A provision in the ACC’s recent legal settlement with Clemson and Florida State will allow top schools to depart the conference for a “super league” should one arise.
According to the 68-page agreement obtained by The Athletic’s Matt Baker, ACC schools will now have what is formally known as an “option of limited withdrawal” that allows six or more member institutions to disassociate from the conference in a specific sport to join a “single sport league, conference or other association” along with other schools in the group. Should a group of ACC schools exercise this option, they’d each owe $75 million or 50% of the current withdrawal fee to the conference (whichever is greater).
“In practice, that would allow, say, Florida State, Clemson, Miami, North Carolina and a few other top programs to leave for a super league in football while remaining ACC members in basketball, baseball and every other sport,” Baker writes.
The document also revealed a new exit fee schedule for teams that wish to leave the conference. Leaving the conference would cost a school $165 million in fiscal year 2025-26 and drop by $18 million annually until the exit fee reaches $75 million in 2030-31. At that point, the exit fee will remain $75 million until the ACC’s media contract with ESPN expires in 2036. Before the conference’s settlement, Florida State estimated an exit would cost the school $500 million.
The legal settlement also confirmed details about the ACC’s new TV revenue distribution methods. Whereas schools used to split revenue from the conference’s media rights deal with ESPN equally, 60% will now be distributed based on television ratings in football and men’s basketball. The higher a school’s viewership, the greater its share of the 60% revenue pool it will receive. Of the ratings-based revenue distributions, football viewership will account for three-quarters while men’s basketball will account for the other quarter.
It’s unclear exactly how viewership for games on ACC Network, which Nielsen does not measure, will be counted. It’s also unclear how effective this system will be. Here’s a quick excerpt I wrote about this matter back in March that outlines just how imperfect this solution is:
“Television viewership is often a function of what time slots on what networks games are played in. Obviously, teams that are featured on ABC or ESPN more often will draw more viewers. But more often than not, those decisions have just as much to do with who the opponent is, and what other games are being played that day, as they have to do with one single team’s presence.
“For example, last season, Georgia Tech was the most-watched team in the ACC. Few would argue that the Yellow Jackets are the conference’s most-popular brand (they finished 7-6 last season), but they have the benefit of playing one of the most-popular teams in the country during the last week of the regular season each year: a rivalry game against Georgia. That game is bound to draw a substantial audience, regardless of if Georgia Tech is good or bad.”
Nevertheless, teams like Clemson, for instance, estimate the new model will put them on par with other top programs in the SEC or Big Ten, earning the school an additional $120 million over six years.
All of these provisions point towards an end to the ACC as we know it in just a matter of time. The conference has secured its short-term future by Jerry-rigging a system that allows its top teams to earn more money while keeping exit fees high enough to discourage movement. But by 2030, when the exit fee drops to $75 million and the Big Ten’s current media rights deals expire, some ACC teams might seek greener pastures.