The early results are in, the grant of rights won and it no longer feels imminent that the ACC will lose any members anytime soon.
At least, that’s the way it seems in the aftermath of ESPN’s move to extend its contract option on the ACC’s broadcast rights through 2036. The vitriol from Florida State and Clemson filing lawsuits has subsided, and an actual compromise appears to be way more likely than a divorce.
That’s great news for Louisville, which potentially could have been caught in the conference realignment abyss had the defections taken place. What’s even better is that football is still the primary force driving talks, and coach Jeff Brohm has the Cardinals ready to be in the conversation.
The ESPN extension has paved the way for a possible settlement between the league and FSU and Clemson as long as some changes are made to bring about that resolution.
More on that in a second, but first, none of this would be possible if it weren’t for the grant of rights each member school signed in 2013 and again in 2016 to keep the conference together.
Despite the resources and attorney billable hours several schools devoted in an attempt to bypass it, the grant of rights held the league together long enough that schools willing to leave are now willing to stay.
There’s still reason to believe we’re headed for a reset in college athletics in which the major conference schools break free from the NCAA and form their own league and governing body. Until that happens, though, the ACC is headed for stability.
And it’s headed for a much-needed renovation.
The ESPN contract isn’t injecting enough new revenue into the deal to substantially decrease the gap between the ACC and its counterparts in the Big Ten and SEC.
But the league has been incentivized to get creative in coming up with ways individual schools can take home a bigger share. Yahoo! Sports was the first to report a proposal that called for the creation of a new revenue stream that would be divided based on media value metrics — including television viewership ratings for football.
While U of L football sputtered through Bobby Petrino’s last year and Scott Satterfield’s tenure, Brohm has the program on the right course.
Brohm led the Cards to their first ACC championship game in his first year. His second showed they’re not far off from being a College Football Playoff-caliber team against three teams that made it. U of L defeated Clemson and lost by a touchdown to both Notre Dame and SMU.
Playing in those highly visible games would only increase the value of U of L’s brand under the new proposal.
Louisville ranked fifth among ACC schools in football viewership last year, and it was third behind only FSU and Clemson during the 2023 season.
The Cards had a game in each of Brohm’s two seasons that surpassed the coveted 4 million viewers threshold: Their win over Notre Dame did 5.12 million in 2023, and the Miami game had 4.07 million viewers last season.
Part of the trick to gaining high football ratings has to do with the opponent, as evidenced by Kentucky finishing in the 28th spot nationally during a losing season in 2024.
Georgia Tech got a boost this season, too, playing FSU in Ireland in Week Zero — before anyone knew the Seminoles were a bad team — and its annual regular-season finale against Georgia.
U of L has a pair of those games scheduled in the future, with Georgia on the slate to visit L&N Stadium in 2026 and the Cards making the return trip to Athens in 2027. Texas A&M is among the nonconference schedule in 2028.
The Cards are poised to take advantage if and when the new revenue-sharing proposal materializes. The only ones guaranteed to make more are the attorneys.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville Athletics: Cards poised to show value with ESPN’s new deal
