The planned ACC Network likely will follow the SEC Network's "jazzed up" opening football weekend in order to "pressure cable providers to carry the network, and to gin up ratings," according to David Teel of the Hampton Roads DAILY PRESS. The net is slated to launch in '19, and Virginia Tech and Clemson appear to be "candidates to play conference games" in Week One. Both schools have FCS teams scheduled to open that season, and fans should not be surprised "if those games get bumped to later in the season so the Hokies and Tigers can play league opponents that week, with one opening on Thursday, Aug. 29." ACC Commissioner John Swofford said, "You want to have a quality launch, and certainly games that are appealing are really important. ... There are some concerns about those (FCS) games being frontloaded on everybody’s schedule. That’s probably not good going forward with our business decisions and scheduling decisions related to the channel." Meanwhile, Teel noted Florida State AD Stan Wilcox recently told FSU’s BOT that the ACC and ESPN "hope each conference school" earns $8-10M in the net’s first year and $15-20M thereafter. Swofford said, "We don’t talk about numbers out of the conference office. Obviously both ESPN and the ACC wouldn’t be taking this path if we didn’t feel it would be successful" (DAILYPRESS.com, 3/8).
PREPARED FOR WHATEVER COMES: Swofford appeared on ESPN Radio 99.9 Raleigh yesterday and talked about the optimism the ACC and ESPN have about the conference network despite "so much uncertainty" in the media landscape. Swofford said, "If things change dramatically, they’re going to change dramatically for everybody, not just the ACC, if it were to change to the point we were going in different directions. We feel very confident the launch of the ESPN linear network will be successful. We’re not in the business, nor is ESPN, of making decisions and launching efforts that we don’t think we’ll be successful. If there are adjustments based on the world as we know it, with the changing technology and how people continue view sports in the future, we feel like we’re exactly with who we would want to be with." He added the conference has "periodic and thorough updates" with ESPN. Swofford: "That was a big part of our winter meetings in February in Ft. Lauderdale. ESPN came in and gave us updates on where we were with things, what needed to be done going forward and timelines for things that needed to be done. I think it’s all moving along exactly as it should in terms of the launch of the linear network in 2019" (WRALSPORTSFAN.com, 3/8).
