Earlier on Wednesday afternoon, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced that the league’s board of directors has endorsed a plan to reward postseason success in revenue-generating sports with financial incentives, a move that will impact the Syracuse Orange and its fellow ACC peers.
The official statement, which you can read here, states they’re still working on the exact details. They did though add, “Under this initiative, the implementation of the success incentives will come solely from the performance of teams in revenue generating postseason competition. All other revenues will continue to be equally shared as currently outlined.”
https://twitter.com/theacc/status/1661407375620726786?s=46&t=RAWkSYdkWcHr4uyB4BrHdg
And as Syracuse.com reporter Mike Waters points out in his tweet, this new initiative will have no impact on TV revenue, which will continue to be shared equally among the ‘Cuse and other league teams, according to the ACC’s release.
The ACC announces a new revenue distribution plan. It introduces an incentive for revenue-generating postseason play. Presumably leaves TV revenue the same with equal payout. https://t.co/EzwNmfccH3
— Mike Waters (@MikeWatersSYR) May 24, 2023
Last week, the ACC held spring meetings to discuss matters such as this one, to which ESPN reporters David Hale and Andrea Adelson did a great job via Twitter reporting the news they were hearing, including on this hot-button topic.
https://twitter.com/adavidhalejoint/status/1658620779242635265?s=46&t=RAWkSYdkWcHr4uyB4BrHdg
The Syracuse Orange and its ACC peers will have a new postseason revenue-distribution model beginning with the 2024-25 academic year.
David stated in his report, “The ACC’s annual spring meetings began Monday amid reports that seven schools had lawyers examine the league’s grant of rights, which allocates each team’s broadcast rights to the league through the year 2036, and had discussed potential exit strategies.”
This led to speculation that teams were looking to leave the ACC or at least try to find ways out of their current broadcast deal. And it seems in a manner of compromise to prevent litigation and defections, this was a model teams were willing to accept and work towards achieving.
If true, I say kudos to the ACC for seeking this opportunity versus simply rewarding certain programs with name recognition, tenure or something unearned. This allows any and every team to have an equal opportunity at the incentives should they have a great season or find their program improving without threatening to leverage that success for their own share.
It’s also a nice additional incentive for programs to be successful. With the Syracuse Orange already investing major money into facilities like the John A. Lally Athletics Complex and NIL/transfer portal options now available, universities will likely become more driven to develop their programs to be more competitive and successful.
What do you think? Is this good for Syracuse Orange sports? Is it good for the future of the ACC and keeping current members happy? Is it good for college athletics in general? We still have to wait and see the specifics but for now, I think this is a great idea to make the ACC competitive among its own members and, by extension, among other major conferences.