The ACC should challenge Notre Dame’s partnership following critical comments from its athletic director.
Notre Dame’s football team has a scheduling agreement with the ACC, while its other sports are full members.
Notre Dame would struggle to find a similarly favorable scheduling arrangement with another conference.
We can end this nonsense right now if you’d like, Notre Dame. This partnership that really isn’t.
This cakewalk through half a football season, running 12 years strong.
We can do it the easy way: apologize to the ACC because Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua — upset by the way the College Football Playoff selection committee botched its one and only job — said things that didn’t reflect the university’s exact feelings.
Or we can do it the hard way: find another place to house 5-6 football games annually.
Because — and I’m just throwing this out there — the frolic through a sea of tranquility for the last 41 games of the “partnership” with the ACC since 2014 would probably, you know, be a raging storm in the SEC.
And, for the love of Rockne, would probably, you know, significantly minimize Notre Dame’s future CFP opportunity. With or without the clown show of a selection committee.
Notre Dame isn’t going 37-4 vs. the SEC over 41 games. Just sayin.
Now is the time for the ACC presidents to show some backbone. After getting pushed around by (take your pick) the SEC, the Big Ten, Greg Sankey, Tony Petitti, the CFP, Florida State (do I need to continue?), stand up and take a stand with Notre Dame.
Call the Irish bluff.
Good guy ACC commissioner Jim Phillips should publicly rebuke Notre Dame, and demand an apology. Or, better yet, state once again that the Irish are not a full member of the ACC.
They are a scheduling “partnership” with football, and a full member with all other sports. Then state, in no uncertain terms, if Notre Dame would like to build a scheduling partnership with another power conference — and take its Olympic sports to that conference — they have the ACC’s blessing.
Or they can shut their cake hole, and enjoy what amounts to a free ride from one of four power conferences.
Because Notre Dame isn’t Notre Dame anymore, everyone. It’s not the television behemoth it once was with the media saturation of the sport, not the prize the ACC thought it was getting when it agreed to the deal.
Notre Dame is nowhere to be found in the Neilson top 14 college football teams for 2025 weekly average viewership. That’s after a CFP run to the national title game in 2024, and after it became the biggest story in the sport over the final month of this season.
You know what schools are in the Neilson top 14? A whole lot of SEC and Big Ten.
This is where the ACC — which invited Notre Dame into this partnership because it believed Notre Dame’s television tide would lift all ACC boats — takes a stand. This partnership began with the ACC asking for a pittance: an annual fee paid for the football games, and Olympic sports membership.
Meanwhile, Notre Dame keeps all revenue generated by football, including the lucrative media rights deal with NBC and any postseason revenue. Where, I ask you, will Notre Dame get that type of deal again?
Certainly not the SEC and Big Ten, and more than likely not from the Big 12 — and that’s not even addressing the reality that Subway alums would be horrified with a connection to the Big 12.
So there’s no place to go. Either stick it out with the ACC, or find 5-6 football games every single season somewhere else — and find a conference home for the 25 other sports, who need conference affiliation to compete for championships.
And while you’re trying to find those 5-6 games annually, wait and see how many SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 teams politely decline at the behest of their conference presidents. You want to schedule our teams now that you’re free of the ACC? Join our conference.
While some teams in the power conferences currently schedule Notre Dame, that will change if the deal with the ACC ends and the Irish are looking for a scheduling partner. The rest of the power conferences aren’t in the business of keeping Notre Dame afloat — you know, the very thing the ACC did in the pandemic season of 2020 with a full 10-game schedule.
Bevacqua and every Notre Dame athletic director before him — and every university president — have made it clear Notre Dame will never relinquish its independent status.
The ACC has never had more leverage. They can’t change the financial deal of the partnership, but they can gain some pride.
Publicly reprimand Notre Dame, and declare if they don’t like the partnership, feel free to find another conference and another sweetheart deal. That, or apologize and enjoy your free ride.
Either way, shut your cake hole already.
