Wandering Eye for Louisville and Pitt?

The ACC settlement with Florida State and Clemson is now official, and everyone is scrambling to process it. 

It is a win for the ACC because the league will likely get five years of stability and can stop paying legal fees to fight four different court cases. 

But the Seminoles and Tigers are bigger winners here because the cost of leaving the ACC in 2030 dropped dramatically. We now know it will only cost $75 million to make a jump in five years, when most expect major realignment to happen. 

They also have the chance to make a lot more money annually. Clemson estimates it can take in an extra $20 million per year over the next six seasons because of the ACC’s brand and success initiatives, which will reward teams for on-field success and TV viewership. With a deep playoff run, it could be even more than $20 million per year. 

But that extra money for the Tigers will come at the expense of the lesser brands in the ACC. Reports say that the difference in payout between number one and number eighteen in the ACC could be as much as $20 million. 

Dealing with unequal revenue sharing is better than instantly becoming Oregon State or Washington State, but it will still create some hurt feelings. 

How will that impact schools like Louisville and Pitt, which don’t have the deep-rooted historical ties to the ACC that some in the league do? 

If they start losing seven or eight million dollars in revenue every year to Florida State, Clemson, or North Carolina, will they look around for a better money-making opportunity?

Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde says they could start looking at the Big 12. 

I don’t think it’s a move we would see happen before 2030 because it’s simply too cost-prohibitive. Per the settlement, it will cost $165 million to leave in 2026. That’s too much for either school to handle on its own. Even a slightly bigger revenue bump in the Big 12 wouldn’t be nearly enough to make up the difference.

What about private equity? Last summer, some floated the idea of the Big 12 using private equity to bring Clemson or Florida State to the conference. That only makes business sense if you’re bringing in the top brands of the ACC, not mid-tier brands like Louisville and Pitt. 

But Forde makes a good point about 2030. If FSU, Clemson, and North Carolina leave, the ACC would still have the numbers to keep the conference going, but only if everyone else decided to stick around. That was part of the strategy of adding Cal, Stanford, and SMU–strength in numbers.

By that point, the Cardinals and Panthers may have had enough of dealing with the ACC's inequities and politics, and the Big 12 could become a very attractive option. 

The Big 12 came close to adding Louisville in 2011, and I would love to bring the Cardinals’ basketball program to the league. Pitt would give us the Backyard Brawl as a conference game. 

It’s far from certain that it will happen. A lot can change in five years. For example, Texas and Oklahoma leaving for the SEC weren’t even on our radar five years ago. 

There is a decent chance that 2030 will spark the creation of a legitimate Super League, meaning all bets are off on which Big 12 teams would make the cut. 

But if the same conferences remain intact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this eventually come to fruition.

What You Need to Know

• Saturday is the final day of the Big 12 men’s basketball regular season. Houston has already wrapped up the conference title, but the Big 12 tournament bracket is still very much up in the air. If all the favorites win on Saturday, here’s what the bracket would look like. 

• Speaking of the Big 12 tournament, Commissioner Brett Yormark is under fire for green-lighting the new court at T-Mobile Center. Whether you like it or not, you definitely have to see it. It debuted during the Big 12 women’s basketball tournament this week. 

• There shouldn’t be much NCAA tournament drama for the Big 12 heading into Selection Sunday. Baylor moved off Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology bubble with a win over TCU this week. Cincinnati is the only team still technically on the bubble, but the Bearcats’ home loss to K-State has them stuck in the next four out right now. It looks like the league is all but locked into eight teams in the field.

• Utah has its new men’s basketball head coach. The Utes locked down top target Alex Jensen, a Utah alum who has spent the last 12 years as an NBA assistant. Jensen was a first-team All-Mountain West performer who played for legendary head coach Rick Majerus at Utah in the late 90s. 

• The Big 12 is now front and center on the College Football Playoff selection committee. Baylor AD Mack Rhoads was named the selection committee chair for the 2025 season, replacing Michigan’s Warde Manuel. That means Rhoads will have to answer all the tough questions from ESPN anchors on Tuesday nights late in the fall during the rankings show. 

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