ACC is at a crossroads....

Something we have already talked about today a couple of times is a big deal to us here in North Carolina. We are a college sports state. In fact, as we kind of married the two this year, college sports and hockey, because right now we're a hockey state, the thing that made the outdoor game, the stadium game between the Hurricanes and the Capitals, so amazing was that it really felt like a college football environment that just happened to have a hockey game being played. It was the great marriage of the atmosphere of college football and the atmosphere of Carolina Hurricanes hockey, the culture of Carolina Hurricanes hockey, which made it super awesome. And I think because we love college sports so much, it was able to kind of translate that love to another thing that we love a lot, which is, of course, Carolina. And we found out that the Canes would start Thursday against the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference Finals. But because we are a college sports state, first and foremost, the news that is coming out of Amelia Island, Florida, actually, which is not really news coming out of Amelia Island, Florida, but the news that was generated going into Amelia Island, Florida, where the speculation that there was going to be this massive upheaval, that these magnificent seven schools were going to somehow secede from the ACC was always a fantasy land. So just to reset that whole thing, as it's been floated and Brett McMurphy floated this, Ross Dellinger wrote a great piece in Sports Illustrated, recommend you reading it. Florida State, Clemson, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech.

The magnificent seven, as they have been termed, are exploring, breaking away from the ACC, challenging the grant of rights en masse. And that would effectively, I mean, it might not dissolve the league, but it would dissolve the league. We could say what we want, but it would destroy the Atlantic Coast Conference. Now, as I said before, how many of those schools would be super, would be, you know, attractive to the Big Ten or the Southeastern Conference, which is the only reason at all why you would enter into a secession from the ACC is if you knew that you would be attractive enough to one of those two behemoths that you would get the big payday. I don't know this for a fact, but through conversations and my own sensibilities, North Carolina, Virginia, maybe Clemson, and maybe a school not even on that list would have, would draw interest from one of the other two leagues. I don't know that Georgia Tech wouldn't have, wouldn't draw interest from the Big Ten for its academic reputation and its media market, which would not hurt the Big Ten. And because of its brand, I ain't sure Duke wouldn't have some interest, wouldn't generate some interest from the other leagues. But to be honest, I ain't sure either would. I think we might be talking about two schools out of that magnificent seven that would, I think, have a soft landing in the Big Ten. But we are so far away.

I keep pointing this out. The grant of rights, if it was going to be challenged, and that's not saying that somebody won't, but there have been, I'm sure that Clemson and Florida State and Miami and North Carolina and Virginia, who all have great lawyers, I'm sure they've looked at it. And we are four years removed from grant of rights. And nobody's challenged it yet. David Teel, Richmond, Texas, in Amelia Island, Florida. I asked him about that.

Those seven that Brett McMurphy tweeted yesterday, they are accurate. And those ADs have met, they have met with attorneys, they have met as a group, they have met in subsets of two or three. But there is nothing there. It appears that that grant of rights is indeed airtight. And I think I agree with your thought that if there was an out, it would have been explored by now. And, again, as what Babcock told me this morning, the focus now is on, you know, changing the revenue model, and at least appeasing some of the folks who believe they deserve more. The beauty of this is, Adam, this is not going to be retroactive or anything. You may think, you may think you deserve more, but you're not getting a nickel more unless you earn it. Which, if they go to a distribution model which takes into account what you do in postseason play, that you, I don't know, keep all of it or keep a majority of it, I have no problem with that. That's okay. I don't care, I have no problem with merit-based revenue. Nothing at all. No issue about that at all. So, more power to you. Not to mention that man of Florida State basketball bounces back after a tough year.

FSU could be sitting pretty, because the program has done great under Leonard Hamilton. But, you know, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.

But my larger point about this, first of all, we all know what's driving it, right? It's envy. So, Mike, I don't know why I've always blown his name. Mike Alford is the AD at Florida State. I don't know why I can't remember that. He talked, right?

I don't know. Mike Alford's not that hard a name to remember. That happens. Or maybe that's the problem.

It's too easy a name to remember. So, he spoke to the Board of Trustees at FSU a couple of months ago, three months ago, and he talked about, well, you know, we can't, we just can't sit by and allow our neighbors to make so much more money than we do. I mean, I guess that there are people in that world that think like that.

But I would say that a lot of people somehow get by on what they earn and had, have no problem with other people earning more. We figure out a way to get by with what we have. The new Chevy Silverado HD puts you in command. Own strength with its enhanced available Duramax 6.6 liter turbo diesel V8. Own the lake with its available advanced towing technology. And own technology with an available 13.4 inch diagonal touch screen. The new Chevy Silverado HD.

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Chevrolet. I mean, you could look into professional sports. The Tampa Bay Rays managed to be good year after year after year after year without having, let's just say, New York Mets money who managed to do less with all that money year after year after year.

And I'm not trying to be extreme here. We get hyper focused on things like pay for play or the transfer portal or the scourge of NIL. And none of those things will have a great impact on college sports as we know it. We think they will because they're different.

They're new. But none of them will have an impact on college sports. On the industry and the popularity of college sports. They will all have, I mean, minimal to zero impact on the landscape. But you know what does?

Corporate greed. That if you want to see something that it will destroy college athletics as we know it, unless you happen to be and even even if you happen to be a fan of an SEC school or a Big Ten school, I mean, you're going to be left at some point just playing yourself. That's what you're going to be left with.

Just playing yourself. Or I mean, I guess you can play those other schools as a handout, much like the power five treats FCS teams. FCS teams.

Who could be doing that? Which I guess is fine for the schools in the power five, but there's only going to be a certain number of you. And again, it would work well for them. But what it doesn't work well for is the whole, is the entirety of the sport. And if if it's all if it's only about creating hundreds of millions of dollars for you and whatever is left for somebody else, then that's fine. We experience that right now, just in big business, in corporate society. That's what we have. If you think that's proper, I'm not saying that that everything needs to be equal. There are always going to be differences. Don't don't don't misconstrue it.

I'm trying to get out here. But if you're Florida State and the projections are that in eight years, the the ACC is going to be distributing 50 million dollars a year. I mean, I think you can make that work. I think you can. Is the SEC going to be distributing more? Yeah, they are. Will it give them certain advantages?

Yep, it will. Somehow Florida State, without the deepest pockets in the world, managed to win a bunch of national championships under Bobby Bass. I don't know how they did it. I don't know how they did it.

Scraping nickels together. But right now we have conferences that are too big. They can't play each other in basketball. Can't can't play each other twice in basketball. We can't we we have teams we don't play in football until the ACC changes scheduling model.

You can go five years without playing a team in your league, which doesn't make any sense. Ultimately, greed will kill college sports, not those other things that people are hyper focused on. It'll be greed.

Maybe the greed of your own school. The new Chevy Silverado HD puts you in command. Own strength with its enhanced available Duramax 6.6 liter turbo diesel V8. Own the lake with its available advanced towing technology and own technology with an available 13.4 inch diagonal touch screen. The new Chevy Silverado HD.

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