FSU trustees express concern about ACC's status

FSU trustees express concern about ACC's status


"After Wilcox made his regularly scheduled presentation and opened the floor for questions during the board's March meeting, Trustees Joe Gruters and Edward Burr both hit him with suggestions or comments that called into question the ACC's status among college football's Power Five conferences.
First, Gruters complained about the way the College Football Playoff committee seemed to dismiss FSU's conference victories last season and said he has serious doubts about ACC teams earning playoff bids in the future. "I think the perceived bias of the ACC in general, [with] Florida State falling to No. 4 in the rankings and still being undefeated and being [No.] 3 at the end of the season … a one-loss ACC team or two-loss ACC team is going to have a hard time breaking that top four," Gruters said. "I think the top ACC team over the next four or five years, we're going to be in that [No.] 5 to 8 category. And we're going to be on the outside looking in."


"A few minutes later, after the discussion turned to finances, Burr raised a topic that he described as the "800-pound gorilla" in the room - conference television networks and the money they can generate for member institutions.
"All of the Big Five is going to have one except for us if we don't get something moving soon," Burr said. "And that's a major revenue source."The Big Ten and Pac-12 both had cable channels up and running when the ACC signed its Grant of Rights, and the SEC Network went live last summer. That leaves the ACC and Big 12 as the only Power Five conferences without one … and the millions of dollars they can generate for each school each year.The ACC never projected it would have a cable channel in place by now - the earliest goals mentioned by conference athletic directors and presidents have been 2016 or 2017 - but Burr said he would like to see signs of tangible progress. He reminded the other trustees that the channel's viability was one of the reasons FSU agreed to the Grant of Rights. Before that agreement was approved, Swofford traveled to Tallahassee and met individually with each trustee to offer them assurances about the conference's future. There was "a big commitment from the conference to this university a few years ago on that issue. I'm sure no one's forgotten," Burr said. "