You know it’s reached defcon levels of frustration and dissatisfaction at Florida State and Miami when they are publicly admitting to being jealous of UCF.
Earlier this week, Florida State athletic director Michael Alford, in an an interview with FSU fan website Warchant.com, was asked how the already-outdated media rights (television) deal the ACC signed with ESPN in 2016 compares to the recently negotiated TV deal that UCF’s new league — the Big 12 — signed with ESPN and Fox.
“If you look at the revenue projections, they [Big 12] should have a better agreement than we have by going out to market,” Alford told Warchant.com “That means there’s going to be another school in the state [UCF] that’s going to have a better agreement than Miami and us. And that’s just not acceptable to us.”
My translation of Alford’s quote comes appropriately from the classic movie Network: ”FSU and Miami are mad as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore.”
Actually a more fitting translation might be: “FSU and Miami are mad as hell and there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it.”
And that’s one of the major reasons they are so disgruntled — because the 14 members of the ACC know they are stuck in a bad deal they all agreed to seven years ago. And with the SEC getting ready to add Texas and Oklahoma and the Big Ten getting ready to add USC and UCLA, both of those leagues have recently signed new TV deals that dwarf the ACC’s. In addition, the Big 12, even though they are losing Texas and Oklahoma and adding four less-prominent members (UCF, Cincinnati, Houston and BYU), has a deal that — depending on who you ask — is equal to or maybe even a little better than the ACC’s.
To make matters much worse, the ACC’s deal runs for 13 more years through 2036, which means the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 will sign their next TV deals years before the ACC’s current deal runs its course.
“For Florida State to compete nationally, something has to change moving forward,” Alford said in a board of trustees meeting in February. “The Big Ten is projected to distribute about $80 million on average to its members and the SEC about $72 million on average to its members. That would put us literally $30 million behind our competitors and peers nationwide, and that’s $30 million yearly as these contracts go through 2036.”
If you do the math — even using Alford’s conservative $30-million-a-year revenue gap (there are some estimates that SEC and Big Ten teams might exceed the ACC by an even wider margin) — the Seminoles and Hurricanes will make nearly $400 million less than Florida Gators over the next 13 seasons.
This is why FSU, Miami, Clemson, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia and Virginia Tech are reportedly talking to lawyers about getting out of the league’s grant-of-rights agreement (a contract all of the conference schools signed that binds them together until 2036). I certainly understand the frustration level of FSU, Miami, Clemson, etc., but talking about finding an escape route from the grant-of-rights deal is just a bunch of saber-rattling.
Most legal experts will tell you that conference grant-of-rights contracts are about as ironclad as they come. It would reportedly cost a $120 million exit fee for an ACC team to buy out of the grant-of-rights agreement and join another league and, even then, the ACC would still own the defecting school’s TV rights until 2036. Essentially, a departing school such as FSU would not only have to pay $120 million to exit, but it would be forfeiting hundreds of millions in future TV revenue for the next 13 years.
Quite simply, this is not going to happen because no school can afford such crippling financial ramifications. Unless, the ACC just miraculously dissolves into thin air and the grant-of-rights agreement becomes null and void, the only hope for FSU, Miami, Clemson and North Carolina to close the revenue gap is for other ACC members to agree to a new unequal revenue-sharing model.
Right now, the ACC, like most conferences, equally distributes league profits among its 14 member schools. However, FSU, Clemson, Miami and North Carolina are pushing for a bigger share because, well, their football brands are more recognizable and bring in more money. Of course, the same could be said for Michigan and Ohio State in the Big Ten and Alabama and Georgia in the SEC, but those conferences still give cellar-dwelling programs such as Rutgers and Vanderbilt an equal share of the revenue pie.
Any change in the ACC’s revenue sharing would require nine of the 14 member schools (a two-thirds majority) to vote in favor of it. That means only five schools would have to vote against it to kill the plan, which seems much more likely. Let’s face it, when it comes to football, the ACC has far more have-nots than haves.
Ask yourself: Why would Wake Forest, Boston College, Duke, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Louisville, N.C. State, Virginia and Virginia Tech vote to take money out of their own pocket just so Clemson, Florida State, Miami and North Carolina can have more?
What’s the incentive for the non-marquee programs to take less? And what are the ramifications if they refuse to take less? The answer to both questions is “none.” Unequal revenue distribution doesn’t benefit the non-marquee programs in any way and there are no consequences if they vote against it. Because of the ironclad grant-of-rights contract, it’s not like the marquee programs can threaten to leave for another conference.
As you can tell, there is a lot of controversy and consternation in the ACC and we could be headed toward a revenue-sharing civil war between the haves and have-nots.
Meanwhile, the Big 12, which just two years ago was on the verge of extinction, is more stable than the ACC and Pac-12.
Who would have ever thought Florida State and Miami would be jealous of UCF?
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on Twitter @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and HD 101.1-2
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