Last summer, the ACC announced that it would be launching its own conference television network, set to debut in 2019. Before that happens, the ACC will carry the network digitally, known as “ACC Network Extra” in which fans can livestream events as long as they have access to WatchESPN. This debuted last season and will continue in 2017 and 2018.
John Swofford hints at the ACC Network front-loading 2019 opening weekend
There are several games already in place that would fit well.
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Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports
On Thursday, ACC commissioner John Swofford spoke during the conference’s basketball tournament, and the topic of ACC football on the network came up. Swofford hinted at putting some of the conference’s biggest games on the opening weekend that the network launches.
“You want to have a quality launch, and certainly games that are appealing are really important,” Swofford said via The Daily Press. “And not only in that particular year. … We are spending a lot of time talking about scheduling. …
“There are some concerns about those (FCS) games being front-loaded on everybody’s schedule. That’s probably not good going forward with our business decisions and scheduling decisions related to the channel.”
As The Daily Press points out, there are some intriguing matchups already set for 2019 that could be considered, including Florida State-Boise State, Miami-Florida, North Carolina-South Carolina, Louisville-Notre Dame and Duke-Alabama. Any of those games would bring viewers to the new network.
This is a strategy we’ve seen in conference launches in the past, most notably with the SEC Network in 2014. The first game featured on the network was Texas A&M at South Carolina, and the weekend slate of games was kicked off by Auburn-Arkansas that year.
Big opening weekend matchups, along with overall quality in teams’ out-of-conference scheduling are becoming more common, thanks to the College Football Playoff. Last season, we saw one of the biggest opening weekends in college football history, one that featured four games between AP Top 25-ranked teams in Oklahoma-Houston, Georgia-North Carolina, Bama-USC, and FSU-Ole Miss, among other marquee matchups.
We still obviously have a long way to go until 2019, but it’s clear that Swofford is already considering scheduling some of the big games for the network’s launch, which makes obvious sense. For now, we just have to wait and see which, if any, big ACC games it ends up choosing.
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