Let’s cut to the chase: Why are you seeing a picture of eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, and toast? What could this possibly have to do with the ACC and the Big 12, and what they should be doing in negotiations with ESPN and other potential television partners in their battle with the Pac-12?
The answer is not as complicated as it might seem.
Plainly put, the ACC and the Big 12 can’t offer ESPN or other networks (or streaming services such as Apple or Peacock) the late-night game window. That’s the Pac-12’s baby, and it always will be. The Pac-12 owns late night.
The ACC in particular, and also the Big 12, can offer something different: breakfast football.
If I’m ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips or Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark, I would offer ESPN a conference game on ESPN2 or ESPNU or — for the ACC specifically — ACC Network in the 10 a.m. or 10:30 a.m. time slot. I can put my conference on in an exclusive game window before the big, bad Big Ten and the mighty SEC air their featured games beginning at noon.
Let’s underscore how dominant the Big Ten and SEC are likely to be in 2024, once USC joins the Big Ten: The Big Ten will have its best game on Fox at noon (Eastern), its second-best game on NBC in prime time, and its third or fourth-best game on CBS at 3:30. ESPN/ABC will have the three best SEC games of the week in those three time slots.
The Big 12 and ACC need to find ways to work around that wall of top-tier game inventory. Breakfast football — something the Pac-12 could not realistically offer as a lead-in to Big Noon Saturday or ESPN’s first really big game of the day — is the obvious answer.
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