Explaining why adding Cal, Stanford, SMU makes historical sense for new-look ACC

Every Power Five conference will look different starting this summer following some drastic conference realignment across the country. With the last domino falling when Stanford, California, and SMU agreed to join the ACC.

Programs like Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC and other Pac-12 programs leaving the conference may seem like what led to the new look ACC. But On3’s Andy Staples explained how the reason for some new West Coast schools joining the Atlantic Coast Conference actually dates all the way back to early 90s. When the Big East Conference decided to not add Penn State, not realizing that football would drive conference realignment.

“By not taking Penn State and letting Penn State go to the Big Ten, the Big East left itself open to get pillaged,” Staples said. “The ACC led by John Swofford, the ninja commissioner, realizes a basketball league based on Tobacco Road — we’ve got to do something a little bit different we’ve gotta beef up our football product.”

“They already had Florida State, they added them in the early 90s. So they add Miami, they add Virginia Tech, they add those schools. They then add Pittsburgh, Syracuse, they effectively decimate the Big East which allows the ACC to survive as a power conference,” Staples explained.

Maryland leaving the ACC for the Big Ten and Louisville replacing them would solidify the current iteration of the ACC as we know it.

Meanwhile on the West Coast, the Pac-12 decided to launch their own network in 2012. Making a risky decision to be wholly owned versus partnering with ESPN or FOX, which wound up being a big mistake for the conference as the Pac-12 Network would not generate as much revenue as they’d imagine.

“There started to be a revenue gap between the ACC, and the Big Ten, and the SEC. And it eventually got to the point when the Big 12 lost Texas and Oklahoma it became the Hunger Games between the Big 12 and the Pac-12,” Staples said. “One of those was gonna get a TV deal that it was satisfied with and one of them probably wasn’t.”

The odd man out ended up being the Pac-12, as the Big 12 would sign a six-year extension with ESPN and FOX in October of 2022 realistic to their market value while the Pac-12 sought out a deal that wasn’t quite as realistic to their respective value.

With a questionable future regarding TV revenue for Pac-12 programs, the Big Ten made their move and offered Oregon and Washington a lifeline after already announcing the addition of USC and UCLA to their conference in 2022. Eventually leading to the full decimation of the Pac-12 with Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah joining the Big 12 as well. Leaving Oregon State, Washington State, Stanford, and California as the only teams remaining in the Pac-12 and the ACC making its move.

“The ACC has always fancied itself a highly academically evolved conference. When you have the University of North Carolina, University of Virginia, Georgia Tech, these are schools with elite academic reputations and of course they want to be in business with other schools that have elite academic reputations,” Staples explained.

“Cal and Stanford, they don’t get much more elite than that and so they [the ACC] are like hey, wanna come? We don’t have to give you all the money you might get, but we’ll keep you afloat. It’ll be better than the other alternative, and Cal and Stanford are like let’s go.”

On September 1, 2023, the ACC voted to expand and add Cal and Stanford along with SMU from the American Athletic Conference. A program that’s been desperate to join the Power Five for quite some time that gave the ACC an offer they couldn’t refuse, agreeing to not take any money from the league’s television deal for up to nine years.

“SMU they’re like we’ve got such loaded donors we’ll take no money, and the ACC’s like you’re hired, you’re in, let’s go,” Staples concluded.

The Atlantic Coast Conference will now touch the Pacific Coast for the first time starting in July, a move that follows the recent trends in college athletics but has actually been in the making for quite some time.