The Associated Press ran a story laying out the details of the ACC's success initiative, which FSU Athletic Director Michael Alford shared in a recent Osceola feature.
“If you go to the College Football Playoff, you get to keep the revenue you earn so it cuts the gap (with the SEC and Big Ten)," Alford told the Osceola. "And if you keep winning in the CFP, it just grows. If you win the national championship, you can get up to about $20 million additional success initiatives.”
The model is tied to the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, where teams can earn $4 million for a CFP appearance, another $4 million for reaching the second round, $6 million for the semifinals and $6 million for the title game for the total of $20 million.
“(The amount) grows as we go forward because those other numbers grow, and the CFP dollars grow,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips told the AP.
In addition to the revenues tied to the CFP, the ACC Success initiative will include a $230,000 bonus to the team that wins the ACC Championship Game as well as $1.75 million for a bowl game and another $1.75 million for finishing in the top 25.
The ACC success initiative also includes revenue distributions in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament with “units” earned for wins all the way to the Final Four, and will eventually include the women’s tournament too.
According to tax documents, the ACC ranked third behind the SEC and Big 10 in distribution to its membership with an average of $44.8 million to its 14 football-playing members (Notre Dame receives a partial share as a football independent) and $706.6 million in total revenue for the 2022-23 season. The Big Ten generated $879.9 million in revenue, with a $60.3 million average payout, and the SEC generated $852.6 million ($51.3 million per team) for the most recent year available, ahead of the Big 12 ($510.7 million, $44.2 million).
The SEC and Big10 numbers will rise with the new media rights agreements, which start this year with ESPN and Fox, respectively. The Big 12's numbers are likely to fall with the loss of marquee programs Texas and Oklahoma. While the ACC expanded with SMU, Cal and Stanford, those schools will not be taking a full share for several years.
The new ACC Success Initiative model offers a glimpse of how an ACC team can generate more revenue by reaching the CFP or the NCAA Final Four. An example would be Clemson, which reached the CFP six straight times (2015-20) with two national titles. Those benchmarks would have earned them approximately $70 million under the new model.
Within the AP story, Tigers athletic director Graham Neff called it “an innovative, forward-moving approach” even as the school tries to sue its way out of the league.
Stanford coach Troy Taylor, who just watched the Pac-12 destroy itself because they couldn’t agree on an uneven distribution of revenues, told the AP he supports the plan. “You can’t look at old models and think: ‘That’s the way to do things,’ ” Taylor said. “You’ve got to be open to changing, to look at things differently, just like a coach would. We’ve got to do that at the conference level as well.”
In addition to the success incentive, the ACC is working to create new revenue streams to help its schools compete financially, including corporate partnerships and sponsorships.
“I think anything the ACC can do as a conference to encourage investment in football, it would probably be a wise move for the league,” Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson told the AP. “Clearly, right now in the business of college athletics, football is the driver.”
As Alford told the Osceola, while the ACC success initiative won't solve the gap with the Big 2 conferences, it will help.
“The success initiative is mostly driven by football, so we’re excited about it because it helps close the gap,” Alford said. “But it doesn’t cure the financial gap over the years compared to the power two conferences.”
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