With the return of sports after the Spring 2020 pause, we were going to see the @accnetwork with a full year of coverage. There was some good, which we’ll get to in another article. What we’re going to discuss here is where the @accnetwork needs to improve as the network moves to it 3rd season, and 2nd with likely a full schedule.
1) Comcast needs to be picked up as carrier before the start of the 2021 football season. In early May ACC Commisioner Jim Phillips hinted this could be the case. Comcast is the largest cable company in the country. With limited other revenue growth options, getting Comcast would be a significant win for the ACC. This has to happen for the @accnetwork.
2) The coverage of the ACC Baseball was near disastrous, and frankly unacceptable. One of the ACC’s marquee events was largely relegated to a regional sports channel, and ACC Network Extra. There weren’t any daily recaps or barely any analysis the first 4 days of the tournament. This was universally panned by ACC Fans.
3) Please nothing about Notre Dame football. I get COVID made documentaries difficult to make this past year, but somehow there was one about the Irish’s football season in the ACC. Who is this appealing too? Are Notre Dame fans going to clamor for the ACC Network to watch this? When and if Irish join the ACC fully for football, go right ahead. For now, this documentary should simply be shelved, and is an insult to member schools and fanbases.
4) Speaking of documentaries – How many times was the “Class that saved Coach K” shown? Now at least Duke and Coach K are synonymous with the ACC, but there are a lot of potential great ACC documentaries, we need to see going forward. That’s a fast way to alienate a bunch of ACC Fanbases, when the network is showing Notre Dame football, and a particular Coach K show for the 500th time.
5) If there’s a live ACC Sport on – it should be televised. I don’t care what sport it is, if there is a live ACC event happening it should be televised over repeated shows. Not everything can be on obviously at the same time, but if the ACC championships in rowing are happening, and nothing else live then it should be on. Live content should dominate what’s on the ACC Network in the fall – spring. I’m certain you can find a low cost way to do this.
