Not that cut and dry.
I disagree as extending the option is a material financial event for the conference as the current ESPN contract expires in 2027. They clearly spell out in the bylaws that only the board has the authority to make changes to material media rights. That said, we do not know if the board was involved in extending ESPN's option or the Commissioner extended the option on his own.
The cash cow for ESPN is the ACCN and ESPN/Disney owns 80% of the network. And, the ACCN provides additional media cash for each ACC school. But, the risk is that the ACCN revenues have peaked as cord cutting continues and it might not be economical to transition the ACCN to a streaming network.
ESPN won't jump the gun on this as there will be no benefit to them by jumping the gun on it. They'll have a room full of number crunchers projecting (under many different economic enviroments) the possible results of the different possible scenarios; keeping the ACC as is vs. allowing the current contract to lapse, therefore allowing the GOR to expire early, then plugging different schools into different conferences, to determine the benefit to them of each possible outcome and their best guess at the likelyhood of each possible outcome.
If what’s going around is correct (they have to renegotiate and have the teams sign the GoR again), maybe they wait until the schools that are leaving leave, they can negotiate the cost down and get the quality ACC basketball content for much cheaper than with the football schools? I’m not saying this is correct or not, but if it is, FSU, Clemson and whom ever needs to negotiate their way out for as little as they can, do so. I believe the exit fees are still in effect even at the expiration of the contract. The remaining schools can than take the exit fees and negotiate with ESPN their new contract.
If FSU and Clemson, leave there wouldn't be any reason for the rest of the league to sign a new contract with ESPN. The rest of the team's would be better off signing with Fox and join the Big 12.
The issue is that we don’t know what the contract says. Up until a year ago, we thought the contract was through 2036 and 2027 was just a look in. It wasn’t until people got the redacted version did we realize that 2027, at the very least, was a chance for ESPN to pick up the contract. Unless we get the full version, we won’t know.
The Big 12 media contract is with FOX and ESPN. And, ESPN owns the Big 12 football and basketball championship games as well as most of top football games.
I thought the gor gave the negotiating rights with any partner to the ACC itself for a fixed time. Isn't that the whole point. The conference holds those rights until 2036
I might be wrong, but I think if/as soon as ESPN doesn't take the option in 2026 that the GOR is immediately null and void.
Seems to me that would defeat the whole point of a GOR?
Why? The GOR exists for the media contract. If there is no contract, or a very poor one, how can the rights holder keep them there. It’s why most GORs expire at the end of the contract. It’s also why the PAC schools didn’t have to go to court over their rights and Texas/Oklahoma had to negotiate the last year of theirs.
because the rights holder would then negotiate one with somebody else. Otherwise we're saying the only partner can be ESPN... which seems silly... If the oprah channel offers 100 mill you're going to say no?
I don't think so - the GOR is a standalone agreement that specifies who the media partners are and if/when it lapses allows the conference to negotiate with any and all potential media partners (including the ones they were with). The conference's member exit fees are what is devised to keep the conference schools together.
The devil is in the deals. The GOR could be a grant conditioned upon a contract being in place with a specific media partner or it could be a general grant to the conference. Since the conference prepared it, I'd guess it is the latter.
That could be but based on what people closer to the situation are saying, it seems as though the ACC's GOR is over if/when ESPN doesn't exercise its upcoming option (because the wording within the GOR specifically names ESPN, which some people said was surprising when that information was discovered). Might be wrong on that but that's what it seems to be.
I think those "people" are FSU and Clemson. I take their interpretation with a grain of salt.
Not so sure about that - these people include national media members as well. I guess we'll see how it plays out in court; if they don't settle out of court first.
I'm a little shocked the acc would tie themselves to espn like that. This gives espn all the leverage
The ACC has not been smart in any of this. I guess when the commish puts stipulations to help Raycom/his son, this is what you get.
That's what the situation appears to be.
Just curious, how exactly do these "national media members" have access to the confidential contracts between the ACC and ESPN.
Hasn't some of this info been part of the court documents (albeit somewhat redacted) that have been reported on by media members?
Pull the refracted contract and take a look at it. I think you will find that the material terms are not available.
A lot has been redacted, but seems like the Feb 2025 deadline of ESPN's unilateral extension option was learned about, so there's been some terms brought to light.
Correct but do you see any language the the GOR is conditioned upon that exercise?