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Conference Expansion: Stanford, California and SMU Join the ACC

Here are ESPN's current TV contracts for college football:

ESPN​

  • College Football Playoff
  • SEC (shared with CBS until the end of the 2023 season; then, exclusively on ESPN/ABC/SECN starting in 2024)
  • Big Ten (contract ends in 2023; starting in 2024, Big 10 will be exclusively televised/streamed on CBS, Paramount, Fox and NBC)
  • ACC (ends in 2036)
  • Big 12 (shared with FOX ends in 2031)
  • Pac-12 (ends in 2024: Pac 12 trying to negotiate on new deal with the networks, but conference in flux is hindering the process)
  • AAC (ends in 2031)
  • Sun Belt (ends in 2031)
  • MAC (shared with CBS; ends in 2026)
  • C-USA (shared with CBS; ends in 2028)
 
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ESPN wouldn’t be in this situation if they just stuck to what they are good at; live sports. Nobody watches the in between “entertainment”. I would actually be more inclined (if I were actually at home) to watch an old replay of a game than their talk shows, and replays are a hell of a lot cheaper than paying Skip and SAS
 
Yes, but the replays would have a limited audience. Even the weather channel wants long form programing because that means more ads and more revenue.

Speaking of replays if anyone has a good list of youtube's of old wake games, feel free to share.
 
ESPN talk shows are unnecessary. If I want to hear about the MLB then I go to MLBN who actually specializes in that. Same with NFL and NFLN. I don’t care broadly about college sports so I watch ACCN talk as I’m sure many others watch BTenN and SECN. So ESPN’s main channels do not need talk shows, except I guess for NBA? Tbh, there could be an NBAN and I wouldn’t know.
 
ESPN kinda got left behind. They had the monopoly with Sportscenter before the 24/7 news cycle and internet came around on being able to see EVERYTHING plus watch clips online the morning after. They had a successful initial pivot to the talk show theme with analysis but then just jumped the shark and now it's just the same conversation over and over day after day. They needed to find something new and innovative but haven't gotten there or what they've tried to do just hasn't been successful.

I don't know what the solution is, but the continued "make up over the top scenarios" to argue about isn't the answer.
 
ESPN certainly needs to come up with the big new thing in sports media. They struck gold with PTI 22 years ago and they've been trying to duplicate it since. I don't even know the last time I've seen Kornheiser and Wilbon in the same room but they have better chemistry than any combination of talking heads out there except the lead Inside the NBA crew.

"Make up over the top scenarios" to argue about has been a staple of AM sports talk radio, ESPN, ESPN competitors, message boards, social media, and podcasts for as long as I can remember. And you can argue political and entertainment coverage is even worse. There are no virgins on these here OGBoards when it comes to "make up over the top scenarios" to argue about.
 
That map is inaccurate - there are 69 teams the Power 5 as of July 1, 2023
 
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I would take that conference. Only have to contend with two weirdo schools in PA for football titles.
 
guitardeac said:
He really cant spell athletic
Click to expand...
I know The Athletic is making some major gains in the industry, but that's petty even for ESPN.

The name change makes sense for the footprint and the teams. Hampton, Towson, and A&T among others don't strike me as particularly "Colonial."
 
ACC Football "Media Days" begin this morning (Tuesday 7/25). Three days of mostly boring questions and answers are scheduled with coaches and select players. There will also be plenty of tedious commentary from various sources. None of it will be worth watching or listening to but at least it fills time on the ACCN and allows the network to sell some ads.

It might be worth watching the beginning of the show at 9:30 this morning when conference commissioner Jim Phillips is scheduled to speak. However, I expect that his remarks will be every bit as scintillating as a speech from Susan Wente or any other academic bureaucrat. Given everything that has been happening to and within the ACC and other college sports conferences, Phillips' speech should be interesting but I doubt that it will be.


LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – In a landscape where the Southeastern and Big Ten Conferences are commanding more and more of the oxygen, the Atlantic Coast Conference finds itself fighting for a place in the college football conversation.

To do that, the ACC needs to bring disruption. But in this offseason, it has offered only dysfunction. A group of seven schools reportedly banding together to try to explore exit strategies from the league’s apparently iron-clad grant of media rights deal. The commissioner, Jim Phillips, named in lawsuits over the hazing scandal that cost Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald his job.

Heading into ACC Media Days this week, the league finds itself more than ever in need of a fresh marketing approach. The question is, will the conference coaches and commissioners offer anything other than the standard Talking Season fare. The league has expanded its media days from 2 days to 3, having done away with its divisional format. It’s a start. More is needed.

Here are 3 storylines to watch as the programs head to Charlotte.

1). What will Phillips have to say?​

We already know what he’s going to say about the Northwestern lawsuits. Phillips has put out a statement claiming no knowledge of the hazing happening within the football program while he was athletic director there. Anything else, with litigation ongoing, is going to be a non-starter. It’s a distraction for a conference commissioner who doesn’t need one.

Phillips will have to address publicly the reports that a good number of the conference’s more prominent members were looking to align in exploring other options. And just as important, he’ll need to provide some kind of vision for the league, which is used to being among the “haves” of college football, but which now is decidedly among the “have nots,” or at least having less, than the SEC and Big Ten.

New revenue sharing options are on the table, but that’s not the kind of thing that can get the college football world talking. If the ACC is not going to be on a level financial playing field as the SEC and Big Ten, it’s imperative that the league get creative in remaining relevant in the national conversation for something other than how far it could fall.

What ideas does Phillips have for making this happen? A year ago, in the wake of the SEC announcing the additions of Texas and Oklahoma and the Big Ten adding USC and UCLA, Phillips delivered a dud of an address, essentially saying that those larger leagues should make sure to continue to allow the ACC to be a part of the “neighborhood.”

Alas, college football has no Mr. Rogers to regulate its conscience. My colleague, Rick Bozich, called Phillips’ address, in which he talked for 29 minutes before taking the first question, “flat, uninspiring, timid and likely a colossal loser.”

He'll need to bring more a year later, when the stakes have only grown higher...
 
Some thoughts on Phillips' remarks at the ACC "Football Kickoff":
  • Can't the ACC afford to rent or own a teleprompter? Phillips read his entire 25 minute speech while occasionally looking up only for a brief moment. It was uncomfortable to watch his awkwardness as a public speaker.
  • Seeing his name on the screen with"Ph.D." after his name was amusing. Like "Dr. Jill" Biden, Phillips has a Ph.D. in education, which is by far the least worthy doctoral degree in the universe. It's even worse than all those disciplines that end in the word "studies." Professors with degrees in serious fields in the sciences, humanities and social sciences have no respect for people with doctoral degrees in education. There is a disturbing number of bureaucrats with education doctorates on college campuses (including WFU) and they are mostly a source of malevolence for faculty, students and other staff.
  • Of course he said nothing about the Northwestern scandal because of the usual excuse of the scandal being "under investigation." I guess nobody really expected him to say anything substantive.
  • He had nothing reassuring to say about how the ACC can catch up to the B1G and SEC in TV revenue. His mention, in this context, of the new contract with the CW network only served to underline how far behind the ACC is.
  • His many mentions of all the titles won by ACC schools in non-revenue sports will do nothing to make the 7 rebel schools from Amelia Island any happier about the ACC's financial prospects.
  • He mentioned how wonderful it was to move the ACC headquarters from Greensboro to Charlotte. Fine, but the move changes nothing in the big picture of things.
  • He also frequently mentioned how he wants the federal government to come to the rescue of the NCAA and its member schools by making up a bunch of new laws and regulations to keep college sports from committing suicide due to the chaos spawned by NIL. (I'm all in favor of NIL but why should Uncle Sam be in charge of the rules for NIL?)
 
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