The GoR will keep the conference intact through 2034. Then what?

The elephant in the room will be money. Are the ACC schools anywhere near the SEC and B1G in TV revenue? If not, and VT thinks they can do better elsewhere, we may jump. There may be other issues that would drive us away, but offhand, money is the only one that comes to mind. If the gap is wide enough, even the GoR might not stop us.

The SEC Network was announced in March 2013. Carriage contracts were completed between January 2014 and August 2014. The SECN was launched in August 2014, 17 months after the announcement. They were able to get this done in 17 months because there was money to be made. The SEC had content, ESPN had facilities and eager advertisers. Both parties exploited what the other had, and they made a bunch of money.

So where, oh where is the ACC Network? It is an identical project. ACC has content and ESPN has facilities and... (eager advertisers, maybe?) For the SECN, ESPN was able to strongarm the cable carriers rather easily. Maybe those same carriers are pushing back in the case of the ACCN. Do those carriers not want to pay in-state rates in Pennsylvania and New York (huge populations) for the likes of Pitt and Syracuse. And lets face it, cable boxes were the reason those two schools were added to this conference. ESPN might have wanted to keep Jim Delany out of New York, but the ACC had no dog in that fight. We just needed cable boxes to justify a linear cable channel.

If the two parties, The ACC and ESPN, believed the ACCN was going to deliver a big payoff, it would have been completed 17 months after it was annouced. Business men don't sit idly by while money beckons their action. This network, if it ever arrives, will not be what you might call a cash cow. They can't even say for sure that it will be a linear channel ala BTN and SECN.

JS has kept us at bay with assurance that the ACC network will be here soon, and it will be glorious. I am beside myself with excited anticipation.