By Brian Murphy, WRAL

The divisions roiling the ACC are well documented, threatening the league’s future and playing out in courtrooms and legal filings across the southeast.

But there’s another, related fault line that divides the conference and could trigger more financial fallout: The “ABC 5” and everyone else.

That group — Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina and Notre Dame, which has a scheduling arrangement with the league — drives nearly all of the league’s conference-game appearances on over-the-air ABC.

The ACC’s other 10 members have not played a conference game that wasn’t against one of those five teams on ABC since 2019, according to a WRAL analysis of the league’s television appearances since 2016.

ESPN owns all of the conference’s television rights and places football games across its channels, including ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and the ACC Network. Some games air on the CW. Games on ABC tend to attract the largest audience, especially as ESPN faces subscription losses due to cord cutting.

Part of conference cut out

Put another way: if you’re not playing against one of those teams, you haven’t played a conference (or, in Notre Dame’s case, a semi-conference) game on ABC since before COVID was a thing or before President Joe Biden was sworn into office.

Cal, Stanford and SMU, the league’s newest members, were not included in the analysis. The three schools just began their first season as ACC members.

The last games on ABC that didn’t involve at least one of those five schools: Virginia and Virginia Tech on the day after Thanksgiving in 2019 and 2018.

NC State and Boston College played on ABC (and ESPN2, depending on where you were watching) in 2017.

To find a school that played multiple ABC games without one of the “ABC 5” you have to go back to Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson’s Heisman Trophy-winning season in 2016 when the Cardinals’ games against NC State and Virginia were on the network. Additionally, Louisville’s games against Clemson and Florida State were also televised on ABC.

Duke, Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Wake Forest have not played a regular-season conference game (or Notre Dame game) on the network that didn’t involve one of the “ABC 5” during the last eight years.

The count does not include the ACC Championship Game, which ABC broadcasts each season. The network does not get to select that game as it does regular-season games. Pittsburgh and Wake Forest played in the 2021 title game, the only championship game since 2008 to not include at least Florida State or Clemson.

Divisions exist within the “ABC 5” as well.

Clemson has played a league-high 24 ACC/Notre Dame games on ABC since 2018. Florida State is at 18. Notre Dame has 15 ABC games in that time, despite only being on ABC when they play road games vs. ACC schools. Miami is at 11, and UNC is at 10 with four of those games against non-“ABC 5” members.

ACC teams also appear on ABC for non-conference games, though those games are often driven by the opponent for “ABC 5” and the others alike.

Georgia Tech, for example, has played Georgia on ABC five times since 2017. The rivals are already scheduled to appear on the network in November. Pittsburgh has played West Virginia, Tennessee and Penn State on ABC since 2018.

NC State’s game against Tennessee on Saturday night is on ABC. It is the Wolfpack’s first non-conference game on the network, not including Notre Dame, since before 2016.

Why does it matter?

The ACC has, until this year, distributed its conference revenue equally. This year, the league will award success incentives up to $25 million based on football and basketball success. Those payments are being funded by forfeited TV revenue from the three new members — Cal, Stanford and SMU. The expansion will generate nearly $600 million in additional television rights from ESPN over 12 years, a point of pride for ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips who has been under pressure to find additional money for his schools.

Half of that will be distributed to the pre-2024 schools and the rest will be used for the success incentives.

“Revenue isn’t just there,” Phillips said at the ACC Football Kickoff in late July. “You can’t just kind of will it. What we did with expansion, with three new schools, I think really will help our conference.”

Football accounts for about “80% of the value of each member’s overall athletic media rights,” Florida State’s Board of Trustees wrote in its initial legal filing against the ACC.

The money from both the league’s base rights deal and its ACC Network agreement is still split evenly among the pre-2024 schools — no matter how frequently or infrequently each appears on ABC, ESPN or the ACC Network.

If the networks don’t value each school equally — and the television appearance numbers indicate clearly that they don’t — should the conference distribute those revenues unequally? It’s a conversation that is occurring across the league and the nation, since every conference has certain schools that drive a larger share of their media rights deals.

But Florida State and Clemson are suing the league, barely hiding their intentions to bolt as soon as possible to get to a league where they would be paid more for their media rights.

Would extra millions, taken directly from members like Wake Forest, Syracuse and Boston College, stop Florida State and Clemson from leaving the ACC at the first chance? Unlikely.

And without assurances that foregoing some revenue would keep the league intact and preserve their spot at the table, what incentive do non-“ABC 5” schools have to accept less money? They’re already behind financially.

The long-term Grant of Rights, signed by most schools twice, was supposed to be the mechanism to keep the conference together.

Now, it’s under direct legal challenge.

Fewer opportunities?

In 2023, the ACC had 16 conference/Notre Dame games on ABC, including seven of ACC champion Florida State’s eight conference games and all four of Notre Dame’s road games at ACC schools.

In 2022, the league had 10 such games. In 2021, just four.

The league benefited from a quirk of timing in 2023: The Big Ten left ESPN before the season, but the SEC’s full package with the network hadn’t started yet.

With every SEC-controlled game now owned by ABC/ESPN, the league faces a tougher scheduling environment on ABC. The network will air an SEC game at 3:30 p.m. Eastern each Saturday and could have a number of SEC-dominated triple-headers.

As it has in the first two weeks of the season when the SEC had at least one team in all six of ABC”s main television windows.

Clemson vs. Georgia, Miami vs. Florida and Notre Dame vs. Texas A&M on Aug. 31 and Oklahoma State vs. Arkansas, South Carolina vs. Kentucky and NC State vs. Tennessee on Sept. 7.

Phillips said he has had discussions with ESPN about not being left out of those prime television windows on ABC.

“We have talked about situating the ACC in really good spots both on ABC and the ESPN channels, as well as our own network,” Phillips said at the ACC Football Kickoff in late July.

“I feel good about it as we look into the season. I feel good about what I’ve seen in the month of September where we’re going to be. But they understand fully. I also know our teams are going to play well. When you play well, you get rewarded.”

ABC regular-series appearances since 2018 vs. ACC opponents or Notre Dame

Clemson: 26
2023: Florida State, Syracuse, Clemson, Georgia Tech
2022: Wake Forest, NC State, Boston College, Florida State, Syracuse
2021: Georgia Tech
2020: Miami, Georgia Tech, Boston College, Pitt, Virginia Tech
2019: Syracuse, North Carolina, Florida State, Louisvile, NC State, Wake Forest
2018: Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Boston College, Louisville, Florida State

Florida State: 18
2023: Boston College, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Duke, Wake Forest, Miami
2022: Wake Forest, Clemson, Miami
2021: Notre Dame
2020: Georgia Tech, Miami, UNC
2019: Clemson, Miami
2018: Miami, NC State

Notre Dame: 15
2023: NC State, Duke, Louisville, Clemson
2022: North Carolina, Syracuse
2021: Florida State, Virginia
2020: Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech, Boston College, North Carolina
2018: Wake Forest, Virginia Tec, Clemson

Miami: 11
2023: North Carolina, Florida State, Louisville, Boston College
2022: Florida State
2020: Louisville, Florida State, Clemson,  North Carolina
2019: Florida State
2018: Florida State

North Carolina: 10
2023: Miami in 2023
2022: Notre Dame, NC State
2021: Wake Forest
2020: Boston College, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Notre Dame, Miami
2019: Clemson

Georgia Tech: 6
2023: Clemson
2021: Clemson
2020: Florida State, Miami, Notre Dame
2018: Clemson

Boston College: 6
2023: Florida State, Miami
2022: Clemson
2020: North Carolina, Clemson Notre Dame

Virginia Tech: 6
2023: Florida State 
2022: North Carolina, Clemson
2019: Virginia
2018: Notre Dame, Virginia

Wake Forest: 6
2023: Florida State
2022: Clemson, Florida State
2021: North Carolina
2019: Clemson
2018: Notre Dame

NC State: 5
2023: Notre Dame
2022: Clemson, North Carolina
2019: Clemson in 2019
2018: Florida State

Louisville: 5
2023: Notre Dame, Miami
2020: Miami
2019: Clemson
2018: Clemson

Syracuse: 4
2022: Clemson, Notre Dame
2019: Clemson
2018: Clemson

Virginia: 3
2021: Notre Dame
2019: Virginia Tech
2018: Virginia Tech

Pittsburgh: 2
2020; Notre Dame, Clemson

Duke: 2
2023: Notre Dame, Florida State

Source: wralsportsfan.com