ACC becomes latest power conference to expand cross-country by adding Stanford, Cal and SMU
The Atlantic Coast Conference voted Friday to add Stanford, California and SMU to the league next year, providing a landing spot for two more schools from the disintegrating Pac-12 and creating a fourth super conference in major college sports.
The additions make the ACC the latest power conference to expand its membership and footprint westward. Starting in August 2024, the league with Tobacco Road roots in North Carolina will increase its number of football schools to 17 and 18 in most other sports, with Notre Dame remaining a football independent.
"We are thrilled to welcome three world-class institutions to the ACC, and we look forward to having them compete as part of our amazing league," ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said in a statement.
Notre Dame is currently the westernmost ACC school in South Bend, Indiana, with Louisville the farthest west among football members.
But now, like the Big Ten and Big 12, the ACC will be a cross-country conference. The ACC will span from Boston in the Northeast to Miami in South Florida, out to Dallas in the heart of the Southwest and up to the Northern California, where Stanford and Cal reside.
The ACC becomes the fourth league, along with the Southeastern Conference, Big Ten and Big 12, to have at least 16 football-playing members.
The move seems to signal an end to realignment among the nation's wealthiest and most powerful college athletic conferences after three years of turbulent movement that has whittled the so-called Power Five down to four.
For the Bay Area schools, it was a marriage of desperation after the Pac-12 was picked apart by the Big Ten and Big 12.
For the ACC, adding three schools will increase media rights revenue from its long-term deal with ESPN, and allow the conference to spread much of that new money to existing members.
New conference members typically — though not always — forgo a full share of revenue for several years upon entry.
The ACC has been generating record revenue hauls, yet is trailing the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences, and staring at an even greater gap as those leagues have new TV deals kick in.
The ACC's deal runs through 2036.
