Still trying to wrap my head around this from ESPN, which will include the launch of the ACC Network in 2019:

The Atlantic Coast Conference and ESPN have agreed to a 20-year deal and rights extension through the 2035-36 academic year, sources said.

The ACC also extended its conference grant of rights deal nine years through 2035-36, a source said.

The conference’s grant of rights makes it untenable financially for a school to leave, guaranteeing in the 20 years of the deal that a school’s media rights, including revenue, for all home games would remain with the ACC regardless of the school’s affiliation.

The ACC’s new grant of rights also automatically extends Notre Dame’s contract with the conference as a member in all sports but football through 2035-36, a source said. If the Irish forgo football independence in the next 20 years, they are contracted to join the ACC.

The News & Observer’s piece on the pending move provides some additional background. A highlight:

Some in the television industry have questioned the viability of another college sports network in the current television climate, but ACC administrators and coaches have pushed hard for a network for not only financial but competitive reasons. N.C. State months ago solicited proposals for a $2 million on-campus studio and production center designed for network programming.

Any changes to the ACC’s television deal would come at a time of significant change for both cable television and college athletics. ESPN has been losing subscribers – an estimated 7 million in less than three years – as “cord-cutting” consumers move away from traditional cable and satellite bundles that feed ESPN billions of dollars in per-subscriber fees.

Yet rights fees for live sports continue to escalate because advertisers see sports as one of very few types of programming consumers watch live as opposed to via DVR – watching the commercials instead of fast-forwarding through them. (Reality TV is another.) Broadcasters, meanwhile, are doubling down on stronger properties while cutting back elsewhere.


Bonus prediction: The SEC Network is headquartered in Charlotte. It shouldn’t come as a shock if the ACC Network were based out of the Queen City as well.