SMU to the ACC? Conference presidents to meet on expansion Monday night, report says

By SportsDay Staff 10:43 AM on Aug 28, 2023 CDT — Updated 43 minutes ago Southern Methodist University joining the ACC still has reported momentum this week. ESPN’s Pete Thamel said Monday morning that the conference is attempting to gather presidents and chancellors on a call sometime in the next few days to determine one way or another if the ACC will add the Mustangs, Stanford and Cal. By Monday afternoon, Ross Dellenger from Yahoo! Sports said ACC presidents were scheduled to meet on a call Monday evening to discuss and potentially take action on conference expansion regarding the three schools.

ACC officials are reportedly still working on how to divide the pool of money that would be spilt up among conference members after the three new schools join. That amount is expected to be between $50 and $60 million annually. Nothing is finalized and the details are “only in pencil” as of now, Thamel said.

How new revenue generated by adding members to the conference would be distributed has been a sticking point for several ACC schools, among them Florida State, Clemson and North Carolina. SMU, Stanford and Cal agreed to revenue distribution models that would make them more appealing to ACC schools last week. SMU would be willing to forgo its television revenue distribution from the conference for seven years, Yahoo Sports reported, while Stanford and Cal would reduce theirs for multiple years, starting at about 30%.

Three weeks ago, conference officials and university leaders met twice in three days to consider adding Stanford, Cal and SMU, but never voted, knowing they wouldn’t have the necessary 12 of 15 votes to approve expansion. SMU, a member of the American Athletic Conference, has long indicated it wanted to move to a Power Five conference. The Big 12, which is headquartered in the Mustangs’ backyard, didn’t reciprocate the interest, and the recent demise of the Pac 12 ended the Mustangs’ hopes of hopping aboard out west.

SMU, according to people familiar with the situation, has engaged in conversations with school presidents and conference leaders from the Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC since July 2022, when USC and UCLA announced they were leaving for the Big Ten. To leave the AAC, SMU would have to pay an early termination fee, the amount of which is unknown. The AAC’s media contract runs until 2031.

Cincinnati, UCF and Houston are each paying $18 million to depart the conference this year, though a person familiar with the AAC’s thinking told The News that the number would likely be higher for SMU. But the Mustangs aren’t letting the prospect of a hefty exit fee, or the loss of years of television revenue, deter them from the elusive goal of joining a Power Five. .