the excellent Nicole Auerbach, is this just the slow march to the end of the ACC? By the end of the current contract, they won’t be even close to parity with the big boys. Is there anything that can be done to change at this point? As a fan of a smaller private school, should we just enjoy this final ride and know it’s over at the end of the decade? — Matthew T.


Unless the ACC can find a way out of that short-sighted 20-year ESPN contract John Swofford signed in 2016, I do fear the conference could be in trouble long-term. At some point, the cost of doing business at the highest level is going to outpace its modest (by comparison) revenue growth. That’s a big reason why it was so puzzling to see the ACC, of all conferences, block early CFP expansion — unless the conference is confident that sacrificing two years of increased payouts will lead to substantially bigger gains in an entirely open bidding process come 2026.


Compounding matters for the ACC is it doesn’t have many rabid football schools that can rely on its donors to help offset the discrepancies. Clemson is one. It has had no problem to this point competing with the SEC powers in terms of coaches’ salaries and facilities, and that’s unlikely to change as long as Dabo Swinney keeps winning. Miami, which had lagged in those areas for some time, is suddenly teeming with handouts ever since the push to oust Manny Diaz for Mario Cristobal. Even Florida State, with its rich history over the last 30-plus years, does not generally bring in Big Ten or SEC money.


Note that the ACC is not necessarily alone in its predicament. Navigate projects the Pac-12 ($62.8 million per school) — even with a new TV deal coming in 2024 — will be no better off than the ACC ($61.5 million) come 2029. Both would be a staggering $40-$55 million behind the Big Ten and SEC. Navigate is optimistically predicting the reconstituted Big 12 will remain in the same ballpark ($57.5 million) as the ACC and Pac-12, but no one’s under any delusion that the league will be higher than fifth once Oklahoma and Texas leave.


The difference is, the Pac-12 at least has an opportunity in 2024 to possibly strike gold if commissioner George Kliavkoff can find a creative way to drive rights fees above expectations. The ACC’s income is essentially fixed through 2036. Commissioner Jim Phillips’ best hope to change that is to convince Notre Dame to become a full member, but Notre Dame currently has no incentive to do so.


I would predict one of two things will occur by the end of this decade: Either the ACC and ESPN will come to some sort of mutual agreement to re-do the rest of the deal. Perhaps the conference convinces its partner that the product it’s showing will suffer without a cash influx. Or, the likes of Clemson, Florida State and Miami decide to test their luck in court and try to get out of the league’s Grant of Rights in order to join the SEC or some other new confederation of football schools. No school I know of has attempted such a thing before, but a lot of things I thought I’d never see in college sports have suddenly transpired in the last few years.


If by 2026 the conferences decide that the Playoff will remain at four, how does this affect the SEC? The conference will have maybe 8-10 teams that aspire being a “King” and compete for the national championship, while the other conferences will have maybe 2-3 programs with the same aspirations. Will SEC teams block the others’ path to the Playoff (and produce a lot of unhappy fan bases and coaching turnover), or will the SEC manage to start somehow putting three teams in the Playoff field? — Flavio M.


I don’t see any scenario where it stays at four post-2025. When Greg Sankey says, “We’re fine with four teams,” he means, “We’re fine with four teams for the next four years.” He knows he needs a system with more berths for his league once the SEC expands to 16 teams. But remember, all 11 conferences (with Notre Dame counting as a conference) have come out in favor of expansion already. The ACC’s opposition is to expanding sooner than 2026, not to expanding at all, which, if you take Jim Phillips at his word, was about wanting more time to study the effect on player safety and for the industry to get a better handle on NIL and other governance issues.


What remains to be seen, though, is whether 12 will remain the preferred model. If you think back to June 2021, those of us who like to think we cover this stuff closely were shocked to see them essentially skipping straight past eight teams to 12. I never imagined such a radical change would even be on the table. But then, once we realized the process that led to that proposal, three of the four guys on that working group — Sankey, Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick and Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson (on behalf of all Group of 5 leagues) stood to gain the most from a system with six automatics and six at-larges.


It’s possible we will see renewed discussion around eight teams next time around, but the ACC for one pushed for it last fall and found very little support. The SEC, understandably, will only support an eight-team bracket if it’s the eight best teams with zero restrictions, not five or six spots reserved for other conferences. And as I’ve said a million times, the SEC holds all the leverage in any CFP discussions. You can’t have a national tournament without the conference that’s won 12 of the last 16 national championships.


If I had to guess, the end result of all this posturing by The Alliance conferences, in particular, could be a system that is even-more SEC friendly. In the proposal Sankey co-authored, 12-1 Georgia, the No. 1 team in the country most of last season, would have been seeded lower than 11-2 Baylor, because the Big 12 had the fourth-highest conference champ and the top four seeds were reserved for conference champs. I’d be surprised if the SEC still supports that wrinkle next time around. Sankey will also face pressure from his members to move more of those early-round games on campus. That wasn’t feasible under the current contract due to obligations to the New Year’s Six bowls, but everything’s on the table post-2025.
 
1982Jacket said:
OK. Tried biting tongue. I will just say that there is something seriously wrong when, in a nation of well over 300 million people, apparently the best we could come up with for Vice President of the whole damn country is someone who failed the Kalifornia Bar Exam - which literally thousands of people successfully pass every single year.
Click to expand...
well, The Big Guy did put serious restrictions on the pool of available candidates.
 
Regarding Clemson finances, it’s weird to me that when I talk to Clemson people (at games, in general life, etc.), they consistently represent their school as a small, cash-strapped underdog (more like a GT than a U[sic]GA) and believe that the school and fanbase doesn’t have the funds to keep up in the arms race of salaries, facilities, recruiting, and the whole NIL thing.

I don’t know if my perception of them is wrong (I mean, they are a rural cow college, but they have a large and devoted fanbase) of if their perception of themselves relative to others is wrong.

JRjr
 
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