ToddandKatie Walker

A $150M power move was made in front of the eyes of the college football world and not many people realized it before the news came out. On December 3rd, college football fans saw an undefeated team left out of a college football playoff for two teams with a loss. So, what led to that happening? To understand the timeline of the eventual exit of Florida State from the ACC, you need to understand history for why the exit makes sense and the timing. When it comes to college football, there is nothing that pisses me off more than an undefeated team that gets told they can’t compete for a chance at a national title. As a person who loves college football and played the sport, I 100% understand all of the time, tears, energy, etc, that gets put into a season. It hurts to see the $150M heist, as the former Ohio State WR coach calls it, happen in front of our eyes and there is nothing we can do to turn the event into a result that should have happened, but money won out because of the control ESPN has and the blowhards like Kirk Herbstreit that lack the balls to stand up their bosses and tell them this isn’t right. When you study the history of conference realignment, there are specific events that led to the formation of the P2 and Florida State being left out of the college football playoffs. Yes, both are connected. Arguably the most important date in college football history turns us back to the year 1984. In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court decided NCAA vs. Board of Regents, declaring that the NCAA was in violation of antitrust laws by dictating individual school television rights deals. That led to ESPN airing its first live regular season game that fall. Thus, why would ESPN not invest in more college football content in the coming decades now that they could air college football games? They did. According to the court ruling, schools and conferences should be free to negotiate their own media deals. For many years, there wasn’t a large gap of money being spent for each conference by ESPN and other TV networks to broadcast college football games. Over the course of time, some of the networks that were telecasting college football games went out of business, were acquired, or stopped broadcasting games as they lost the rights to other networks. That was the free market at work, after all. Eventually FOX and ESPN became the two main players. Nobody knew it at the time, but the Supreme Court’s decision is what led to the start of the modern day conference realignment moves. Less than 10 years later, after the court ruling, conference realignment started to pick up steam. However, one important event that allowed that to happen, happened before 1984 and that was the 1981 situation between the Big East and the A-10 (then-called the E8). For more details on this, reach out @TJAltimore . He knows more about that than anyone else. ESPN still holds the mindset, as stated by Magnus this past summer, that conferences should remain regional. FOX and the Big Ten, however, do not have that mindset anymore. Thus, there are two conflicting goals at play - the network with the long held concept of regional conferences and another network that is building a national conference with the country’s largest brands not in the SEC. But don’t be mistaken, they both care about one thing - money. The movement to a P2 really began late 1950's. While there were many Eastern Independents in 1959, they have since joined conferences. The ACC picked up three teams and the Big Ten two. Three others play in G 5 conferences, nine teams play FCS in the Colonial and Patriot, ten play DIII, and two have dropped football. ACC (3): Boston College, Pitt, Syracuse B1G (2): Penn State, Rutgers American (2): Navy, Temple Mid-American (1): Buffalo FBS Independent (2): Army, UConn, FCS Colonial (4): Maine, UNH, Rhode Island, Villanova FCA Patriot (5): Bucknell, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh DIII (10): Amherst, Bowdoin, Carnegie Tech, Colby, Middlebury, RPI, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, Williams Dropped (2): Boston U., Vermont I share that data to help people understand all of the movement that transpired with all of the independents back in the day that eventually joined conferences and how the power structure started to get put into place over the course of decades. The Ivy League is the only conference whose membership has been unchanged since 1959. Of course, they shifted to DI-AA (now FCS) in 1982. Among the 1959 Midwest Independents, only Notre Dame istill indy. other independs have joined a conference. Butler and Dayton moved to non-scholarship FCS, while Wayne State plays DII and WashU plays DIII. Detroit, Marquette, and Xavier dropped football. FBS Independent (1): Notre Dame FCS Pioneer (2): Butler and Dayton DII (1): Wayne State DII (1): WashU Dropped (3): Detroit, Marquette, Xavier The Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) came together in 1959 after the breakup of the Pacific Coast Conference. Its five members were part of the Pac-12 that collapsed in the summer of 2023 Another major event that led to the formation of the P2 was the destruction of the Southwest Conference, that led to the destruction of the Big 8, and then destruction of the Big 12. The Southwest Conference broke up in 1996 and Arkansas left for the SEC in 1991. After that, most schools joined the Big 12 while TCU, Rice, and SMU bounced around before finding their current homes. Big 12 (4): Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, Texas SEC (2): Arkansas, Texas A&M Conference USA (1): Rice American and then ACC (1): SMU The Border Conference disbanded after the 1961-1962 academic year, and its members settled in various conferences. Pac-12 (2): Arizona, Arizona State Conference USA (1): Texas Western FBS Independent (1): New Mexico State DII (1): West Texas A&M DIII (1): Hardin-Simmons Eventually we saw the largest brands in the Big 12 leave for other conferences: Pac 12: Colorado SEC: Missouri, Texas A&M Big Ten: Nebraska Prior to Nebraska joining the Big Ten, Penn State had already joined. When news broke out about Texas and Oklahoma leaving the Big 12 for the SEC it created a angst among administrators wondering what the domino effect will be. Will the SEC look to bring in more members? Will an arms race begin among the P5 conferences? How will all this shake out? We know the answer today. But to provide some info, two years prior the Oklahoma and Texas news, USC already spoke in public that all options were on the table in 2019 and in the summer of 2021 they and UCLA started to communicate with the Big Ten. As you can see, four major brands were on the move at roughly the same time. Their exits were just announced in seperate years. The Pac-12's inability to find a satisfactory broadcast rights deal led to a max exodus that produced one of the more remarkable days in sports history and the demise of one of the oldest conferences in sports. The implosion of the Pac-12 was a result of choices made several years earlier by the Big Ten. To be clear, I am not blaming the Big Ten for the loss of the Pac-12, but what has transpired through the years led to it. The free market spoke and that should not be a blame game. April 30, 2004, ESPN’s leadership team and the Big Ten had meetings in Chicago. On that day, there were three years remaining on the Big Ten + ESPN TV deal. On that day, the meeting was expected to be a simple one, conversations about schedules and announcers. Then it got ugly and it is one of the most impactful days in college athletics history - a conversation started about a contract extension and ESPN gave a lowball number. The famous words were spoken by ESPN: “ take it or leave it. If you don't take our offer, you are rolling the dice.” Jim, the Big Ten commish said, “Consider them rolled.” The Big Ten then went to FOX, struck a larger TV deal for more money and the creation of BTN was born. Since that day on 2004, the Big Ten Conference started to become a national conference. Nebraska joined from the Big 12, Maryland joined from the ACC, Rutgers, USC, UCLA, OR and WA all joined. Why? More money. Massive TV contracts. National appeal. The real national conference. ESPN then went back home and started to fuck over the ACC and “forced” them into a low balled TV contract and the ACC network. The P2 was in full swing and up next is the acquisition of the top ACC brands. In comes Raycom. How is the Raycom and Florida State situation from December 3rd connected? Swofford, the president of ESPN at the time, let the strongest bidders, ESPN and Fox, know that he wanted to include Raycom, which went into the talks as a partner to both networks, rather than trying to bid against their deeper pockets. Why? Swofford's son, Chad Swofford, was the Senior Director of New Media and Business Development at Raycom Sports. The ACC moronically signed away all of their third tier rights and were fucked over by a long-term contract and a GOR forced down their necks after Maryland left to the Big Ten. Thus, the ACC was stuck in the worst TV deal of all-time and many times lower in dollar value than the Big Ten now has with FOX. Thus, the appeal for wanting to get into the P2 for the ACC schools. A $500M gap was formed becuase of the stupidity of the ACC and the brave move of the Big Ten going with FOX. Free market at play. Thus, the ACC has no influence, no control, no power. And ESPN decided after Oklahoma and Texas joined the SEC that ESPN would only invest in the SEC for the regular season. ESPN + SEC married each other. What the SEC doesn’t realize yet is that they too signed off their death bed to ESPN by making similar mistakes that the ACC made with ESPN. The SEC going away from CBS and putting everything to ESPN and the ACC having no power, ESPN having full control of the current 4 team playoff, led to ESPN dictating the talking points of who should be in the college football playoff. This year ESPN couldn’t bash the Big Ten since Michigan was a three time Big Ten champion and undefeated. Thus, now we are back to the $150M heist. ESPN wants their new asset in the playoff and their biggest asset of all, Alabama in the playoff. It was all about the viewership and money. And because the ACC has no power besides wagging their tail between their asses while folded down in their lap, ESPN was able to screw over Florida State and declare their season unworthy in favor of the assets that they already decided they would invest more in. Never once did the ESPN employees push for Florida States inclusion into the college football playoff. Never once. The whole orchestration started before Florida State’s QB got hurt. So, here we are, Florida State being told an undefeated season is worth nothing to ESPN. Remember, the ACC is already slave to ESPN at this point. The ACC is thus sitting at home realizing their partner doesn’t love them. Yes, I’m using a marriage comparison to get the point across. Florida State learned the words “divorce me if you want to.” Since Florida State has already been working on an exit from the ACC prior to what transpired on December 3rd, an exit is not a “should we leave but stay if we can get more money," but instead a conversation of how quickly can we get out of here and be with someone that will appreciate us and value what we bring to the table. The heist was achievable becuse of what ESPN had already decided to invest more in, they don't value the ACC - as indicated by zero support for an undefeated Florida State team - and a contract wrapped around the throates of the ACC until 2036 and anyone that dares try to get out will get trashed by ESPN employees. Look, the relationship between Florida State and ESPN is broken. There is no repair.