The ACC finally cried uncle this week, as the league, Florida State and Clemson all agreed to settle the sordid web of lawsuits among the conference and two of its flagship schools.
Florida State and Clemson wanted a bigger cut of the annual conference revenue and/or a financially viable escape hatch; the ACC wanted to keep the league intact. Tuesday’s settlement announcement, after a year-long fight, managed to satisfy all aspects and constituents. Or at least placate them. For now.
But it’s also the type of disruption that could trigger a future super league takeover of college football. The agreement introduces a new unequal model of revenue distribution for the ACC’s media contract that rewards programs with the highest TV ratings. By trying to preserve its conference and end a drawn-out legal battle, the ACC grabbed hold of the third rail.
There’s now a blueprint for teams at the top of the Big Ten and SEC to mount their own campaigns for a larger chunk of league revenue. Why should Ohio State and Georgia continue to accept the same conference distribution rate as Purdue and Mississippi State? What’s to stop Michigan and Alabama from demanding a bigger slice of TV revenue?
If the ACC is opting to reward its most prominent programs, is there any reason to believe the Big Ten and SEC A-listers will be happy to maintain the status quo? For anyone who thinks so, I have some Pac-12 stock to sell you.
A pair of specific super league proposals emerged last year, but we’re generally talking concepts that would fully break football away from the NCAA and consolidate programs under a single, centralized, football-only leadership structure in order to drive higher revenues.
To be clear, these are ambitious ideas with countless hurdles, including the fact that none of this could be implemented until the early 2030s, when a number of power conference and postseason TV contracts will be up for renegotiation. And even before this week, unequal revenue distribution was already a specter looming over that next wave of media deals. It’s been an issue in college sports for years, most notably between Texas and its repeated standoffs with the Big 12. But the recent concentration of power in the Big Ten and SEC pushed it to the forefront, and the ACC just broke the seal.
Assuming they can demonstrate a little patience, those top-tier programs won’t even have to sue their way to a better cut. The elite schools could simply demand a tilted revenue model in order to extend their grant of rights during the next round of media negotiations. The second- and third-tier members of the Big Ten and SEC can fight it all they want, but there is no strength in numbers. ESPN, Fox and CBS are in the blue-blood business. It’s similar to the show of strength the Big Ten and SEC have made with the College Football Playoff, but instead of those leagues bullying the Big 12, ACC and Group of 5, now it would be the Buckeyes and Wolverines shoving Northwestern and Rutgers into a locker.
This is where the super league comes in — potentially. First, a quick refresher on the two super league pitches that surfaced last fall: One, led by a group of business leaders and industry ambassadors dubbed College Sports Tomorrow, aims to reorganize all 130-plus FBS football programs under one banner; the other is Project Rudy, backed by a venture capital firm of former Disney executives, which proposes separating the power conferences into a mini NFL, injecting billions of dollars in the process.
Industry sources told The Athletic in recent weeks that the College Sports Tomorrow group tabled its pitch as momentum has stalled, but that the Project Rudy team, represented by a firm called Smash Capital, continues to present to key administrators and stakeholders.
“We wanted to make sure we weren’t being a distraction. College sports leaders are dealing with so many issues right now,” Len Perna, co-founder of CST, said in an interview with The Athletic. “We’re not going to be doing anything externally for the time being, but we’re still doing our work internally because the status quo is totally unsustainable. And we still think we have a good idea.”
Smash Capital did not respond to a request for comment.
The Smash Capital model, detailed in a 14-page pitch deck previously obtained by The Athletic, would invest as much as $9 billion in a newly formed league, which would maintain the existing power conferences and feature more of the high-profile matchups that drive TV ratings and advertising dollars. For schools, the key selling point is a tiered, performance-based revenue system in which the most successful programs are compensated well above what they can garner from a conference’s standalone TV contract, according to the documents and industry sources briefed on the Project Rudy pitch. But just as important, the model also provides guaranteed minimums to all schools, meaning the weaker programs at the bottom of the standings would, at the very least, maintain baseline revenues.
That could be a tempting offer for a number of ACC programs, after ESPN reported that members could see a reduction of up to $7 million in annual payouts. If the settlement is essentially a big bucket to help the ACC bail water out of its steadily sinking ship, Project Rudy is hyping itself as a 300-foot superyacht.
Making inroads across the power conferences remains a challenge. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey were very dismissive of the super league concepts last fall, and any genuine progress on something like Project Rudy would likely involve a change of heart that gets those commissioners on board. But unequal revenue distribution could be the tectonic shift that sparks it. Despite confidence within the industry that conference revenues will continue to climb and an insistence by Petitti and Sankey that they don’t need any outside intervention, the combination of guaranteed minimums and a higher ceiling could incentivize programs of all stripes to buy what a super league is selling.
“We’ll see if it continues to pick up steam, but I know more and more ADs have listened to the idea,” a power conference athletic director said. “There’s a lot that needs to be done, a lot of egos that will have to be checked for it to really come together. But in theory, it makes sense, right? We’d all make a lot more money.”
That’s an important factor. This is brewing at a time when universities are scrounging to supplement their already nine-figure athletics budgets. The $2.8 billion House v. NCAA settlement, which has a final approval hearing scheduled for April 7, is set to usher in more than $20 million per school in annual revenue sharing directly with athletes, setting off some high-level hunting and gathering on the financial front.
The Big Ten is reportedly courting private equity investments, according to Sportico. The Big 12 explored private equity last summer as well, and is now considering a private capital partner, league sources confirmed to The Athletic. An investment could provide millions in upfront dollars to help members manage House-related expenses, and would take on debt rather than an equity stake. The league has narrowed down a list of finalists, including RedBird Capital, and could arrive at a decision in the coming weeks. Yahoo Sports was first to report on the Big 12’s private capital pursuit.
Even under an approved House settlement, the NCAA and power conferences will continue to face legal headwinds on top of rising expenses. And while a super league concept would have to tackle the same debates surrounding collective bargaining and employment status — and would require a federal antitrust exemption — there’s an argument that it would be better equipped to do so operating as a cohesive, for-profit enterprise without the NCAA’s baggage. Maybe the Big Ten and SEC attempt to form their own version of a super league anyway, collectively or separately. But the amount of money at stake means ideas like Project Rudy will continue to resonate in an industry where the bottom line is always out in front.
And for the fans? There’s a good chance very little about this sounds appealing, as the cultural and historical soul of college sports continues to be stripped away. But those changes are inevitable, many of them already past tense. The ACC that had to fight for its livelihood against Florida State and Clemson is the same ACC that currently features Cal, Stanford and SMU, the last of which just represented the conference in the 12-team CFP. We’re already through the looking glass.
Any super league future is still a ways off for college football, in terms of years and feasibility. But the ACC may have just brought it one step closer to reality.
(Photo of Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik: Justin Berl / Getty Images)
This content is reposted from the source: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6178987/2025/03/06/acc-settlement-college-football-super-league/
