Swofford: New channel will close ACC's revenue gap with SEC, Big Ten
AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. – Two weeks after mocking “so-called experts on social media” who questioned whether ESPN would move forward with its planned ACC cable television network in 2019, conference Commissioner John Swofford sounded even more bullish about the channel’s future on Thursday.
Speaking to a small gathering of reporters following the ACC’s spring meetings here at the Ritz-Carlton, Swofford said the linear ACC network is on schedule and that he has received “absolute, complete assurances” from ESPN executives that “everything is full blast.”
Not only is the channel moving forward, Swofford said, but he added that he’s confident it will shrink the growing revenue gap between the ACC and other Power Five conferences.
Pac-12 schools received more than $28 million in Fiscal Year 2016 -- the most recent numbers available -- while Florida State got about $24 million from the ACC. Big Ten schools reportedly are receiving well over $30 million annually, and some SEC schools got in excess of $40 million last year.
Swofford said the vast majority of that disparity is based on earnings from those conference’s cable television channels, particularly the highly profitable Big Ten and SEC networks. And he’s confident the ACC’s planned offering will bring its revenue up to speed.
“Very confident,” Swofford said, when asked by Warchant whether the fledgling network can make up the difference. “That’s why we’re doing the channel.”
Swofford said the ACC “fully expects” a gap in revenue to continue for a couple more years, but that will diminish once the ACC channel is fully operational.
“That’s the very reason that we’ve signed to do what we’re doing,” Swofford said. “And we fully expect that that gap will narrow considerably when we get the channel up and running.”
* Also See: More updates from Swofford and others from ACC spring meetings
The ACC and ESPN announced the creation of the new channel last July, but some media analysts began to speculate about its viability once ESPN announced 100 layoffs -- including many prominent on-air personalities -- to account for diminishing revenues tied to cable “cord cutting.”
That led to Swofford’s May 3 memo assuring conference presidents, athletics directors and other officials that he had been personally told by ESPN President John Skipper the channel’s development was “full speed ahead.”
“We fully expect that to be successful in every way,” Swofford said on Thursday. “How successful, we’ll just have to see. … I think we have the best partner you could possibly have in terms of live sports television.”
Swofford acknowledged that it’s difficult to project actual ACC channel revenues because of the changing media landscape, with millions of consumers dropping cable for streaming television options. But he said the ACC’s business agreement with ESPN is “very similar” to the SEC’s, and he said ESPN has plans in place should the cable markets begin to crumble.
“As the technology changes, there will be some distribution beyond the normal linear channel that are different than today,” he said.
ESPN executives were on-hand for the ACC’s meetings this week, Swofford said, and they already are laying the groundwork for the channel’s launch in 2019. If there were any concerns about the channel’s future two weeks ago, when Swofford penned the memo, they seemed to be completely allayed this week.
“We’ve had conversations along the way with the commissioner, with ESPN,” FSU athletics director Stan Wilcox told Warchant. “So we’ve been getting updates. We know where things are at."
“It’s full steam ahead,” added Clemson athletics director Dan Radakovich. “Our partner has done a wonderful job. It’s a process -- that’s why it does take a few years to get one of these off the ground. But I think we’re hitting each one of the marks. ESPN is very happy as to where we are right now, and we’re excited to get going.”
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