The ACC officially got bigger this morning

As the Rolling Stones, we hear it coming back from break. One said you can't always get what you want. Florida State didn't want this, but Florida State now has a new member, three new members of the ACC.

Ira Shafel is the Managing Editor of WarChant.com and he joins us on the Adam Gold Show. If I'm not mistaken, I think Jim Phillips, the Commissioner of the ACC, just backed the money truck up to Tallahassee and they're dumping as much cash as they can on the streets. Is that how you see it? I guess not. Probably not.

Yeah, I don't know if it's a dump truck full of cash. I do think that, you know, from talking to people around Florida State, I don't think they thought this was the worst thing in the world as long as there could be some more additional money coming into the ACC. But if it was basically going to be a wash or be a greater expense because of the travel and everything else, then what are you doing?

Why are you doing this? Obviously, all reports are Florida State didn't vote for it, so I don't think they're in favor of it. But I don't think they see it as the end of the world as long as there is some additional revenue coming in. It sounds like that will be the case if Stanford and SMU and Cal are taking such reduced distributions. SMU is taking nothing for nine years. I think that's what I just saw. Nine years.

Zero. That's coming to dinner and not eating. That's more steak. More steak for Mike Norvell and his program.

Ira Sheffal from morechant.com, managing editor is joining us here. I watched your entire interview with the president of the Board of Trustees. It was fascinating to me because obviously Florida State is historically a great program. I mean, what Bobby Bowden did for 25 years or whatever however long that was, was just unbelievable in its consistent dominance. It hasn't been the same since, we understand that.

But it doesn't mean that Florida State doesn't have a major place in the history of college football at the ACC, really. What was Florida State prepared to do, do you think? Because they threw out a lot of, there was a lot of bluster.

What were they prepared to do? Well, I think we're still probably waiting to see that, how that plays out. I mean, I don't think anything that's happened over the last two or three months since that time, since Peter Collins, the Board of Trustees chair spoke with us on morechant and then obviously they had their board meeting the next day where a lot of the Board of Trustees members echo those sentiments that if things don't change, FSU needs to get out of the conference. I don't think anything's changed from their perspective. Now, I don't know if that means they're willing and able to get out this year or next year or if it's two years down the road, I don't know exactly. But I think the reality is they're just saying what they believe, that this conference doesn't have a future, at least in the landscape of what college football is going to become, where you look at the SEC and the Big Ten and their revenue distributions. And I think that they feel like there's no solution that can keep them in the ACC long term and still be competitive. And I think to that point, just what we just talked about there, SMU is coming into this conference expecting that they're going to get no revenue from the TV deal for a decade. Cal is in complete desperate financial situation. The athletic department is in hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. And these are the schools that you're adding into a conference that already is having a tough time competing on a national landscape. So all you're doing is reducing or detracting from the quality of your football programs.

So I think that just echoes Florida State's point. So I don't know the answer exactly when and how they're going to get out and what it's going to cost them, but I don't think anything's changed to the fact that they know they have to get out. Well, Peter Collins, right, the president of the Board of Trustees, said the grant of rights is not the document that will keep us from leaving the ACC.

I mean, my first question, what is the document? And I mean, it does seem like you can get out of the grant of rights if you've got a half billion dollars laying around, because I would imagine that's probably the baseline for what that would cost. So how would they go about getting over the grant of rights, which nobody has even attempted to challenge at this point? Yeah, you know, I don't think that Florida State is in any position to pay $500 million to get out of the conference. There was the report about an equity firm getting involved in all this, and I don't think that that's in their realm of thinking. I don't think they want to spend $120 million for the exit fee, let alone another $500 million. So yeah, I don't know if it's a negotiation. I don't know if they think that ESPN will get involved.

I don't know if it's to help in some way. I don't know if they believe that they can fight it legally or negotiate their way out. I just think that when you look at the scenarios for the long-term prospects for Florida State to continue to be a football power, they feel like they've got to figure out all means necessary to get out and get into the SEC or the Big Ten, unless the ACC could change. But the ACC can't change. I mean, the member institutions, for years now, Florida State fans and a lot of fans around the ACC outside North Carolina have complained about what first was John Swafford and now it's Jim Phillips, like it's the leadership's fault. The reality is, when the landscape of college athletics changed and college football became what it's become, and you have a bunch of schools in this conference that are private schools and smaller schools and are not going to, even if they wanted to invest the resources, like Wake Forest has invested resources into football, and that's awesome. But is it going to get people to turn on their TVs or their devices or whatever it is to watch Wake Forest football? I don't know. And if it doesn't, then can they really bring in the kind of revenue needed?

So get back to your question. Again, I talk to people at Florida State, I think there's a confidence that they're not going to be in the ACC long term because they don't think that is a road to maintaining what they want to be in football. But I have not gotten anybody to explain how they're actually going to be able to do it. I mean, to me, it's like it would be a miracle. It would be like Harry Potter waving a wand and all of a sudden the Seminoles are somewhere else. Like, logically speaking, I don't see the SEC getting enough votes. I mean, is Alabama going to be?

Yeah, come on in. Florida, Georgia, I mean, Auburn, are all these schools going to be OK? But my guess is the hope would be that the Big Ten would want Florida State and logically Big Ten into Florida, because we're not talking about college sports anymore. We're talking about mergers and acquisitions. This is not about college sports at all.

It's all about big business. So I don't know where Florida State's soft landing is. I mean, if it's to the Big 12, it's the same. I mean, it's arguably less money if it's to the Big 12. wrelsportsfan.com or wherever you discover your favorite podcasts. Terms and Embargoes apply. Offer ends $9.19. No refund.

Subscription order renews. Well, listen, man, 10 years ago when they signed the grant of rights, a lot of FSU fans were, the original grant of rights didn't go to 2036. A lot of FSU fans, a lot of people I know were furious and wanted to go somewhere else. They wanted to go wherever they could go. And I told people at the time from talking to President Barron at the time, FSU's former president, there was nowhere, they couldn't go, the SEC didn't want them and the Big 10 didn't want them, so their only option would have been the Big 12 and that didn't really make any sense.

So I didn't criticize them for signing the grant of rights. Resigning the grant of rights to 2036 seemed a little iffy when you're really not getting much more out of that other than the TV network at a time when cable was kind of, you know, cord cutting was becoming an issue. That was a little, we could debate the merits of that, but this, I think the feeling is that what may be different now compared to 10 years ago is the Big 10 clearly is in expansion mode. I mean, they went to California to get Southern Cal in UCLA.

You would think that they would have an interest in getting to the East Coast. There's been talk about maybe North Carolina or maybe, you know, Florida State or Miami or Clemson getting into this part of the country. The theory, you know, again, if we're going to play this out, it's all theoretical, is that would the SEC then, would that change the SEC's mindset at that point? Like the SEC is fine being at 16, but if the Big 10 is looking to expand now into your part of the country and pick up some of those big schools, how would you answer? I think that's the question that the SEC has to answer is, okay, if the Big 10 does go and get Clemson, Florida State or North Carolina, Miami or whatever it is, what does the SEC do to respond to that if there's not much left available? So that's why the feeling is maybe the SEC would be interested. But yeah, as we talk right now, I'm not aware that the SEC is interested.

So there's so many things here. I'm thinking about why did the Cleveland Guardians just claim those pitchers off waivers when they're not going anywhere, really to keep them away from Minnesota. So maybe there's going to be like, we're going to block you. It's a giant game of risk. And it appears that the the ACC might be Europe.

Irish O'Fell, managing editor of WarChant.com. I don't know how this is going to play out. Quick answer to this. And then I don't know if you know this, there's a football game coming up on Sunday. Do you think whether Florida State is in the ACC or not, do you think we are headed to something in college football that looks nothing like what we have today, which my thought is five, 10 years down the road.

It's a mini NFL or a bigger with more teams version of the NFL where there are 40 teams or 50 teams and some sort of just this is football. It has nothing to do with anything else. Yeah. And I saw you had a tweet kind of along those lines.

And I agree with you. I think that is where it's going to end up going. And so so I don't know, again, what happens with Florida State in the short term, but I think at some point that's where it's going to go. Because if you look at the big picture of college football and you almost have to talk about college football separately from the rest of college athletics. And there's a lot of schools in the big 10 in the SEC that probably don't belong if we're going to go to this bigger model and also may not want to be in it. Like if you go to revenue sharing where players or players are making millions of dollars and all this, Vanderbilt want to be in that. Does Northwestern want to be? I don't know.

Maybe they do. But I think there's going to be a wrecking a reckoning at some point where some of those schools by choice or not by choice are no longer part of it, as you as you as you described. You go to maybe I don't know if it's 32, it's 40 or if it's 50 schools in that bigger league, how it's you know, how it's divided.

We'll have to see. But but I think that's really been what's behind all of Florida State's maneuvering for the last couple of years is Florida State just wants to make sure it's there when that happens. That's my belief is whatever, whether it's a short term getting into the SEC or the big 10 or or going independent or whatever they can do to just stay relevant.

What they what they don't want to happen is they just get lapped and left behind by these other schools. And now Florida State's left out when that ever happened. And how much pressure, Ira, is it is there on the Seminoles now to beat LSU and prove that you belong?

I'm being facetious here, but this football game Sunday night is massive. This year is huge for Florida State, no question. And this starts with this game against LSU. You know, I think like a year ago, as I said, Florida State was sort of pouring more resources into football to try to make sure that they don't get left behind.

And they saw the returns on that. You went 10 and 3, beat Florida, beat Miami, had some nice wins, didn't do as well in the conferences you would have liked. Had the three game losing streak against NC State, Wake and Clemson, which everybody in the ACC wants to keep bringing up, rightfully so. But this year, but this year they have to do it. They have to take that next step. And I don't know that it's do or die. Like if if Florida State goes eight and four this year, disappoints, I don't know that that means that it's all for naught. But, man, if they can do it, if they can beat LSU, if they can retake the supremacy of the conference, beat Clemson at Clemson, win the ACC championship game, maybe get in the playoff, that all feels like, OK, now you're strengthening your position going forward. I don't think the LSU game is do or die. Like if Florida State doesn't win this game, I don't think their season's over. They beat LSU last year and LSU went to the SEC championship game. Right. So it can happen. But, you know, obviously this is a team that should be in good shape to win, either be favored or be about a draw in every game that they have on the schedule.

So, you know, they need to get it done. Look, I'm an ACC hunk. I let my school, Maryland, go. I haven't paid attention to anything Maryland has done in 10 years. So I'm all about what's good for the ACC is good for me, even if the ACC no longer exists in five years.

Ira Shafel, managing editor of WarChant.com. Man, it was cool to catch up. I appreciate your time. Good luck on Sunday against the Tigers.

And that down home Southern coach, Brian Kelly, who will fake a Southern accent forever. Be well, my friend. I'll talk to you soon. I appreciate. Thanks for having me.