The ACC Votes to Add Cal, Stanford and SMU…Make it Make Sense

The ACC Presidents voted this morning to add Cal, Stanford and SMU to the conference. The three schools will be added next year, for the 2024-25 season. That brings the total members of the ACC to 18 (including Notre Dame in every sport except football).

Welcome to the world where conference names no longer make sense. The Atlantic Coast Conference has teams on the Pacific Coast. The Big Ten has 18 schools. The Big 12 has 16.

Prior to this morning, Clemson, FSU, UNC and NC State were opposed to adding these three particular schools. One of them needed to flip their vote. At this point, no one knows which school flipped, though it doesn’t seem likely that it was UNC, after they issued a public statement in opposition last night. All signs point to NC State being the one that flipped.

For the first 7 years, SMU has agreed to take no ESPN money, and Cal and Stanford are going to take 30% of the usual cut for a few years. Yes, this does create more money to be distributed to the current ACC members. I’ve seen that number be $50 million and I’ve seen that number be $72 million. Apparently some of it will be evenly distributed, and some of it will be merit based.

Clemson and FSU have been vocal about their disapproval about the way the ESPN money is distributed, believing they bring more value to the conference than other schools, and should receive more money as a result.

If the goal of this move was to bring in more money, you did, but probably not enough. Let’s say each school gains another $5 million as a result. That’s still a band-aid to the $30 million gap between ACC schools and SEC and Big Ten schools.

If the goal was to establish the ACC as a football conference, this was a dismal failure. Cal has won 10 games combined the past three seasons. The same is true for Stanford (they have 4 consecutive losing seasons).

Making this move, likely sealed the deal of FSU, Clemson and UNC’s eventual departure according to some, driving a wedge between them and the rest of the schools that voted yes.

I could go on and on about reasons this doesn’t seemingly make since, but let’s at least analyze a reason why it might. Brett McMurphy tweeted this.

ACC will add Stanford, Cal & SMU in 2024, sources told @ActionNetworkHQ. The league’s presidents got the required 12 of 15 votes to expand the ACC’s football membership to 17 schools. SMU will not receive any media rights revenue for 1st 7 years, while Stanford & Cal will receive reduced shares, sources said. One reason ACC added Stanford, Cal & SMU is ESPN’s media rights deal w/ACC allows ESPN to renegotiate if league drops below 15 members, sources told @ActionNetworkHQ. W/potential future departures of FSU, Clemson & UNC – all who voted against expansion – ACC wanted to get P5 schools now opposed to G5 schools later to maintain required membership number (Tweet)

In a nutshell, maybe this was a decision to make sure if other schools do leave the ACC, the conference won’t drop below 15, giving ESPN the ability renegotiate at an even lower payout.

This move smells desperate, but we will continue to try to make more and more sense of this as the dust settles.