For years the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big Ten have faced off in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge in men’s and women’s basketball. It has been a success that has brought both conferences some extra revenue.
Essentially, this is what the proposed ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 Football alliance will be like, but at a much bigger scale. Imagine Clemson football facing Southern Cal or playing Ohio State, Michigan, or Penn State. These are just some of the marquee games a scheduling agreement between the three Power 5 Conferences will bring.
Imagine the revenue these types of games can bring in. These are just some examples of a revenue stream college football has not really tapped into.
What would this alliance mean for Clemson, who already has scheduled future non-conference games with SEC foes Georgia, LSU, and Oklahoma? According to multiple sources we have reached out to since news broke of the potential alliance last Friday, those games might be taken off the schedule to make room for matchups against big-name teams from the Big Ten and Pac-12.
However, for those wondering, it will not affect Clemson’s annual matchup with South Carolina. The Clemson Insider has been told that talks of an alliance between the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 are in the very early stages, and things could change.
As TCI reported on Monday night, the ACC is also trying to bring Notre Dame into the alliance, giving the conference more barraging power in hopes it can renegotiate its current television rights deal with ESPN. Potentially, it means Clemson could play a team from the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Notre Dame in some years, along with its annual matchup against rival South Carolina.
TCI also learned in order to accommodate these types of matchups, ACC teams will no longer be able to schedule FCS opponents. Word is there are talks, especially with the NCAA restructuring its role, of moving these games with FCS teams to the spring and have them replace spring games with exhibition games, allowing schools like Clemson to have another game that potentially could create more revenue.
Discussions are still very early, but the future Clemson football schedules could look very different.
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