According to multiple outlets, the ACC presidents voted Friday to invite Stanford, California, and SMU to the conference. The league will expand to 18 teams starting with the 2024-25 academic year.
This ended a month-long saga into an issue that divided the league. It was not a unanimous decision.
Conference administrators, led by commissioner Jim Phillips, spent the last three weeks exploring new expansion models to convince membership to support the idea after a presidential straw poll on Aug. 9 fell one vote short of approval. During that meeting, Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina, and NC State were against expansion.
According to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, the new financial models developed over the last ten days created more momentum for at least one vote to swing. The models featured further monetary concessions from expansion members, an incentive for the original 14 schools, plus Notre Dame.
The expectation entering Friday’s meeting was that at least one member — NC State — planned to support the expansion proposal, giving the league the necessary 12 votes.
Under the ACC’s most recent proposal, Stanford and Cal would take a reduced TV share (~30% or roughly $8 million), and SMU was expected to take no TV share for as many as nine years. The concessions free up about $55 million to be distributed evenly to ACC teams through an incentive pool primarily rewarding football success.
The additional money comes from ESPN, which is contractually obligated to pay the league a Tier 1 TV share (roughly $24 million) for each other expansion member — a total of $72 million. The schools would see an escalation in their shares through the Grant of Rights and receive non-TV ACC shares from the NCAA tournament, CFP, and the incentive pool.
The incentive pool from the additional expansion revenue is heavily weighted on football success. In one proposal circulated among officials, the cash would be distributed based only on football success. It’s unclear if that proposal has been formalized. A school that reaches all football incentives (national title) stands to get as much as $10 million in additional cash.
The ACC’s expansion proposal is expected to address cross-country travel for the original 14 members plus Notre Dame. In one proposal circulated among officials, each school’s sports program would be scheduled to travel to Stanford and Cal only once every other year.
It's the latest in a wave of conference realignment moves this summer, starting with Colorado leaving the Pac-12 for the Big 12, Washington and Oregon leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, and Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State joining the Big 12.
Yahoo Sports contributed to this report
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