Despite all the college football realignment rumors that poked fun at the Atlantic Coast Conference over the past two weeks, it appears that the ACC’s marquee football programs are staying put. At least for now.
FSU, Clemson Not Expected to Depart ACC
The drop-dead date for teams to inform the ACC that they will be departing for the 2025-26 year is set for August 15, 2024. According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, that deadline is set to pass by without the Clemson Tigers nor Florida State Seminoles informing the conference of their intent to leave.
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This comes perhaps as a bit of a shock to the national landscape of college football after Big 12 and SEC Media Days, but in reality, this was the most likely scenario when facts surfaced.
The amount of money it would have taken for both programs (or any program for that matter) to leave the ACC was set at staggering rates. Any school set to leave the conference would have to pay the ACC’s exit fee of three times its annual revenue, a figure that closes in on approximately $120 million.
Florida State, who remains at the epicenter of the dispute between conferences, has pushed for radical change from the ACC in the face of the other Power Four conferences expansion efforts over the past three seasons.
The ACC sent an average of nearly $50 million per school to its full members in 2021-22, compared to the ACC’s $39.5 million. The Big Ten closed in on $48 million per school in that same time frame, but both numbers are expected to grow more than $30 million with the realignment efforts of the Big Ten gaining USC and UCLA and the SEC gaining Texas and Oklahoma.
That radical change that FSU proposed was put into question around the ACC’s television rights deal. The ACC’s current TV deal with ESPN locks the conference in until the 2036 season, further presenting issues with any substantial growth opportunities.
Despite that, Florida State (and the ACC by proxy) were unable to break the grant of rights with the TV deal.
All the facts line up in favor of staying in the ACC, and the latest news that FSU and Clemson are likely staying put in the ACC makes one thing clear: college football realignment will never be off the table. Once one conference is set to make more money for their schools, others will be left wanting more.
And if the back-and-forth with FSU and Clemson are any indicator, that vicious cycle will repeat itself over and over.
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