The latest and wildest round of college realignment has culminated in the Atlantic Coast Conference adding a pair of teams from the Pacific.
The ACC on Friday voted to approve the additions of Cal, Stanford and SMU for next season, bringing the conference to 18 total members and 17 in football, according to multiple reports. Cal and Stanford were two of just four teams set to remain in the Pac-12 after this season, following the departures of USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington to the Big Ten and Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado to the Big 12.
A night before the vote, the chair and vice chair of the North Carolina board of trustees voiced opposition to expansion on travel and financial grounds. Florida State and Clemson have also been widely reported to oppose expansion. It would have taken four schools to block the move. NC State was thought to oppose expansion along with UNC, FSU and Clemson, but was also viewed as the most vulnerable of the four to flip.
Three of the four remaining “Power 5” conferences now span the Eastern and Pacific time zones. The SEC only includes schools in the Eastern and Central time zones.
Hanging over the ACC’s move is its lengthy media rights deal with ESPN, which does not expire until 2036 and lags behind competing deals in other conferences. Florida State has already publicly expressed its intention to eventually leave the conference. The additions of Cal, Stanford and SMU are believed to provide the conference a buffer should any schools leave; ESPN can rework its contract if the league falls below 15 members.
The additions of Cal, Stanford and SMU will provide $72 million in additional media rights revenue per year, according to CBS Sports, with nearly all of that money going to the conference and its existing members. Per ESPN, Stanford and Cal will receive only a 30% share of their media rights revenue and SMU will receive none over its first nine years in the conference.
Oregon State and Washington State are the lone Pac-12 schools with no landing place for next season. The demise of the conference began more than a year ago when USC and UCLA left for the Big Ten and accelerated this summer after its leadership failed to present members with a competitive media rights deal.
(News from ESPN.com 9.1)
