Pennsylvania Duck Moderator No. 1 Share Posted February 26, 2023 Another idea has started to pick up steam, and according to Forbes, it has been discussed by the commissioners and conferences involved. The idea is that the Pac-12 and ACC could potentially merge and form a “coastal conference” that could ultimately be as powerful and robust as what the SEC and Big Ten are looking to build. The two conferences were already in discussions a summer ago about an alliance of scheduling in football, basketball, and other Olympic sports, but a deal was unable to come to fruition. However, according to Forbes, this idea has been brought back up by some decision-makers in the ACC, and it could be picking up steam. it would be the biggest conference in the country — 26 teams across all four time zones — with historical success in all major sports. Here’s a look at the two-dozen teams that would eventually make up the APAC... Conference Realignment: What a Pac-12 merger with ACC would look like DUCKSWIRE.USATODAY.COM Could an ACC merger be the thing to save the Pac-12 in the end? Introducing the APAC, an all-coastal conference idea that’s... 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Joseph Moderator No. 2 Share Posted February 26, 2023 All is not smooth in the ACC. FSU's AD has come forth and asked for a bigger revenue cut than other ACC teams. The AD notes that without a disparate revenue share FSU will not be able to compete against the SEC and the B1G for championships. IMO the ACC media deal scheduled to run through 2036 is not going to survive until 2036. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Joseph Moderator No. 3 Share Posted February 26, 2023 On 2/26/2023 at 2:50 PM, Pennsylvania Duck said: Another idea has started to pick up steam, and according to Forbes, it has been discussed by the commissioners and conferences involved. The idea is that the Pac-12 and ACC could potentially merge and form a “coastal conference” that could ultimately be as powerful and robust as what the SEC and Big Ten are looking to build. The two conferences were already in discussions a summer ago about an alliance of scheduling in football, basketball, and other Olympic sports, but a deal was unable to come to fruition. However, according to Forbes, this idea has been brought back up by some decision-makers in the ACC, and it could be picking up steam. it would be the biggest conference in the country — 26 teams across all four time zones — with historical success in all major sports. Here’s a look at the two-dozen teams that would eventually make up the APAC... Conference Realignment: What a Pac-12 merger with ACC would look like DUCKSWIRE.USATODAY.COM Could an ACC merger be the thing to save the Pac-12 in the end? Introducing the APAC, an all-coastal conference idea that’s... Thank you for the post. I do not see how travel would work for any sport other than football. Does this make sense even if it could work with the football playoff field expanding and the basketball tourney field expected to expand? Why would ESPN which owns the ACC media rights through 2036 and owns and operates the ACC Network agree to pay more for the ACC inventory ESPN already owns and for the Pac-10 inventory which it likely will acquire without having to pay more than it did for B12 rights? Without ESPN agreeing to rip up the contract with the ACC this merger appears not to be financially viable until 2037. And Disney with its market cap down 17% is not encouraging ESPN to overpay for media rights. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duck Fan 76 No. 4 Share Posted February 26, 2023 (edited) On 2/26/2023 at 11:50 AM, Pennsylvania Duck said: The idea is that the Pac-12 and ACC could potentially merge and form a “coastal conference” So yes, I've heard of this and it solves one potential problem for both FSU and Clemson. Their potential payout to leave the current ACC contract comes in two big chunks. One would be to pay the penalty to the media partners and the other is the ACC grant of rights. The grant of rights buyout is about $100+Mil by itself and is essentially what either of those schools has to pay to leave the ACC and get into the SEC. If the ACC and PAC were to merge there would be no grant of rights payment but the ACC Media contract buyout would still be in place and it's not exactly peanuts. In my post on conference realignment and media contracts from yesterday I broke out some of the numbers. The 24 members (14 ACC and 10 PAC) would have about an 18.5% viewer market share of CFB's regular season. Normalizing to the Big-10's $1Bil per year would give the proposed APAC an annual media valuation of around $636Mil. An even distribution of that among the 24 schools would be about $26.5Mil per school. That definitely improves on the ACC's reported $13Mil per school but both Florida St. and Clemson are grating under the equitable distribution model so they would likely demand a bigger cut than Arizona St and Duke. Incidentally at current market value ACC's per school buyout should be about $25Mil per year so that contract locking them in until 2036 is TERRIBLE! We should definitely take that lesson to heart and realize that the PAC needs a short contract to maximize its position and a shorter contract at a lesser number is going to be better for us. Looking at the BigPAC conference merging the 8 remaining Big12 schools (ignoring BYU, Cinci and Houston) and the 10 PAC schools would have a 17.2% viewer market share yielding an annual revenue of about $596Mil spread over 18 schools and that would give them a $33Mil per school payout. Again these are purely football numbers here but that's the lion share anyway. If you are interested, just looking at the Big-12 post expansion my numbers would give them about $32Mil per year which is about $1Mil off what they just signed so that gives me some confidence in my model. The idea of the Big-12 and PAC merging is pretty much a non-starter though due to significant academic differences from the PAC schools and the Big-12. Currently the PAC comes in second behind the Big-12 but ahead of the ACC with our 10 remaining schools we have a per school payout of about $28Mil. Adding the ACC gives us a bigger share but diluted through Duke, VT, etc. I don't think merging with the current ACC solves anything but it could help Clemson and FSU get to the SEC. Edited February 26, 2023 by Duck Fan 76 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duck Fan 76 No. 5 Share Posted February 26, 2023 (edited) If you want a crazy idea that gets Oregon to Big-10/SEC money then you have to picture Oregon without a conference. Notre Dame has obviously gone this route but their current contract is just terrible. If however a 4-team independent alliance was formed between Notre Dame, Oregon, Clemson and FSU and they all agreed to collectively bargain for media rights, post-season payouts etc. Then the collective media share for those four teams is 9.2% of the market. That would land each of the four media earnings of around $79Mil per year. Of course Clemson and FSU would have to pay $150+Mil to bail on the ACC but that's only a two year hit for them so entirely doable. If you were to then have an agreement for those four to share post-season earnings amongst each other (simple risk mitigation strategy) then they would have eclipsed Ohio State's annual football earnings. Probably much more so as those four schools would then be in primetime media markets almost exclusively and scheduling some of the most exciting matchups possible for CFB. It would most likely lock all four in the top-10 for recruiting for as far as the eye can see due to NIL, exposure and coaching salary advantages. It would just cost Oregon it's soul... Incidentally Nike has relationships with Oregon, Clemson and FSU. Notre Dame has Under Armor but that deal ends in 2025 and they aren't very happy with it. Edited February 26, 2023 by Duck Fan 76 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
