How much do you think the ACC schools would have to pay to get out? I walked through the numbers and I think they’d have to put up close to $500M each. Buyout fee, media rights from ESPN & ACC Network, damages to other institutions, etc etc.
How much additional income do you think those schools might make in the B10 or SEC over 11 years (assuming 2025-26 through 2035-36 as it’s getting to do this for 2024)? I coming up with somewhere in the neighborhood of $500M.
Walk me through your numbers.
Like I said around $300M. That is based on $100M in exit fee and $200M in media $ from the ACC deal with ESPN through 2036. When Maryland left the ACC their exit fee was a little over $50M and they negotiated it down to something like $32M.
I would be surprised if there are additional damages as the exit fee and GOR are the contract language used to collect damages.
I am no expert on the GOR language. My understanding is the GOR only applies
to a school's home athletic contests. So is Championships money excluded? The ACC deal with Disney/ESPN is somewhere around $20M annually per school. The other half of an ACC schools media $ comes from Championships. FSU would leave their historical units for participating in the NCAA Hoops Tournament behind. But if FSU moved to the Big10- it would seem the Big10 would get CFP money based on FSU being a Big10 member.
Language from Athletic Article
What’s a grant of rights? In the world of college sports, it’s an agreement in which schools agree to transfer their media rights to their conference for a set period of time. For example, Baylor’s agreement to be part of the Big 12’s grant of rights means that the rights fee for any televised sporting event emanating from Baylor’s campus is owned by the Big 12 until the grant expires. Replace “Baylor” and “Big 12” with “North Carolina” and “ACC” or “Oregon State” and “Pac-12.”
I would agree the incremental money for being in Big10/SEC will be around $40M annually, or over $500M through 2036.