ACC presidents voted to approve the additions of Stanford, Cal, and SMU on Friday, sources told Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger.Stanford and Cal are expected to take reduced television revenue shares, while SMU will earn no television revenue from the league for approximately nine years, Dellenger adds.The schools can all reportedly earn incentives on top of their shares, based primarily on football success. Whether other sports were included as incentives hasn't been reported.Stanford's, Cal's, and SMU's football teams finished with 3-9, 4-8, and 7-6 records, respectively, in 2022.Conference realignment has impacted a large number of schools this summer. Oregon and Washington were accepted into the Big Ten in early August, joining USC and UCLA, who were voted in last year.Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah are departing from the Pac-12 for the Big 12 in 2024, and the Big 12 is losing both Texas and Texas Tech to the SEC next year.With Stanford's and Cal's departures, Washington State and Oregon State are the only schools scheduled to remain in the Pac-12 beyond 2023.
There are a few EXTREMELY rich families of donors, including the Hunt family that owns the Chiefs and FC Dallas, who have just promised to float the program and fund NIL at competitive levels, but I do not envy their athletic department staff. They’re going to be begging, borrowing, and stealing for the better part of a decade to keep up appearances, and if the football team doesn’t make some noise, the culture could get pretty toxic in University Park. They also have 30+ years of alumni who picked SMU despite sports not mattering and 30+ years of locals who found something else to care about.
TCU is constantly on a razor’s edge for general interest, even with 20 years of being an excellent G5 and respectable P5 program. It’s just such a crowded market. Winning will fix a lot of things, but winning at any sustained or impressive level been the missing part of the SMU equation so far.
They have recently done this. They were ranked as high as 15 in November a few years ago. They clearly showed potential (albeit for one year). Did it come crashing down? Yes, of course. But hey, they had those clean Dallas tribute unis and that makes up for it, right?
That was just before NIL. Now that programs can openly flaunt cash, who’s going to stop them from returning to their Pony Excess ways?