Predicting what's next for the ACC if league loses legal battles with Clemson, FSU

The future of the ACC is certainly up in the air if big brands like Florida State and others were to find their way out of the league.

So what would happen at that point? On3’s Andy Staples broke down the future of the ACC, including a potential merger that logically seems like a good solution.

“Eventually Florida State and Clemson are gonna get out. You had the drama with North Carolina, their board of trustees and what they want to do, and there’s certain people in North Carolina who would like them to do the same thing that Florida State and Clemson are doing,” Staples said on his show. “And also if there’s a way out of the ACC, North Carolina could just pick its destination, like if the Big Ten or the SEC would take North Carolina. So I don’t think they have to be as aggressive as the other two. But I do feel like everybody’s kind of resigned to the fact that this will happen eventually …

“For Florida State and Clemson losing a trial means you have to stay in the ACC, which is not what they want. But it’s not like they shut down their athletic departments the next day. They can do that. They can survive in the ACC until 2036 if they have to. If the ACC loses a trial, Florida State and Clemson immediately leave, North Carolina immediately leaves. perhaps some other teams leave. And then all of a sudden, what do you do then? Your conference could dissolve in a day.” 

As Staples pointed out, the ACC’s hopes of being one of the big boys (the Big Ten and SEC) are gone.

“The idea of you ever being in the same boat as the SEC and the Big Ten, that ship has sailed,” Staples said. “That’s not going to happen. You need to accept that and move on. You need to figure out how to make this conference survive. In the eventuality you lose Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina because again, you can’t lose that trial.

“If you do, the conference is gone, nobody gets any money. Probably the best long term solution is you come up with a number for them to buy their way out, to buy the rights back. They pay it and you have a war chest to deal with what comes next. And I actually think that that war chest, ;let’s say the number’s 250 million, 300 million bucks. Well, if three leave you got almost a billion dollars there.”

Could ACC merge with Big 12 in event of departures?

This is where Staples got creative, should the ACC’s big names leave the conference.

“Because the thing about the Big 12 is you don’t worry too much about the Big 12 getting pillaged,” Staples said of an ACC-Big 12 merger. “They got pretty much everybody at a similar level, everybody seems kind of the same, which is good place to be because you don’t have anybody big footing anybody in conference meetings. And also you’re not worried about somebody coming in and just taking your most valuable things. 

“The ACC if you remove the biggest brands would kind of be the same. So if you had 13 or 14 ACC schools left with the 16 of the Big 12, could you not put them together? Like couldn’t you put them together and actually create some regional divisions that would allow you to play your non revenue sports in a very sensible way that looks like it used to be?”

The non-revenue sports could get region with the divisions, keeping ACC and Big 12 matchups intact. Then as Staples suggested, create a hub for postseason play or in-season tournaments or showcases that count.

Football, due to the money, could afford to go cross country and that’s the beauty. The ACC already went cross country this year with SMU, Stanford and Cal. Now imagine the footprint across the entire United States.

“And then in football, if you wanted, you could just mix and match all those teams,” Staples said. “You could put them in different divisions, or you could just mix and match them. I would actually think it’d be fun.”