This is a key time for the ACCN and frankly, the future of athletics at the 15 ACC schools because the negotiations that are taking place between Disney and the MVPDs will be the revenue engine for years to come much like the networks have set the Big 10 and SEC apart from their competition.

Cable and satellite TV carriage is all about the use of available spectrum. Comcast and Direct cleared the decks for the ACCN earlier in the year when they dumped BeIn Sports from their lineups. That created instant spectrum on a sports tier. Boom. Done.

Now, we are in negotiation mode and the ACC ADs have taken their orders from Bristol/Greensboro to unleash their fans on their local cable companies to carry the ACCN. Knowing what I know about the business, I have no doubt that all will be on board for the launch of the network in August. When Disney was able to get Direct signed on, the rest became a function of negotiating a deal that would work for all.

Carriage is where the money comes from as your monthly pay TV bill pays a certain amount to each network every month. Let's take the case of CNN. Right now, their ratings are in the toilet and the only revenue challenge that is causing them is that their ad sales are lower due to the poor ratings performance. Even with such lousy ratings, they still get sub fees for over 90 million subs every month and that fee is not connected to ratings at all.

The ACCN will soon be pumping guaranteed cash into ACC coffers soon enough. The reason why nobody will talk about potential revenue is that these carriage deals are still in the negotiation stage. Once the ink is dry in July or early August, everyone will know exactly how much cash will be expected to come their way.

My guess is that if you dig hard enough, you will soon see ACCN test channels popping up over your systems in July or early August. Even if Comcast is still negotiating, I guarantee that the test channel will be up because it takes the flip of a switch to launch the network in millions of homes as soon as a contract is signed.

Enjoy the ride as this will finally get us to a point of competitiveness with the SEC.