Calford,SMU came in on a confluence of events....the ACC needing to immediately have teams on board to avoid ESPN calling in the Composition Clause if two teams left the conference before 2025.
billybud, thank you for posting that video. I've watched it twice to try to understand what is going on. He does make some statements or assumptions which may or may not be true...specifically, that ESPN does not intend to renew the media deal in 2027.
The above statement doesn't appear correct. Cal, Stanford and SMU were not added to avoid triggering the Composition Clause if FSU and Clemson leave. The Composition Clause will still be triggered if two teams leave.
The ACC triggered it by adding Cal, Stanford, and SMU.
Cal, Stanford and SMU were added as a money grab to try to appease ACC members.
Per this article:
"...the ACC did not expand because Stanford, Cal and SMU offer competitive upgrades in the sports that matter (they don’t) or because they add equal revenue value to the existing television contract (they don’t) or because they make geographical and logistical sense for a conference that exists exclusively in the Eastern time zone (they don’t).
The ACC expanded because there was a pool of television money ESPN was contractually required to give it because of conference expansion, and most of that money will be hoarded by the existing members while the newbies subsidize their athletic departments in other ways. In SMU’s case, the desperation to get into a power conference was so strong, it reportedly agreed to forego a media-rights distribution for its first nine years as a member of the ACC.
In other words, SMU is going to literally pay to play in its new league despite being competitively irrelevant in its old one.
Even in a college sports industry that struggles to find the bottom, ACC expansion is a new low. A thriving conference does not run toward this.
www.usatoday.com
Explanation of the Composition Clause:
The ACC’s contract with ESPN, which is valued at $155 million a year, contains a standard line called a “composition clause” that allows either the conference or ESPN to reopen the deal if membership increases or decreases by at least two schools.
The conference or the network can act on that clause any time the conference’s membership changes by at least two schools.
www.sportsbusinessjournal.com