ACC presidents voted to approve the additions of Stanford, Cal, and SMU on Friday, sources told Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger.Stanford and Cal are expected to take reduced television revenue shares, while SMU will earn no television revenue from the league for approximately nine years, Dellenger adds.The schools can all reportedly earn incentives on top of their shares, based primarily on football success. Whether other sports were included as incentives hasn't been reported.Stanford's, Cal's, and SMU's football teams finished with 3-9, 4-8, and 7-6 records, respectively, in 2022.Conference realignment has impacted a large number of schools this summer. Oregon and Washington were accepted into the Big Ten in early August, joining USC and UCLA, who were voted in last year.Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah are departing from the Pac-12 for the Big 12 in 2024, and the Big 12 is losing both Texas and Texas Tech to the SEC next year.With Stanford's and Cal's departures, Washington State and Oregon State are the only schools scheduled to remain in the Pac-12 beyond 2023.
I was shocked too. That’s an extremely long time to forego the entire reason the conferences are realigning. Either their donors have decided its worth the cost to finally make it to a P5 conference, or they’re betting that the GoR gets renegotiated sooner rather than later and they can change the terms then.
By all accounts it’s the former. What I’ve heard is that with NIL and a weakened NCAA and a clearer divide emerging between conferences, and also with some annoyance that their last coach bailed on them and immediately took their crosstown P5 rival to the playoff, the extremely wealthy boosters decided, “Money is openly king now? By god that’s SMU’s music!” Just like a socially awkward rich kid, they’re gonna buy themselves some friends. If I’m ESPN, I’m mildly annoyed.