By Nicole Auerbach, Bruce Feldman and Stewart Mandel
After a day full of realignment rumblings, The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach, Bruce Feldman and Stewart Mandel hosted a live room to answer your questions and discuss where the future of college football might be headed.
Read the conversation here:
(Note: Transcript has been edited for length and clarity.)
Is Florida State actually going to leave the ACC?
Auerbach: This has to go all the way back to February when they had that board meeting where athletic director Michael Alford went off about this issue. And really, it’s like fighting words, right? They are saying, ‘Hey, we are unhappy and we’re going to make a stink about it and you’re going to have to respond in some capacity.’
I feel like they think they’re going through the right channels to try to look at revenue and they’re not being heard. You see the reaction even in the comments today in the Board of Trustees meeting from a lot of people and you can understand exactly what that looks like. These are other members of the league, other people in college sports being like, what is Florida State doing? What are they throwing their weight around, screaming about how much value they bring? They’re a member of a conference. They’re in a deal that’s been locked in through 2036. We get it they’re not happy, but what leverage do they really have if they don’t have an invite to the Big Ten or the SEC?
That follow-up is, well, we’re (Florida State) going to continue to be loud about it. We’re going to continue to raise hell about it because we’re not happy with where the ACC got in the spring meetings about unequal revenue sharing and an incentive-based revenue distribution based on how far you go in the CFP or March Madness and adjusting so you can maybe make a couple million dollars extra because they don’t think that’s going to close the $30 million a year gap that they’re going to have with who they’re going to be recruiting against.
Still, they don’t have a landing spot, but clearly, they’re getting closer to saying, well, maybe we’re just going to give notice to the ACC and bet on ourselves and whether that looks like, once we’re available, then maybe the Big Ten or the SEC or their media partners will want us or be interested in engaging with us; whether that means they’re going to try to band together enough ACC schools to try to break out so that the grant of rights is voided or go independent; I don’t really know what that next step is.
… August 15th is a key date for them in terms of leaving the ACC and giving notice so that they could be somewhere else the following year. That does not address the exit fee, the grant of rights, how much it would cost to get out of that or a landing spot. But that’s part of the reason they’re trying to put a little pressure and urgency around it, even though it’s just a lot of words right now.
GO DEEPER
Florida State trustees threaten to leave ACC over revenue imbalances
Feldman: I remember some FSU board people popping off about this like eight years ago. I feel like this surfaces every once in a while and they get loud about it and then they get tied up, in this case, with the grant of rights. But the other thing, as Nicole was talking about 2036 is not around the corner. That is a long time from now. But also, not only do they not have leverage in this with a landing spot, part of this deal is tied into ESPN. Why is ESPN going to then bid against itself? Because I don’t know who else is going to jump in this.
… Networks don’t actually go against themselves like this. And as Nicole said, FSU is a strong brand and obviously they’ve gotten better in football in the last couple of years under Mike Norvell after backsliding. But they’re also not Ohio State and Michigan in terms of a TV presence. They’re big, but they’re not that big. They can talk about an extension existential crisis, but I don’t know if that changes the reality of how they’re tied into this.
Will expanding help Big Ten schools make money? Or will the pieces of the pie actually be smaller?
Feldman: From everything I’ve heard, TV does not want to pay more for this, nor do some of the schools already. Why would they give up stuff for places that they weren’t jumping in the picture for?
GO DEEPER
Big Ten presidents discuss adding 4 Pac-12 schools: Sources
Auerbach: Early stages, all those caveats, I don’t think we’re talking about full shares and that’s part of this right? When we talk about Arizona to the Big 12 or how many schools they might add and would they get a full share like Colorado just did (a pro-rata)? … I don’t think the Big Ten has that. I don’t think that would be part of this deal because again, I think about this a lot where USC and UCLA could have been part of a larger package if they wanted Oregon and Washington at that point for a full share. That didn’t happen. So I think it would definitely be at a discount or however you want to describe that, if there were any additions down the line.
That’s important to keep in mind. And as you mentioned, I mean, these are conversations that are pretty much centered on the Pac-12. I’ve talked to different athletic directors and other administrators in the league not involved in this actual exploratory call … who are personally more interested in waiting to see what happens if the ACC ever were to break open and those schools were available. But that’s not really what today’s developments are about. This is about watching to see what happens with the Pac-12. If it really does implode and break open does the Big Ten act?
Why is the Big Ten bringing this up now?
Feldman: Geographically, Stew and I had this conversation a little, but not with the Big Ten exclusively. He started talking about the ACC, maybe his dream scenario…
Mandel: The Atlantic and Pacific conference.
Feldman: Yeah, so Washington and Oregon and I said to him, look at a map, the furthest west you get from that is Pitt. This isn’t like a lot of Big Ten schools who are in the Central time zone. And so what you have though, with these two programs, which we all think they’re really strong athletic programs and they are in pretty big markets, Seattle and Washington, but does this make a little sense travel-wise for the non-revenue sports with UCLA and USC? Because it is a long way to get to pretty much everywhere in the Big Ten for that them.
Now football, the people I’ve talked to around here on the West Coast think they can embrace it, it’s doable. It’s the other sports, it’s baseball, it’s the basketballs, it’s soccer, it’s a lot of the other sports because as it was explained to me months ago, there’s talk of how there could be an eastern pod where it’s Maryland, Rutgers, Penn State, Ohio State or something like that. And now if you did it on the West Coast and you had Washington, Oregon, USC, UCLA, again, the TV parts of this would have to get sorted out if it ever got to this point and I think we’re still at the if in capital letters. But I think logistically that is a little more manageable for some of the non-revenue sports than having to play almost your entire schedule where you are taking really, really long flights and having these extended road trips where you may be hitting three schools at once.
GO DEEPER
Mandel’s Mailbag: Could an ACC/Pac-12 merger save both leagues?
Mandel: Somebody in the comments of my mailbag today said something and I couldn’t answer it. He said, if Oregon and Washington are so valuable, why can’t Pac-12 get a good TV deal? That’s a good point. Right. … I’ve seen the ratings. They do good ratings. But if they were that valuable, you would think they’d be raising the number that is reportedly lower than the Big 12 that the Pac-12 is able to get.
(Melina Myers / USA Today)
Can a majority of ACC schools break the grant of rights together?
Auerbach: Yes, if it’s over 50 percent of the conference that would be making a move at once, they would not owe the exit fee or whatever it would cost to get out of the grant of rights. This is why there was so much attention on those seven schools around the spring meetings, talking meeting together, because if you do have eight — because it would need to be over 50 percent — and they all were willing to take that risk, and these are university presidents who are, by definition risk averse, if they decided to do this, then yes, those things would not be financial issues. Now, that’s one route. And again, that’s a lot of coordination and a lot of people, even if FSU were to be the one to say, I’m giving notice to the ACC, I’m out, you still need to trust that everybody else follows and actually does that, which is easier said than done.
But the other option is you give notice, which is the first step, which is what they’re talking about threatening to do at some point, but you would have to pay the exit fee and then we don’t know what the fee would be to buy your rights back. I think that everyone involved in the ACC, especially the seven schools that have explored this, especially at Florida State, have lawyers who are looking at this and who can estimate what they think would be asked to pay to do this. They can put that up against how much they think they would make if they join the Big Ten or the SEC, and decide long-term if that’s still a better option, but it would be extremely expensive. I think what we’re hearing from them is saying no matter how expensive it is, we are “dying by a thousand cuts.” One of the trustees said today that each day that passes, each year that passes where their rivals are making $30 million a year more, which they will by the end of the estimated media rights deal, they’re thinking whatever it’s going to cost, it’s still going to be worth it long term if we can get somewhere that’s going to be bringing in way more money and securing our financial future better.
What about Oregon State and Washington State?
Feldman: My gut is they’re in a bad spot. I don’t see how the Big 12 would further expand to bring them in. I don’t know exactly if it makes financial sense for them to keep gobbling up everybody who’s out there.
Mandel: My answer to the Beavs/Cougs thing is: I think they would end up in the Mountain West. That might not seem fair, but nothing about this stuff is ever fair. …
Wouldn’t it be something if we went from San Diego State having to beg its way back to the Mountain West after not getting the Pac-12 invite as soon as they thought to actually now you don’t have to go anywhere San Diego State because the Pac-12’s coming to you? Unfortunately, those two schools in particular, are small, small markets, remote, not big national fan bases necessarily.
If Arizona, Arizona State and Utah all decided today, we all want to go to the Big 12, can Brett Yormark do that? Or as we’ve been told recently, his TV partners want to stop at 14. They agreed to do the pro-rata for the Power 5 schools, that doesn’t mean they want to have to pay for three more of those. So there would be no room left for those other two.
Will the Pac-12 still qualify as a Power 5 conference with an automatic bowl bid?
Mandel: So that’s about to become irrelevant. Once the 12-team Playoff kicks in next year, that idea of contract bowls (the Sugar Bowl is Big 12-SEC) goes away. Those bowls become quarterfinal hosts.
The format of this thing is the six highest-ranked conference champs get automatic berths. That did not account for what if there were only four “major conferences” left by the time this thing starts.
Auerbach: We kind of went through this two years ago. The Playoff proposal was already out there and then we thought the Big 12 might die and the Big 12 was down to eight teams and you knew that if they were going to add, they were going to be pulling up from the Group of 5 ranks. So I remember having conversations with administrators in leagues saying, well, should they still get considered a “Power” league? Should they still get consideration revenue, split, all of that stuff from the CFP? And that really didn’t end up being a question when they were negotiating and eventually approving the model.
I think we’re definitely going to see the six and six for the first two years of the 12-team Playoff, but they are really starting from scratch for 2026 onward. That’s why we’ve had those conversations about do you have multiple media partners? How’s it going to work? Could you possibly have maybe more games on campus? A lot of that stuff could be different for 2026 onward. So I suppose you could have that conversation, pose that question about how you want to structure this thing, but I do think you’ve got to be a little careful to avoid lawsuits and certain issues if you tinker too much, because I think the six highest-ranked champions and six at large, they believe that that’s fine and that works. So we’ll have to see if that would change if there was less power conference leagues.
If the Big Ten adds Oregon, Washington, Cal and Stanford, does it add a late-night window?
Mandel: Yes. We talked earlier about this: Can they bring in enough revenue to keep everybody from losing money on this?
You already have the Fox noon, the CBS 3:30 and the NBC 7:30, if you can create a fourth package and sell it to whoever ESPN, Apple, I don’t know, there is some extra revenue right there. … Somebody Maryland, Michigan State, somebody’s going to have to make a long trip out there and fly back in the middle of night and I don’t think they’d want to do that. Also, it should be noted, Pac-12 schools hate playing those games. They have to if they want to make any money in the Pac-12. But I think USC and UCLA, one of the many reasons they like going to Big Ten is they feel like they won’t have to play those late-night games much anymore. But that would be logical just from a pure TV revenue standpoint. That would be a good way to generate that.
(Top photo: Kirby Lee / USA Today)