North Carolina is mad at the ACC, as the conference could get blown up

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The ACC is in danger of dying shortly after Stanford and Cal joined it

A very important piece of reporting was published on Monday. Brian Murphy of WRAL in North Carolina talked to several members of the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees before a scheduled meeting on Thursday. You can read the full report, which contains a lot of quotes from various board members. Our friends at Tar Heels Wire picked up the report and noted some of its especially important takeaways and details. We will get into those details shortly, but the bottom line is that the ACC is in a stage of deep crisis. It is fighting for survival, and the odds — quite frankly — aren’t very good. The ACC could die not that long after the Pac-12 died, forcing Stanford and Cal to go to the ACC as an emergency lifeboat. Conference realignment could have another earthquake-level development. Let’s now look at Murphy’s report and some of its central components:

NORTH CAROLINA CLEARLY UNHAPPY WITH ACC

TRUSTEES AT UNC ARE ANGRY

ANSWERS WANTED

REVENUE SHORTFALL IN THE ACC

ACC SPRING MEETINGS ARE THIS WEEK! FUN TIMES!

NORTH CAROLINA ATHLETIC DIRECTOR WON'T COMMENT

MEANWHILE, CALIMONY PAYMENTS ARE ABOUT TO BE VOTED ON BY UC BOARD OF REGENTS

UCLA COULD HAVE TO PAY CAL $10 MILLION PER YEAR THROUGH 2030

UC BOARD OF REGENTS PROPOSED $10 MILLION UCLA PAYMENT BECAUSE ACC LACKS REVENUE TO FULLY PAY CAL

REMINDER NUMBER 1: FLORIDA STATE WANTS TO LEAVE THE ACC

REMINDER NUMBER TWO: CLEMSON WANTS TO LEAVE THE ACC

MORE COMMENTS FROM NORTH CAROLINA TRUSTEES

Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

From Brian Murphy’s WRAL report:

“The conference is not acting as if it is representing the best interests of the member schools including the top tier of those schools – Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina,” (board of trustees chairman John) Preyer said.

“Instead, it is acting at the expense of those schools to prop up the bottom tier of the conference in a way that I think is a gross abdication of responsibility. And I lay that at the feet of the commissioner.”

BOTTOM LINE

With Florida State, Clemson, and now North Carolina all clearly wanting to exit the ACC in the absence of a significant new revenue stream for the conference, the ACC is in very deep trouble. A Florida State-Clemson double departure would destroy what is left of football revenue. North Carolina leaving would take away a politically powerful, academically prestigious, basketball-dominant school from the power center of the conference, which is headquartered in Charlotte and often plays its cherished basketball tournament in Greensboro. There seems to be no real plan for creating the revenue needed to keep any of these schools remotely happy. ACC extinction seems to be a matter of if, not when. The only alternative scenario would be for the ACC to become a glorified AAC in much the same way that Washington State and Oregon State maintain the Pac-12 label but will play football games versus Mountain West schools.

The ACC dying shortly after Stanford and Cal joined would create a lot of new and uncomfortable decisions for a lot of schools in collegiate athletics. The map would be shaken up one more time, and no one knows what the end result of such a shakeup might be.

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