A somewhat quiet story from last week has left several ACC Football and Basketball games in television limbo.
The bankruptcy of the Bally Sports parent company is having ripple effects across the college and professional sports spectrum. https://t.co/aU7gxXoc6F
— The State Newspaper (@thestate) June 16, 2023
From that article…
“Raycom Sports supports Diamond’s determination to end the uncertainty over the status of the rights agreement for the benefit of ACC fans,” Raycom Sports said in a statement released to The News & Observer. The move will allow Raycom to find a different channel to show the games, which include one football game per week and two men’s basketball games per week.
The rights to televise all other ACC games are owned by ESPN through its comprehensive media deal with the league. One possibility, of course, would be for Raycom to sell its games to ESPN and have them on one of its networks, which includes the ACC Network”
Since the bankruptcy court judge has yet to rule, Raycom is not yet free to complete a deal with a new provider.
So with just over two months before football season, and a little over four months before basketball season, that’s a pretty large number of ACC games that have no home.
Bally’s had become an anchor to ACC televised sports – a remnant of the ill-advised continued partnership between the ACC and Raycom. Finding these ACC games in various parts of the country was not fan-friendly, but the bankruptcy of Bally’s parent company may be a good thing in the end.
ESPN has said in the past that buying back these games from Raycom had been cost-prohibitive. Now Raycom has to move these games or in my estimation eat what they paid for. Could ESPN re-quire those rights cheaply, and add to theirs and the ACC’s bottom line with additional content?
Now while these aren’t hugely desirable games, there is value to them.
This could be the termination to an ugly deal that wasn’t set to end until 2027. It’s been noted that $3 Million per year goes to ACC schools at that time – originally reported by the New and Observer via ACCPerscription. Obviously, that doesn’t solve all the ACC’s financial issues, but $3 Million is $3 Million.
Raycom could move those games to other outlets, but it would seem they would still be the most valuable to ESPN rather than some other streaming service. Could these games be bought back to the individual schools to monetize how they see fit? I think anything is possible at the moment, but I better not have a problem finding an ACC game I want to watch come this fall.
I’d be really curious where the ACC stands on this and hope they are working to help resolve it.
