ACC Football Kickoff Notebook: Swofford Urges Fans To Request ACC Network
Posted on Wednesday, Jul. 17, 2019, 3:55 pm
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By Jerry Ratcliffe
Commissioner John Swofford addresses the media at Wednesday’s ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte.
CHARLOTTE — My good friend Tony Barnhart, known in Southern circles as “Mr. College Football,” wrote recently that if the SEC Network was not available to football fans down in Dixie, passionate fans might threaten to burn someone’s house down.
ACC Commissioner John Swofford doesn’t want his league’s fans to go that far, but he did strongly encourage them to make their feelings known to cable providers. The new ACC Network, affiliated with Disney-owned ESPN, is set to launch at 7 p.m. on Aug. 22.
Problem is, many of the cable TV companies within the ACC footprint — including Comcast/Xfinity in the Charlottesville region — haven’t signed on to carry the new network. The Miami, Fla., area (also a Comcast region) also hasn’t signed up along with many other areas of the ACC.
For instance, the Central Virginia area Comcast cable offers both the SEC and Big Ten networks, neither of which would be as relevant as the ACC’s own network.
Because the ACC boasts the largest population and the most TVs of any conference in the nation, the lack of a deal with cable companies presents a significant hurdle.
“I think our fan bases will respond very, very negatively if they’re not able to get [the network],” Swofford said Wednesday at the ACC Football Kickoff. “I think [fans] will show that. I would encourage them to show that, short of burning down any houses.”
The league’s long-time commissioner said that the way distribution works is that many such deals happen at the midnight hour.
“Fan bases, their voices need to be heard,” Swofford said. “We count on them to demand of their carrier to take the ACC Network. I think this is must-see television. It’s not just watching a game. It’s watching the ACC in every sport, in every way, from the inside-out. If you’re a sports fan and you live in the footprint of the ACC or you’re an alum that is in another part of the country, there’s going to be nothing like we have ever had in the ACC.”
Swofford’s dissertation, usually reserved as his version of the “state of the conference” address, was more of a dog-and-pony show for the new network. Reps from ESPN’s ACC Network provided a sneak peak to media attending the Kickoff of some of the new features, which included a documentary on the Bobby Bowden dynasty at Florida State, Clemson’s road to the national championship, Louisville’s fresh start in football for 2019 and others.
Meanwhile, the network introduced all of its talent for game coverage and studio shows, including some familiar faces such as Tim Hasselbeck and Wes Durham to new faces like former Miami and Georgia coach Mark Richt, Dave O’Brien, Jon Beason, and sideline reporter Katie George (a former Louisville volleyball player and former Miss Kentucky).
With ACC teams opening their seasons as early as Aug. 24, we can imagine what the outcry may be if those games are not easily available to league fans. You will no longer be able to flip on your TV to a local channel such as NBC 29 and see the old “ACC Game of the Week.” That option doesn’t exist with the league’s new network.
If you want to have all the ACC’s games at your fingertips, it would be advised to place a phone call.
Of course, as Hall of Famer George Welsh used to say, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat (I never really understood why anyone would want to skin a cat, but …).”
Games will stream on the internet and supposedly they will be available on Hulu for a reasonable price for those who are technologically comfortable or have a 12-year-old handy to set those things up in their households.
“You’ll be able to get the ACC Network anywhere in the nation one way or another,” Swofford said. “Whether it’s DIRECTV, whether it’s Hulu, that are already on board. People will have an opportunity to change carriers if they’re not happy with their current one who is not carrying the ACC Network.
“Contact your carrier if they’re not carrying it and demand that you want it. It’s a consumer sort of thing. Be passionate when you do it.”
Just don’t threaten to burn their houses down.
Legalized Sports Gambling
Swofford said ACC school presidents would like to see a “carve-out” for college athletics, so that college athletics could not be gambled on (legally), as well as high school athletics.
Personally, that seems like a long shot with the rise in the popularity of sports gambling and with a number of states having already approved the legalized version of betting on games. Bordering states that have not passed those laws may be pressured to do so by lost revenues across their borders.
“I would hope that at some point, at the federal level, there’s some consistency brought to how this is done state to state, if it indeed is going to happen in a particular state (in the ACC footprint),” Swofford said.
Swofford said that there have been discussions on how legalized gambling could put pressure on college athletes. He said he was part of a compelling conversation in the spring meetings with athletes, who said they were very uncomfortable with the position [legalized gambling] can put them in with their own fellow students.
“How they might be perceived walking into a classroom and another student is made because [the athlete] did something that cost [the student] some money,” Swofford said.
NC State’s Trouble with the NCAA
Former Wolfpack basketball coach Mark Gottfried and an assistant’s names came up in the FBI investigation into cheating in college basketball, leading to a new NCAA probe into NC State.
Swofford had little to say other than, “Well, the first thing I would say is what you hear me say every time when we have that type of issue in the league … you wish it didn’t exist.”
He said that new NC State AD Boo Corrigan, son of Charlottesville’s Gene Corrigan, and Chancellor Woodson will handle things in the proper way and that the ACC will do all it can to assist them through the process.
“We won’t comment on that ongoing [investigation] from a league perspective,” Swofford said. “In terms of speculating, the NCAA, it’s an interesting time because it’s the first time that the NCAA will be using a different process, different method, if you will, to evaluate what has happened in court and testimony that has happened in court.”
ACC Success
Swofford, now in his 23rd year as league commissioner (succeeding Gene Corrigan) couldn’t help himself from boasting about the conference’s success.
The ACC won the national championship in both football (Clemson) and men’s basketball (Virginia) for only the fourth time in league history, and the second time in the last three years.
The league has seven national championships since 2015 in football, men’s and women’s basketball, and baseball, the most of any conference. Next closest is four. The ACC has also won more national football titles — three of the last six — than any other conference (that’s right, SEC) since 2013, and has had a team in every College Football Playoff since its inception.
Football isn’t the only sport the ACC has excelled in. The conference owns more men’s national basketball championships than any other league since 2015 (three of the last five).
ACC Kickoff Nuggets
# Former Miami coach Mark Richt, who shocked the college football world with his sudden resignation following last season, was in Charlotte to talk about his new role as a studio analyst for the new ACC Network. When asked who he liked in the usually wide-open Coastal Division, Richt didn’t flinch. He said he liked Virginia to win it, but to not discount his old Miami team, now coached for former defensive coordinator Manny Diaz.
# Asked about the conference’s ties to Charlotte and the ACC football championship game, Swofford reminded that Charlotte is essentially the epicenter of the conference’s footprint.
“Eight of our schools are within 300 miles, so it’s very drivable for a lot of our schools,” the commissioner pointed out. “You can fly directly to Charlotte from every single one of our schools.”
#The ACC’s contract with Charlotte to host the football championship runs through 2030. The city has hosted numerous ACC Basketball Tournaments and will be home to the ACC Baseball Championship next spring.
