re: How to Destroy the ACC

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For ESPN to sign off, yes. I think the SEC's interests slightly diverge from ESPN's here. ESPN wants more money. Check, easy to understand. The SEC wants that too, but there's more.

Does the SEC want a richer, 20+ team conference dictating terms (taking pole position for TV contracts, tilting playoff terms this way or that) to it? Probably not. Definitely not.

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None of the teams discussed have an impact in terms of dictating terms. The reality is there are somewhere between 10-20 teams that as a group have enough impact to help dictate terms for college football.

As of right now, all of them aside from Notre Dame are already in the SEC or Big 10.

Adding Duke or UNC or Clemson or FSU doesn't give the SEC any more power in terms of negotiation. They are good teams, but not meaningful enough to move the needle.

Texas and OU? They move the needle. So does USC (which is why the Big 10 expanded to get them).

As for ESPN, they have locked in the ACC games at a very cheap price until 2036. That provides content they can use to fill air times on their multiple channels to fill time around the SEC games at more prime hours. It's tough to imagine a scenario where they want to lose those cheap games and have to pay more for SEC games with the new teams and potentially pay the same for the fill in ACC games with worse teams because 2025 prices are higher than the rates they locked in in 2016.

The SEC/ESPN contract ends in 2034. The ACC GOR ends in 2036. That's the timeframe where something might happen. Not now.